Chrono Critique: With The Baltic Prismic Things Are Not Always What They Seem

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. I expected a much different watch before the Baltic Prisimic came in for review. At first, I dislike it, but it grew on me crazy fast. It’s a good watch.

With The Baltic Prismic Things Are Not Always What They Seem

Full disclosure notice: I don't have a deal with Baltic for any compensation for this review. They kindly loaned me the watch for a couple of weeks and that's it. 

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When I first saw the Mona Lisa displayed in the Louvre, I had the exact same thought as everyone who has seen the Mona Lisa, especially when it’s displayed in the Louvre: “Huh, that looks much smaller than it actually is.” And it makes sense why that happens. The Mona Lisa has got to be the most reproduced work of art in the world, and we see it on everything — from small stickers to billboards. So gauging its size is near impossible, even if we see pictures of it hanging on the wall with people around it for reference. But the same thing happens with the vibrancy of the painting. It’s one thing to see it in photographs and a completely different thing to see it in real life. And the more watches I get to handle, the more I realise this happens with watches as well. Regardless of how fantastic the product photography might be, chances are it will look completely different on your wrist. This is exactly what happened to me when I got the purple Baltic Prismic in for review. It was so far away from what I saw in pictures that I was a bit confused. And this is not a bad thing. Not at all.

Baltic hasn’t been around for that long. Sure, they are approaching their 10th anniversary (hope they have something interesting lined up, and knowing them, they do), but they have been making watches only since 2016. They were part of a sort of new-wave of French watchmaking in which French brands broke outside the borders of the country and all sorts of watches, from tiny microbrands to larger manufacturers like Yema and Bell & Ross, became all the rage. And Baltic’s mission was quite clear and perfectly simple: to create timeless pieces, of the highest quality, for fair prices. This is exactly what they did. Whether it’s a dress watch inspired by the 1940s, a 60s inspired diver, art-deco—themed chronograph or a super interesting field watch where they started showing their best design chops, every single one of these watches offered a nostalgia-heavy styled and well made watch that sold well under the €1,000 mark. Very cool.

For their latest major release and introduction of a brand new model to the lineup, Baltic looked back to the 1920s and 30s. In a time when watches stopped being worn in pockets and found their place on wrists, a special type of watch emerged - the cocktail watch. These were just as much jewellery as they were time-keeping devices and they were most often found on the wrists of women. They were often extremely ornate, made in the then-hip Art Deco style. And cocktail watches are made to this day, with brands as diverse as Timex, Jaeger LeCoultre all the way to Harry Winston all make one. This is the exact genre that Baltic attacked with the Prismic, a heavily Art Deco influenced modern cocktail watch that brought in its ornateness from the extremely busy (in a good sense) dial made up of multiple finishes, bright colors – purple, green, salmon and blue-grey – and shiny hardware. It was quite a thing to behold in photos.

But when the watch arrived to my doorstep, I inadvertently did a double take. The extremely bright purple dial wasn’t bright at all, the hardware wasn’t blinding. Just like with the Mona Lisa, the “wow-factor” wasn’t there. I have to admit it, I was a bit disappointed. But the more I wore the watch, the more I realised - you do not want that watch from the photos. That’s too much. What you actually want is what Baltic gives you - an interesting watch to look at while lounging on the couch that completely transforms when direct sunlight hits it and becomes a purple monster that had even people who know nothing about watches asking what was that on my wrist. A wolf in sheep's clothing? Or perhaps more of a sheep in wolf’s clothing, if you go by Baltic’s photos.

But let’s break this thing down, as it’s one of the more complicated watches you can get today, especially at this price point. And no, obviously, I’m not talking about mechanical complications. I’m talking about dozens of details that didn’t have to be included but actually were. And we can start with the case to look at these details. The measurements are exactly what people on the internet want - 36mm wide, just 7,4mm thick without the glass, but there’s a double domed sapphire crystal that bumps up the thickness to a still pretty thin 9,2mm, and a manageable lug-to-lug of 44mm. The watch looks pretty small on my beefy wrist (8.2 inches), but hey, the 44mm Panerai fits me just right, so keep that in mind. On the right side of the case is a fairly flat crown that should be difficult to handle, but actually isn’t that bad at all, especially considering the fact you have to handle it every day to wind the movement. Oh, and just to get this out of the way, don’t expect this to be your one watch to do everything. Water resistance is just 30 meters. I subjected it to a nasty rainstorm and washed it under tap water a couple of time and it survived.

