Geoffrey Roth Diver hhS / D
“ Silent Circle” For The Silent World
Having made a niche for himself over the last 15-plus years, Geoffrey Roth’ s own watch designs have subtle but consistent design cues that make them easy to pick out of the crowd. Over the years Roth has brought more and more of the manufacturing in-house and today makes almost every component other than the movement itself. Just to be clear, Roth has not officially named his amazing new diver’ s type the“ Silent Circle”, that’ s my nickname for his new patent pending bezel.
Having been out of touch with the man and the brand for several years, serendipity brought us together at this year’ s Basel fair. It was here that Geoffrey showed me a brand new prototype( pictured here) of his new diver. I was curious as to why he had moved into the crowded field of diver’ s watches and he allowed me a moment to inspect his new baby. Like most watch guys, the first thing I do with a diver’ s watch is rotate the uni-directional bezel and critique the backlash, sound, feel, play, and click count on this critical dive watch component. To my complete surprise, Roth had invented a bezel that eliminated all of the aforementioned points as it rotates easily in one direction only, but does so in complete silence. No clicks or steps to be felt, no play, no backlash, no grinding,- nothing but a butter smooth motion that stops exactly on the spot you want; VERY cool.
The 46mm diameter case is a hefty 17.25 mm thick and will be available in either 316L stainless or marine bronze. The steel case is available in polished or an AlTiN coated version and can be plated to match or counterpoint the lugs. Any combination of case, lug, or bezel materials and coatings will be available with the caveat that the lugs will always be stainless- but can be coated.
On top is an extra-thick 3.5mm domed sapphire crystal; Roth is targeting an unbelievable rating of 1000 atm rating for the final version, although the prototype pictured here has already been vetted to an amazing 250 atm( 2,500 meters)! The dial is marine bronze with nautilus engraving and SuperLuminova markers. The hands are either blued steel, polished, or 5N rose-gold-plated with SuperLuminova. Inside beats the ETA Hi- Line version of the 2892. The maker has asked me to be clear that the watch pictured here is a pre-production prototype and will be available this fall in the $ 7,500 range.
www. geoffreyrothwatchengineering. com
2016 | Wristwatch 93