Montblanc is a pen company. They do watches as an aside, some sort of weird cross-marketing thing that presumably they’ll use to convince watch lovers to go and pick up some pens. However, they have truly outdone themselves with the TimeWriter 1 Metamorphosis.

Ariel at ABlogtoRead found the full details on this watch but, in short, when you pull down a lever the entire face changes. One face, with the lever up, shows the time and date. When you pull the lever you release a single-push chronograph. While the technology isn’t that impressive, the presentation is amazing. Watch the video about and fast forward to about 5 minutes to see how it works.

The process of changing the watch is longer than you would expect. First you need to press the monopusher chronograph button in the crown, then slide the lever on the left side of the case. The process actually takes about 15 seconds. So much of what you get is watching the process take action. There are two hidden plates in the watch that act like a double scissors. These “close” and the upper and lower dials are covered over with grayish plates. At the same time the lower dial actually moves down like a little elevator. Internally the watch is going mad with gears and changes to make sure everything works properly. This is not a sport watch my friends, something that you are wise to be delicate with.

The watch is 47mm wide and runs an MBM16.29 movement with a power reserve of 55 hours. Amazing stuff but I worry, like Ariel, that it’s a gimmick. Pricing, shall we say, is not published.

ByJohn Biggs

John lives in Brooklyn and has loved watches since he got his first Swatch Irony automatic in 1998. He is the editor of WristWatchReview.

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