By John Galt
Mühle-Glashütte have been around for a long time, founded way back in 1869 in Germany as a company to manufacture measuring instruments, they managed to survive two world wars and various political upheaval to be who they are today proudly manufacturing beautiful timepiece that do not shout out loud. They release models that are elegant yet simple in their execution. This is the new Teutonia 2 Grossdatum Chronometer.
The Teutonia 2 is limited to 500 pieces and is available in two different colours. A nice touch from Mühle-Glashütte is that the dials don’t just differ in colour but also design, the deep midnight blue is decorated with a sunburst pattern, in contrast the silver dial is much more conventional with its traditional circular Guilloche pattern. Both dials are elegant in their own right but I personally favour the midnight blue as seems to give a better contrast against the stainless steel case.
The case size is 41mm so it sits very comfortably on the wrist, the straight lugs house very sturdy looking screw bars for the strap. The case edges have been decorated with vertical graining that works superbly against the highly polished bezel edge and case back giving an excellent contrast mix. The logo of Mühle-Glashütte has been stamped into the large polished crown. The main focus of the Teutonia 2 Grossdatum Chronometer is the large date that draws your eyes to it the moment you see it.
The big double date window just below the 12 O’clock proudly displays the date via two windows each with their own revolving disc with white on black for the blue dial and black on white for the white dial. The subdial at 6 O’clock shows the running seconds and positions perfectly to give the dial a lovely vertical symmetry. The logo for Mühle-Glashütte is also excellently positioned on a strip running straight through the middle of the dial seemingly to cut the top and bottom in half. Slim silver coloured hour and minute hands glide around the dial sweeping past silver coloured applied indices and minute markers, the only drawback is that the dial is not luminous. With no lume on the dial or hands reading the time in low-light or night time, is pretty much impossible.
Turning the piece over, there is an exhibition case allowing us to gaze into the beating heart which on this piece is an ETA 2892 calibre with an added 3532 Grand Date module by La Joux-Perret. The movement has been modified by themselves to now feature a woodpecker neck regulator, custom rotor and plate finishing. The movement has a power reserve of 42 hours and a big date rapid-set function. The watch has been tested in six positions so it can receive the Chronometer certification from the Glashutte Observatory.
The watch is water resistant to 100m which is impressive for a watch of this calibre but is definitely helped by the screw-down crown. But I’m not sure if you would swim with a piece like this at all.
Finishing off the piece is a crocodile strap in either brown (midnight blue dial) or black (silver dial) both is coupled to a butterfly stainless steel clasp.
Conclusion
I am a fan of Mühle-Glashütte and the way they go about things, they don’t scream and shout by releasing outrageous pieces saying come look at us aren’t we clever, they just go about their business releasing elegant pieces that tick all the right boxes. For more info, please visit muehle-glashuette.de
JOHN GALT – CONTRIBUTING EDITOR
John Galt caught the horology bug back in 2010 on his first visit to a London watch show and has snowballed since; John has become an avid writer and blogger of timepieces of all kinds, from everyday timepieces to modern Luxury HauteHorology, his favorite brands being HYT and GreubelForsey that push the boundaries of modern watch-making. John keeps a keen interest in the UK watch scene with their many emerging brands and timepieces. John Galt currently contributes watch related articles for online publications in the UK and USA. You can follow John on Twitter @johng73 Read his articles here.
