BY HARLAN CHAPMAN-GREEN
It’s great to revisit some watch brands every so often. It gives you time to forget some of the smaller details of their watches and allows you to rediscover them when you return. Today, we’re looking at a “murdered out” Maurice Lacroix Aikon Master Grand Date Black. With a solid black case, dial, bracelet and even a black movement, this watch stands out amongst the crowd. Let’s check it out.
The watch’s case is big, 45mm to be precise, so I immediately know what the comments will be talking about. The watch is made of stainless steel with a deep black DLC coating with polishing on the grips of the bezel (I’m not sure if they are grips, but I don’t know what else to call them. The case is 100m water resistant.
The watch’s dial is split up, which makes it quite interesting to behold. The most eye-catching part is the exposed balance wheel. There’s also the time dial diagonally opposite the balance wheel with some attractive guilloché. There’s also a seconds hand floating above a hole which allows you to view more of the movement below. Finally, there’s a big date window. All of this is separated by a grained dial plate with yet more black. It looks fairly legible, although I haven’t been hands-on with it.
Powering the watch is the self-winding manufacture calibre ML331. Like with TAG Heuer’s calibre 02, there isn’t much to say about the decoration here because it’s all black. It does have a 50-hour power reserve, though, and a sedate 2.5Hz beat rate which is probably caused by the balance wheel which looks to be quite large on this watch.
The watch comes with two straps, a rubber strap with the Maurice Lacroix logo on it and a synthetic rubber strap with a textile effect. There’s also a quick change system for the straps.
There’s no mention of whether this is a limited edition watch, but the price is CHF8,570.
Visit Maurice Lacroix here.
