Monta has announced an upgrade to their popular Noble collection today with the Noble Voyager. This new watch expands on the Noble concept, which is an old-fashioned luxury sport watch with distinct refined details that place just a click outside the “tool watch” category, by adding a GMT complication. This, of course, makes complete sense for a sports watch that was conceived to go anywhere. Now, when you go there (or, anywhere) you’ll be fully able to monitor an additional time zone.
The execution here is quite subtle, and unless you were really searching for it, it would be easy to miss the GMT complication entirely. Monta has chosen to make the 24 hour hand a skeletonized clone of the local hour hand rather than a more traditional long hand with a broad arrow tip, or something of that nature. This helps to keep the Noble Voyager’s dial clean so that the drama of the lightly textured dégradé dials (in green or blue) remain intact. This was always my favorite design element of the original Noble, and I’m glad to see that Monta has held this over from the time and date versions of the watch. Besides the additional hand and a 24 hour scale at the dial’s perimeter, this is still very easily recognized as a Noble.
The Noble Voyager’s case has nearly the same dimensions as the time and date model, measuring 38.5mm in diameter and 47mm lug to lug. The difference comes in the case height measurement, which is 10.7mm on the Noble Voyager compared to 9.7mm on the standard Noble. One millimeter will be noticeable for most, but isn’t likely to dramatically change the wearing experience. It’s to Monta’s credit that case height is only up by a millimeter, and 10.7mm is still quite svelte.
Finishing is always a topic of conversation with any new Monta. Since the brand’s inception, they’ve set a very high standard for the overall quality of the case finishing in their price segment, and are responsible for an untold number of forum posts from collector’s asking why they should buy an Omega/Tudor/IWC when the finishing on the Monta is just as good. The Noble is the brand’s dressiest watch, and thus has more polished surfaces than other Monta references, and generally has a finishing level that is more refined and higher quality than other watches in the collection. According to the brand, the Noble Voyager cases are held to even tighter tolerances than the original Noble.
Powering the Monta Noble is the Monta caliber M-23, which is a rebadged Sellita SW-330-2. So, yes, this is a caller GMT. That’s a shame, as it means the watch’s functionality for travel is severely limited. It will make a great time zone tracker for those who need that complication and tend to remain in the same time zone most of the time, however. The price comes in at $2,395, and delivery is expected in August. Monta
