Three years after the debut of the MR01, Baltic has updated their popular micro-rotor movement powered dress watch line in a big way. The new MR Roulette collection, which debuts today, offers a new take on the platform with a slightly more casual, sector dial inspired layout. Coming on the heels of the Prismic collection, a series of watches that drew intense reactions in all directions, the MR Roulette feels like a return to the aesthetic that made Baltic the brand they are today, with modest vintage cues, a mixing of textures, and an enticing price point.
The MR Roulette is built on the same foundation of previous micro-rotor powered watches in Baltic’s catalog. It has a 36mm steel case with a flat, vertically brushed bezel and lugs that are brushed in a complementary circular pattern. The case is accented with tasteful polishing on the bezel wall, and measures an easy to wear 44mm from lug to lug. If you’ve ever tried on the original MR01, you know that this case truly wears like a vintage watch, not only its proportions, but it has a light and airy quality to it as well. It measures just 9.9mm tall, but feels thinner because nearly 2mm of that height is taken up by the domed hesalite crystal.
The new dials are available in salmon, silver, blue, and black variants. All but the black feature a grained background paired with two brushed sectors: an interior track for the hours, and an exterior track for the minutes. The running seconds subdial is off-center, covering 7 and 8 o’clock, and is accented with a subtle guilloche finish. The three distinct methods of finishing work well together, and combined with the railroad style tracks for hours and minutes create a dial that is busy but not overwhelming, with a lot of interesting geometry and texture. Combining dial textures into a coherent whole is something that Baltic has become particularly adept at in recent years, and it’s nice to see them continuing to evolve this style of dial design.
These watches run on the Hangzhou CAL5000a micro-rotor movement, which is visible through the display caseback. One of the aesthetic benefits of the smaller case used for these watches is that movement fills the case, which is honestly pretty satisfying even if it doesn’t have anything to do with the watch’s functionality. The caliber is not finished extravagantly, but it looks nice at a glance and there’s still something of a novelty around these affordable micro-rotor calibers.
The four new watches in the MR Roulette collection are available today. The retail price is set at 545€ on a leather strap, and 605€ on a steel bracelet. The watches will begin shipping in mid-July. Baltic
