ReviewHands On: The Montblanc Heritage Vasco da Gama
The pen, as people say, “is mightier than the sword”. But better than a luxury wristwatch? We don't think so.
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After all these years, the luxury pen maker, Montblanc has its sights on the world of luxury wristwatches and today we can call them “Luxury Watchmakers” as well. Montblanc have announced themselves to the horological world and launched their most ambitious assault on the biggies with their new and highly anticipated collection, the “Vasco Da Gama”.
And with a high quality-highly complicated watch available at a modest Rs 366,500, this is an assault to the biggies by all means. They aren’t messing around either when it comes to the design. Eye-catching complications like a full calendar and a moon phase, all packaged well in the most sophisticated design available. Montblanc has made a fine push into the growing segment of the industry for relatively affordable complicated timepieces, to be honest, a segment we all love.
Let’s just be glad Vasco never got his hands on this one, or else he would have been busy admiring his wrist and probably would have never made it to India!
A watch for the explorer
We’ve seen and talked about numerous associations on The Watch Guide, but none have remotely been associated with India at all, in any which way. Though the watch we’re going to talk about today pays tribute to legendary Portuguese explorer, Vasco da Gama (big points for having an epic collection name), but it also pays tribute to his daring voyage in 1498, when he became the first European ever to reach Indian shores.
Let’s wind the clock back to the 8th of July, 1497 – Vasco da Gama was all set to sail from the Port of Restelo in Lisbon with a small fleet of four ships led by a crew of just 60 men. The destination? The Indian coast, a voyage never attempted or done before by any European ever. But Vasco wanted to achieve the impossible and make Portugal the most powerful sailor trading nation in the world. His sights were all set for the Indian coast. It obviously wasn’t easy, but on the 20th of May, 1498, Vasco da Gama finally reached India near Calicut on the Malabar Coast. For the first time ever, European ships had come to India following a route along the southern tip of Africa. Vasco was in India, gathering precious spices and on the 18th of October 1498, with a generous cargo of precious spices, Vasco sailed back to Portugal. The first ship of his fleet arrived in July, 1499. Vasco da Gama could only make it back in September, but when he did, he was welcomed with a huge reception that was held to celebrate his triumph. This expedition wasn’t just Vasco da Gama’s triumph alone, his voyage also helped Europeans find a feasible and safe route to reach India, thus building a bridge between the northern and southern hemisphere, not just geographically, but also in terms of trade and culture.
Today we all know that the expedition was a success. But the success of the expedition of Vasco was because of his courage, his thirst for success, his ability to take risks and, above all, his obsession with precision, qualities we all look for in high-end watch making today. Now you might ask, why did Montblanc make a watch with so many complications and a moon phase and call it Vasco da Gama?
For Montblanc, taking the name from the Portuguese explorer, the Vasco Da Gama was nothing less than a celebration of the explorer within you and me.
Quality watchmaking, without a doubt
The watch does look familiar, right? It is because the watch is, in fact very very similar to the Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Calendar (reference 1558420). But the coincidence of similarities aren’t just visual, another significant point of similarity between Montblanc and Jaeger-LeCoultre comes with Jérôme Lambert, former CEO of Jaeger-LeCoultre for about ten years (2002-2013) before he became the CEO of Montblanc in July 2013. At least now we know where the quality craftsmanship is coming from.
But keeping the similarities aside, the Vasco da Gama is a great looking watch that can be worn almost every day. Maybe not on weekends, but certainly a Monday to Friday watch. And what adds to the everyday watch tag is that it is extremely light and comfortable to wear, discreet, slim, and ideal as a dress watch at 40mm in diameter and 9.7 mm thickness with a genuine alligator leather strap.
The watch also has a unique and gorgeous looking moon phase indicator at 6 o’clock, very different from the conventional displays we see on watches, which too has been well thought of by Montblanc. The moon phase on the Vasco da Gama is a depiction of the Southern Cross – a constellation visible in the southern hemisphere, which was used by the Portuguese navigator during his voyage to India. The constellation is accurately shown on the display with the star Gamma’s reddish color, and its other three stars.
A quality movement
The Montblanc Heritage Vasco da Gama is a “full calendar” watch that gives day, date and month indications, but without compensating for the different lengths of months. So it has to be adjusted at the end of all months with less than 31 days. However they’ve made up for that with an easy and fool proof adjustment method via their setting stylus (included in the box), that can be used to press the pushers on the side of the case to adjust day, date, month and moon phase, all separately.
But the reason why Montblanc is being able to offer you such a high quality watch for such a reasonable price is the Calibre MB 29.16. Based on a Sellita movement with a Dubois Dépraz module for the full calendar, it has a good power reserve of 42 hours. The Vasco da Gama (like all other Montblanc watches) is subjected to the “Montblanc Laboratory Test 500 Hour” that puts the watch through its paces for a rigorous 500 hours of testing before it can adorn anyone’s wrist.
The case of the watch is in stainless steel, however the fun bit of the watch is its neat and beautiful sapphire crystal caseback, which is engraved with a depiction of Vasco da Gama’s ship, the São Gabriel, along with Vasco’s signature.
The price of the Montblanc Heritage Chronométrie Quantième Complet Vasco da Gama is Rs 366,500 which is almost half of the Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Calendar (a watch with similar complications). Therefore there is no doubt that this is a quality watch for a very reasonable price.
The verdict:
The Vasco da Gama from Montblanc is a good buy indeed. It looks expensive, elite and distinct from any other moon phase watch you would’ve owned or seen, and for a watch of this caliber available for such a low price, it is a steal without a doubt. But the watch does have its share of drawbacks too. At 42mm, the watch will not please those with big wrists or those who are looking for a bulky watch with too many complications. Barring that, the Vasco da Gama is the perfect “dress watch” material. In fact, we would’ve liked Montblanc to come up with more variations of the same watch (yellow or rose gold with a brown strap maybe?) but maybe we’re being too greedy!
Aesthetically speaking, the watch is harmoniously balanced with a design that reflects the brand’s concept of elegance and at the same time takes into account the tribute it’s paying to the great man’s voyage. Taking the name of the world’s most daring explorer, the Vasco da Gama from Montblanc is indeed for, shall we say, the “classy explorer”.
The watch is available now in India at Ethos Watch Boutiques.
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(Image courtesy: Montblanc & Wikipedia)