The basic shape of the case is round, to match the era they are drawing inspiration from. But it’s not just the 20s and 30s they are drawing from, there’s clear influence from Pateks from the 1950s, especially in the pointy lugs. But that’s where any similarities stop. This is a case made out of five parts, with the top and bottom parts, which includes the lugs and bezel, made out of stainless steel. In between is a band of a case made out of grade 5 grain-finished titanium. Again, in photos, the slightly darker tinted titanium band looked out of place on watch that aimed for dressy simplicity, but in  real life it’s actually not as noticeable. Then there’s the contrasting finishes. The stepped bezel and the lugs get a polished finish — not too mirror-like, but definitely polished — while the stainless steel that sits between the bezel and the lugs is roughly brushed. It should look like a complicated mess when I describe it, but it’s not in the slightest. It all just works without being too in-your-face.

Another thing that should be in-your-face is the dial. Let’s start with the finishes. There’s a stamped guilloché pattern that’s interrupted with a broad brushed ring that holds the indices. It’s incredible the way it catches the light in those guilloché grooves, but only in direct sunlight. Inside, it’s as if all of these crazy finishes, hardware and polishes get muted to not take away from the function of telling the time (but more on that later). The indices are applied and are faceted sticks on the cardinal positions and pretty wild pyramid indices on in the lesser positions. At 6 o’clock you’ll find a running seconds display which ditches the guilloché for a rough grain and what looks like a machined ring around it. I say looks like because a lot of things look to be more than they are. Of course, the guilloché is stamped and not hand made, as is the brushing on the ring. Look at the watch very close up and you’ll notice that there are dials that have much better polishing, brushing and faceting than the Baltic. But then again, these will set you back at least five times the price. To be clear, at no time does the dial look bad or cheap, especially not at a glance and at a distance. You would really have to nitpick, as I’m doing. The purple color is, for lack of a better word, bitchin’. It’s introduces a new decade into the design mix, as it looks like it fell straight out of the 1970s.

Inside the watch is a movement that perfectly matches the character of the watch. It’s the manually-wound Peseux 7001 movement, one of the major contributors to the thinness of the watch, as the movement measures just 2,5mm thick. It beats at 21,600vph and has a 42 hour power reserve. It’s perfectly usable in everyday life and I guess it’s accurate. I say I guess because this watch is definitely not meant for precision timekeeping. The dial only has markings in five-minute increments, making it kind of tough to pinpoint exactly what time it is. But it’s a cocktail watch, and you really shouldn’t care all that much what time it is when you’re at a cocktail party heaving fun.

The watch I had in for review came on a fitted mesh bracelet with sliding closure and quick-release pins. It worked for me perfectly, but let me tell you all the things I loved about it. First off, the construction is absolutely incredible. I couldn’t stop taking it off to admire the tight weave of the mesh you can see on the inside edge od the bracelet. Secondly, I was shocked at how few arm hairs I had to sacrifice to this mesh. While other mesh bracelets have been known to pluck out a hair when I least suspect it, drawing tears from my dry eyes, I don’t think this has happened once with this bracelet. Kudos on that. I also very much appreciated the sliding closure, even though I did have to struggle with it every fifth or so time because the closure landed between two intended closure points, but this was not annoying enough to dock any points. There’s one major downside to the bracelet — it sticks out pretty far beyond the lugs before it starts falling off, so my small-wristed brothers and sisters might run into some issues here. You can also get the watch on a leather strap from Baltic, but if it were my choice, I would get the bracelet and some aftermarket leather straps.

And lastly, the price. It’s pretty unbeatable, I would say. I can think of very few — maybe four — watches that offer this level of detail for a price of €990 on the leather strap and €1,050 on the bracelet, both without VAT. There’s just one major issue. All the Prismics are sold out. This is a temporary problem as Baltic is known to restock watches, but still… I hope you didn’t want one right now. So, what did I learn from the Baltic Prismic? Don’t believe photographs, only trust your own eyes. You might be surprised with what you see. See more of the Prismic collection here.

-Vuk