Cartier The Watch Rotonde Annual Calendar Calibre 9908 MC

Advertising

Cartier The Watch Rotonde Annual Calendar Calibre 9908 MC

The Watch Rotonde Annual Calendar Calibre 9908 MC
News

For a new vision of the annual Calendar: Keeping it simple
La Cote des Montres - December 25th, 2014

Designed to offer watch lovers a complication featuring optimal functionality, the Rotonde de Cartier Annual Calendar watch calibre 9908 MC is the expression of a new balance between tradition and modernity - the signature of the Cartier Manufacture.

This complication prioritises readability and operation because the movement requires setting just once a year.

Thanks to the innovative construction of its contemporary display, the calibre 9908 MC of the Rotonde de Cartier watch offers a new approach to the annual calendar, a complication that has been part of the Cartier repertoire since 2012.

The elegance of simplicity

For the Rotonde de Cartier Annual Calendar watch, Cartier chose to incorporate a mechanism directly into the plate of the calibre 1904 MC.

Traditionally, a basic calendar, in other words a mechanism that displays the date via an aperture or the tip of a hand, must be manually adjusted at the end of every month. While simple to carry out, this adjustment is nonetheless tedious and is frequently forgotten.

As for the annual calendar, it only requires one manual intervention per year. Throughout the year, the date automatically changes from 30 to 31 days as the days and the months are displayed. However, once a year, the watch must be manually set when the date changes from the 28^th or 29^th February to 1^st March.

On the Manufacture calibre 9908 MC of the Rotonde de Cartier Annual Calendar watch, Cartier crafted a large date display at 12 o’clock with two independent numerals. To simplify its operation even more, the watchmakers designed a mechanism that allows all the information (day, date and month) to be managed via rapid turning of the winding crown to adjust the calendar’s different indications. This simple setting system, devoid of any kind of correcting device on the case, offers maximum ease of use. Three adjustments are therefore possible: the winding of the movement, time setting and date setting.

Highlighting a signature display

The ingenious and innovative arrangement of this calendar’s different functions allowed Cartier to optimise the readability of the dial and thus display all the calendar’s indications in a far more accessible manner.

The dial can be read in three ways: the large date, the circle of days around which a red indicator turns, the month aperture and the hours, which are shown by the progress of the blued-steel hands above black transfer Roman numerals.

Re-centred around strong graphic features, the dial boasts a “sunray” guilloché design in its centre that radiates elegance. This Maison signature highlights and accentuates the volume and 40 mm diameter of the watch.

The Rotonde de Cartier Annual Calendar watch exists in two versions: a version in 18-carat pink gold on a leather strap, which follows in the great tradition of Fine Watchmaking, and a contemporary version with a grey dial and an alligator-skin strap that shakes up Cartier’s classical style codes with its material and matt finish.

Is it its range of functions, the great clarity of its dial that enables immediate reading of the time, or its elegance? The perfect level of hand finishing on the Rotonde de Cartier Annual Calendar watch confirms its place in the circle of Cartier Fine Watchmaking creations.