Watches & Wonders 2024: Baume & Mercier Launches Clifton Moon-Phase Editions

After several years of focusing on the growth of its 1970s-inspired, sport-luxury Riviera collection, Baume & Mercier expands the scope to its other product families at 2024’s Watches & Wonders trade fair. Particularly catching our eye at the exhibition in Geneva were two new models joining the Swiss brand’s Clifton collection, the first moon-phase timepieces to be equipped with the in-house Baumatic caliber.

The Baume & Mercier Clifton Baumatic Moon Phase Date (Ref. M0A10756 with gradient blue lacquer dial and Ref. M0A10758 with a gradient gray lacquer dial) features the classical round case of the Clifton collection, which takes its inspiration from a vintage watch from the 1950s; made of stainless steel in both iterations, it has a sophisticated array of polished and brushed finishing and a comfortable diameter of 39mm. The lacquered dials have the aesthetic hallmarks of the Clifton series, including the Alpha-shaped hour and minute hands and riveted trapezoid indexes, in addition to the large semicircular aperture at 6 o’clock dominated by the lunar complication and its accompanying analog date display.

On the blue lacquer dial, the delicately faceted hands and indexes are rhodium-plated, the same finish found on the 6 o’clock date ring and the moon disk, which appears on a dark blue field. The gray-dialed version uses gold plating for these selfsame elements and details; this model’s gold-plated moon disk is on a black starry-sky background. 

Inside the case, which comes in at a fairly slender 12.9mm in profile, beats the Baumatic Caliber BM14-1975 ACI, the latest generation of the original, self-winding Baumatic movement that emerged from Baume & Mercier’s workshops in 2018. Its noteworthy technical aspects include a specially developed construction called TwinSpir, which uses a composite-structure hairspring with a thermo-compensating layer of silicon dioxide over two layers of silicon to limit the escapement’s sensitivity to magnetism and improve its resistance to shocks. In concert with an anchor and escape wheel also made of friction-resistant silicon, the mechanism achieves a power reserve of 120 hours, or five full days, and a magnetic resistance to 1,500 Gauss. Visible through a sapphire pane in the screwed caseback, the movement offers the observant eye an array of haute horlogerie decorations and finishes, including circular bridges, a snailed, sandblasted mainplate, and côtes de Genève on the openworked rotor. 

Both versions of the Baume & Mercier Clifton Moon Phase Date are delivered on an alligator leather strap with large square scales (in dial-matching black or blue), equipped with a reliable spring bar system that allows for easy interchangeability of the strap without additional tools. Priced at $4,900, the watches are available at retail as of April 2024.