Mr Jones Helps Christopher Ward Make They Best Bel Canto

I think my views on Christopher Ward have been known for quite some time, well before the neo-toothed YouTuber decided to do his whole crash out. And for this entire time, I maintained that the best watch they make, the one that actually stands way above everything else they do, is the Bel Canto. It truly is unlike anything else they make, a wonderfully chiming mechanism right there to see and almost touch, at a pretty unbeatable price. Now, however, it gets its best variant to date, and that's thanks to the genius designers over at Mr Jones. Not ones to skip over a good pun or a joke staring you right in the face, they ran with the fact that people have been saying that the chime mechanism on a Bel Canto looks like a bird in flight and they actually made it into a bird.

The case is made out of grade 5 titanium, 41mm wide and 14.31mm thick, with a domed box sapphire crystal and a custom engraving on the caseback. Water resistance is 30 meters, which is fine for a dress-leaning watch like this one. Titanium keeps that thickness from feeling heavy on the wrist.

The dial is what it's all about. It's a brass scene printed in 19 colours by Mr Jones, and the subject is Donizetti’s opera Lucia di Lammermoor, in which the heroine goes mad and sings about it. The chime hammer at 6 o’clock is now a songbird with a gold-plated outline, which gives it a cloisonné look. Around it are a flowering bush and a small bug that turns with the 4 o’clock pusher to show whether the chime is on. The hour and minute dial at 12 is orange, a setting sun.

Inside is Christopher Ward calibre FS01, built on the Sellita SW200-2 Power+, running at 28,800vph, with their proprietary chiming module bolted on. The power reserve is 65 hours, up from 38 on earlier Bel Cantos, and that's a very welcome upgrade. The chime sounds on the hour when switched on. The watch can be had on a leather strap or a bracelet.

The new Christopher Ward + Mr Jones Bel Canto Lucia is on pre order now and shouldn't be limited, from what I gather. Price is set at €5,159. See more on the Christopher Ward website.