Cartier Multiple Time Zone watch

Technology has made the telling of time, in all its various aspects and guises, so mundane that wrist watches today only have to be as well made as a can of pepsi. This is really a gloomy thought because time remains the most powerful luxury of all and it deserves a better class of instruments than mass- produced throw away ornament.

Our instrument of the moment, the Calibre de Cartier Multiple Time Zone watch, sometimes referred to by its movement reference number, 9909 MC, is certainly in a class by itself. We first saw this watch as a prototype at the Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie 2011 where it was one among a cavalcade of wonders from Cartier's manufacture at La-Chaux-de-Fonds. It seems innocent enough as it is, being a simple multi-time zone watch but its appearance alone gave us temporarily stop. There is much more here than meets a person's eye.

First of all, while the watch does indeed display time in two different specific zones at once, it is a very special side-effect. To your knowledge, this is the only watch to provide an indication of that time period difference between the two indicated time specific zones and time in specific zones with sunshine savings. Confused? We were too but we know a cool watch when we see one!