Maurice Lacroix Masterpiece Chronograph

[dlgates]

(These are old photo reviews rescued from the original RWG site; I didn't want them to get lost forever! Old hands will already have seen them; some newbies might be interested.-- Dave)

Maurice Lacroix Masterpiece Chronograph

Received from Jos Nana (Joshua) 18 May 2005

Tutone (antique gold and SS); diameter: 40mm mm; date window; day, month, & 24-hour subdials

First the close-up...

This watch is the third of a trio of Maurice Lacroix watches that I have bought from Joshua (who, as everyone knows by now, provides outstanding, courteous, and prompt service). The first two--the Masterpiece Grand Guichet, the most basic dress watch of the series, and the Masterpiece Jour et Nuit are excellent replications of the actual watches and were the first nice Maurice Lacroix reps I had seen. Both came in the tutone combination of antique (somewhat brassy) gold and SS. This watch, the faux chronograph, comes in the same case and metal combination but is a fantasy otherwise. So there is no Masterpiece Chronograph in the Lacroix collection that looks like this. But considering it goes so well with the other two, I could not resist.

Thie is the first time I have attempted to do a full photo series on a black-faced watch, because they present special difficulties, some of which I am really not well set up to handle. It is difficult to see the guilloche on the central section of the main dial and on the subdials, but it is there if you squint! In fact, if you use a polarizing filter to eliminate any lack of clarity of the crystal, a side effect is to reduce the visibility of some detail, including the guilloche--so on a couple shots I actually polarized slightly inadequately--allowing a bit of crystal reflection--just so the background could be better seen. This is going to be a continuing effort as I have a number of black-faced watches I have not photographed simply because of the problems involved. So realize this one is a first effort!

Another problem is that this particular watch does not have hacking mechanism. To gain adequate depth of field, most of the shots are taken at f8, meaning rather long exposure, and thus the central sweep second hand is inevitably blurred.I took the wrist shot at f3.5 (1/10 second) to try to minimize the blur, but you can also see the picture suffers from lack of sharp focus as a result. Compromises, compromises...

Otherwise, the pictures need no explanation.

Minor note: it is my fault that the watch indicates July instead of June -- I set it in a hurry! I also made no attempt to Photoshop out a few tiny specks of dust, etc.

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If anyone wants more information on the photo processes, it's been pretty much covered on TRC at http://www.replicacollector.com/members/in...indpost&p=85143

THE END

Thanks for looking!