Christopher Ward dropped some exceptional heat today. After four years of development, eight years on the market, and 8,000 modules produced in 10 variants for 20 different models (phew!), the brand’s in-house caliber SH21 is making a splash for it’s 21st appearance: the Christopher Ward C60 Concept. Call it a 21st birthday, and as is customary with any 21st birthday, the SH21 is taking all its clothes off and lighting up the night.
As is plain to see, we aren’t dealing with iterative design here. Christopher Ward has taken its SH21 and put it through “finishing school,” as the brand puts it. That means consulting with haute horlogerie artistes Armin Strom to skeletonize the movement, then passing it on to Chronode for more than six hours of hand-finishing per movement. Those familiar with high-end timepieces may not be impressed by six hours, but that’s quite the time investment in the sub-$5,000 market. The movement is cased up in the brand’s hallmark 42mm C60 Light-Catcher case, with which you’re likely familiar by now. With it’s mix of finishes and sweeping lines, it lives up to its name and is one of the most dynamic watch cases on the market. To make it even better, the C60 Concept is rendered in Grade 2 titanium. Maybe it’s the 300m water resistance, but one ding against the C60 Concept is its 15.85mm height. That makes it a protuberant wrist companion and a weapon in most Nordic countries.
We don’t usually do press releases unless we anticipate a piece for review, and the reality is that with only 210 C60 Concept watches being made, we aren’t going to get one. But this seemed like something special, so I wanted to make sure we got something up. The lume is just spectacular. From my experience with CW, it’s not quite as spectacular as this flawless press photo, but it’ll be near as good. There’s a Ming vibe here, for sure, with the circular pip and the arc segments on the ceramic bezel. The floating triangle at 12 is a brilliant pop; it’s “Globolight”, which is a lume technology featured on brands like Sinn and H. Moser. As I wrote this paragraph, I realized the lumed logo on the movement–what a treat.
Christopher Ward hasn’t been shy about putting it’s in-house movement on display in the past, but as mentioned, it’s finished at a different level in the C60 Concept. The varied finishes really show themselves with the hollowed rotor. The movement delivers 120 hours of power reserve on a full wind, thanks to it’s double barrel. If that’s not enough, it’s also COSC-certified for a rate of -4/+6 seconds per day. Add some rhodium and ruthenium plating and you’re off to the races.
I’ll admit that I’m gushing. My only concern is the case height and potential legibility issues with the steel hands against the steel of the movement (though the varying depths should mitigate the latter). But there’s no denying that this is a cool watch. What’s a wristchonk like the Christopher Ward C60 Concept cost, you ask? £3,495–or right around $4,750. That’s almost $2,000 more than the next priciest Christopher Ward. If you look at it that way, it’s easy to balk, but consider it instead in the landscape of sub-$5,000 watches. Where else are you going to get a (tastefully) skeletonized, hand-finished, in-house, 5-day movement. No where. All I can hope is that this effusive (and sincere) praise is enough to have one of the C60 Concepts sent my way for a review. For everyone else, they can head over to the Christopher Ward website and get yours now.
