What an exciting week it’s been in the watch world, with this weeks release of the new Omega Seamaster Planet Ocean, and Tudor’s new 36mm Ranger in beige and black dials. Today we’re going to be sidestepping away from that, and into the world of Montblanc, with our hands-on review of their stunning, albeit chunky, Iced Sea Automatic Date. This also marks our first ever review of a Montblanc watch on the blog, making them the 166th brand that we feature. Big thanks to Gem Bijou in Toronto for lending us this sample for an in-depth investigation.
Montblanc’s First Diver
Interestingly, this particular watch from Montblanc falls into a micro-trend of big name heritage brands releasing their first ever dive watch, just like Hanhart with their recent release of the Aquasphere Freefall. Historically, Montblanc has always made beautiful but more classically styled watches, and realistically they’re known first and foremost for their pens and top tier leather goods. This new dive watch from them certainly signifies a deeper commitment to expanding their offering of watches, most likely due to the current popularity of our segment.
While Hanhart went a different route with their new dive watch, keeping it very tool oriented, this new Iced Sea Automatic date infuses some true Montblanc DNA with its fancy glacier pattern dial. The dial is more than a simple print pattern, but rather applied using a very fancy “gratte-boise” technique, a known watchmaking technique but seldom seen on modern watches, let alone a larger, capable, and sporty dive watch such as this one. Looking at the dial from arms length, as you normally would to read the time, I’d be almost entirely convinced that it’s made from meteorite or some kind of natural stone, but Montblanc does not specify the material. Checking out the price tag of the watch calms expectations though, at $4,700 USD, along with it’s artistry, it’s of course not meteorite or anything of true material value which would increase the price astronomically.
A Closer Look
Bringing the watch in for a closer macro look at the dial reveals the true “gratte-boise”, with a rather intentional looking engraving of ice. The word “gratte” in French, means scratches, and that’s indeed a good way to describe this type of dial engraving. It looks like a piece of cold, scratched, ice, and the version we’ve had on hand is the gray dial variant, with a blue, green, and black, also available. The gray one we have here, and without seeing the other colors yet, is probably the most realistic looking, mimicking the natural hue of ice quite well. The rest of the dial aspects are quite in-tune with what you’d come to expect from a modern 41mm stainless steel dive watch, with lume filled applied baton markers and cathedral-shaped hour and minute hands. The seconds hand is very long and slender with a prominent super-luminova filled tip.
Sporty Package
While Montblanc is not entirely new to sports watches, it still feels little weird to talk about a dive watch from them. This is not really a classically sized diver like a Tudor BB58 either, we’re talking about a dive watch that’s been designed to look robust and ever so slightly leaning into the larger sized watch spectrum. The 41mm case size wears a touch larger than its paper specs would suggest, I’d almost guess it to be around the 42mm-43mm range. Not because the lugs are wide, or the case is overly clunky – because they’re not. The dial seems quite large and open to me with the applied markers and numerals staying compact in size. It gives me the overall visual impression of a larger watch than it actually is.
The lug width is also the very common 20mm spacing, making it a great option for swapping out straps and testing different colors and materials. The case thickness comes in at 12.9mm, nothing to write home about, and pretty much on average for a diver of this size. These specs equate to an expected and normal fit on wrist. It sits comfortably, but it will not “wow” you in any direction in terms of its fit, but it remains ready, and capable, to dive to the astounding depths of 300 meters under the sea.
Apart from the dual polished stripes down the bracelet links, and the chamfers on the case, the rest the watch is entirely brushed. Again leaning fully into the sports dive watch segment, and ready for action to hide scratches should you brush it up against some coral (or ice) under water.
MB 24.17 Movement
The movement in the new Iced Sea range of divers is the Sellita based MB 24.17. It’s a fairly basic but well documented movement, with its simple hour, minutes, central seconds, and date at 3 o’clock functions – it also has a frequency of 28,800 vph, and 25 jewels. The power reserve is actually not stated on the Montblanc website, which is a little odd, with reports ranging from 50 hours down to 38 hours. We did not get a chance to time it ourselves, but perhaps we will do it in the coming days and update our findings here. For a watch of this size, and from a house such as Montblanc, I’d be hoping for the upper end of these possibilities.
While the movement is basic, and outsourced, it was probably a good choice for their first ever diver, allowing the mechanics to be more predictable instead of experimental. It does feature a couple basic goodies, such as the quick date set feature and stop seconds, sparing your the skin on your fingers.
Overall Perception
I can say this watch is not for me personally, simply due to its size, but anyone with wrists larger than my 6.5 inches should be exempt from my shrewd decision. On the contrary, I wish I had larger wrists to be able to daily wear this new diver. The dial is highly unique and finished in a legendary artistic process, the overall fit and finish of the watch is excellent, and it has the proper specs to be an actual fun tool watch. It seems like a great offering if you’re looking to differentiate away from the bread an butter offerings in the saturated dive watch segment.
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