Baltic expands their Scalegraph collection today with the launch of a pair of new sporty chronographs that the brand says will be part of their permanent collection. First introduced a year ago as a limited edition, this new iteration of the Scalegraph has a number of improvements that should add up to a more refined package overall. It’s also something of a return to the brand’s roots as a maker of vintage inspired sports watches, after getting more press as of late for dabbling in affordable haute horlogerie and watches defined by the blinding bling of lab grown diamonds.
As a sports chrono, the aesthetic of the Scalegraph is about as classic as you can get. It has a traditional three register layout with a tachymeter bezel, beads of rice style bracelet, and screwdown pushers. It’s heavily racing inspired, and has the simple, classic case lines of many a familiar vintage sports watch. The stainless steel case is the same 39.5mm diameter as the original Scalegraph, but Baltic says the lugs are now wider, which should give the watch some additional presence on the wrist. Baltic has also replaced circular finishing on the top of the lugs with vertical brushing, which is certainly more reminiscent of the historic chronographs manufactured by Rolex, Universal Geneve, and others, that the Scalegraph is clearly emulating, at least somewhat.
The Scalegraph is available in three new colorways: Champagne, Blue, and Grey. All have tan colored contrasting subdials at 3, 6, and 9, with lume filled dauphine hands providing a readout of the time. Each also features an aluminum tachymeter bezel in a color matched to the dial. The dials appear to have a metallic finish that along with the screw down pushers flanking the case on the 3:00 side, bolster the tool oriented nature of the Scalegraph. A single lone Arabic hour marker (at 12:00) complements unique “T” shaped hour markers elsewhere.
Powering the Scalegraph is a Sellita SW510-M caliber, a manual winding movement with 63 hours of power reserve at full power. I think the use of a manually wound movement is the right call here. Usually we praise the use of hand wound movements because they keep the watch thin, but at 14.1mm in height, we can’t really make that claim here (not that it’s too thick, it’s just not super slender). But the Scalegraph does have 100 meters of water resistance (up from 50 on the original), and it stands to reason that to achieve the equivalent with a thicker automatic movement, the case height would rise in proportion. So it’s a good trade off, I think, to keep the vision of the watch as a functional, sporty, tool intact. It also keeps this chronograph in conversation both with the vintage chronos it was inspired by as well as the earliest Baltic chronographs, which used manually wound movements as well.
The Scalegraph has a retail price of 1640€ on a leather strap and 1700€ on either a beads of rice or flat link bracelet. They are available to purchase beginning today, with delivery set to begin on June 29. Baltic
