Close-Up: The Carl F. Bucherer Heritage BiCompax Annual

In late 2018, Carl F. Bucherer revealed the Tourbillon Double Peripheral Limited Edition as the launch point for the new Heritage Collection meant to commemorate the company’s 130-year history of involvement in the fake watch industry as a jeweler and watchmaker. According to the brand, the Heritage Collection would function as a tentpole range of exclusively limited-edition timepieces that feature a variety of complications. At Baselworld this year, the Lucerne-based firm unveiled the BiCompax Annual Chronograph, a new watch that comes in two different case materials and dial treatments.

Combining an annual calendar with a chronograph, the 41-mm watch is available in either stainless steel with a silver dial and a panda-style dial orientation or in two-tone rose gold with a rose-and-champagne dial. The annual calendar indicator eschews a day of the week and leap year display and instead only features a big date indicator in the upper half of the dial and a month aperture tucked between 4 and 5 o’clock.

Carl F. Bucherer says that the watch is directly inspired by a 34-mm bicompax chronograph from 1956 that was found in the brand’s archives. Other noteworthy details include the usage of attractive syringe hands filled with Super-LumiNova, vintage-style Arabic numerals, elongated chronograph pushers, box-style sapphire crystal, and the usage of a black rubber strap for the panda dial and a cognac brown calfskin strap for the champagne-dialed, two-tone model. The movement offered inside is automatic Caliber CFB 1972 (ETA base with a Dubois Dépraz module) that offers up a 42-hour power reserve.

Combining an annual calendar with a chronograph definitely isn’t unheard of as makers such as Patek Philippe,replica Panerai,Ulysse Nardin, and Montblanc have all released such models incorporating the two complications over the past few years; however, all of those models come at quite a premium. At $7,200 in stainless steel and $10,200 in its two-tone design, the Carl F. Bucherer Heritage BiCompax Annual Calendar offers a strong value proposition in addition to its appealing good looks and functional complications. It’s limited to 888 pieces in each design.