Home » Baselworld - World Watch and Jewellery Show » Baselowrld 2013 Preview – Fortis Prepares a New F-43 Watch with a Jumping Hour Complication
The Grenchen-based watchmaker Fortis has enriched its palette of products with a new model equipped with a jumping hour indication. Valued at just over $4,000, the newcomer will be presented at the upcoming edition of the most important watchmaking event – Baselworld fair. Fortis F-43 Jumping Hours comes in two different variations, both centered on the jumping hour feature with a large round opening that reveals the current hour.
At the heart of the new timepiece is self-winding F2024 caliber (up-scale ETA 2829-2 as the base movement). This is the same kind of movement that Fortis used for some of its existing watches with a jumping hour feature, for example in its B-47 Mysterious Planets timekeeper. The only functions provided by the caliber are hours and minutes. While the minutes are shown in a classical way with a central hand, the hours are designated on a circular aperture, on a disc which moves to the next position once every 60 minutes to reveal the right Arabic numeral (although some initial reports stated that the aperture is stationary at the top of the dial, while the disc with numerals rotates independently from it).
A Black or a Transparent Dial
The new timepiece will be offered in two versions which sport a whole different kind of styling. However, they do share some of the most important traits. Primarily, they have the same kind of movement and therefore utilize an aperture of the same kind and size for the feature that gives the name to the product. Other shared traits are a 43 mm wide round stainless steel housing with a fluted screwed-in crown, a sapphire crystal, and improved water resistance to 200 meters.
After the similarities between two versions, let us focus to their differences. The most apparent difference is found on the face of each of the watches: while the first one has a recognizable Fortis styling with concentric circles on a black background (which has a sort of a hypnotizing effect), the other one is completely unlike the first one. The second version features a skeletonized dial with a see-through grayish hour disc. Likewise, two versions include different types of wristlets and therefore, slightly different prices. While the black one is joined with a steel bracelet and costs around $4150, the skeleton variation is coupled with a black leather strap and costs about $125 less.
