The independent, family-owned brand Carl F Bucherer has called Lucerne, Switzerland, its home since 1888, when founder Carl Friedrich Bucherer opened a jewellery and watch shop in the city. Today, Carl F Bucherer wears its connect to the city like a badge of honour, so much so that its motto is ‘Rooted in the heart of Switzerland, but at home everywhere in the world’. Now, interpreting this motto in a new range of timepieces is the Carl F Bucherer Heritage BiCompax Annual Hometown Edition, which features engravings of monuments that represent 16 cities (in nine countries) that are home to Carl F Bucherer.

 Carl F Bucherer Heritage BiCompax Annual Hometown Edition: The details

The cities in the new Carl F Bucherer watch range include Lucerne, Basel, Bern, Geneva, St. Gallen, Zermatt, and Zurich, in Switzerland; other European cities are Vienna, Paris, Berlin, Munich, and London. Aside of these, Mumbai, Beijing, New York, and Tokyo also find representation. Each of the limited-edition Heritage BiCompax Annual Hometown Edition watches has a sapphire crystal caseback with 3-D look engravings of the most important landmarks and skylines of each of the locations, along with the city name and the engraving of the individual watch number. For example, the caseback of Mumbai edition gets Gateway of India engraving, the Lucerne Edition features the city’s Chapel Bridge, while tribute is paid to Tokyo with its skyline and Mount Fuji in the background; the Heritage BiCompax Annual Beijing’s caseback is engraved with the city’s Tiananmen Square landmark. The caseback features seven visible screws. Each watch in this collection is limited to 88 pieces except the Beijing edition, which is limited to 188 pieces.

 From a design perspective, the Carl F Bucherer Heritage BiCompax Annual Hometown Edition takes off from the Heritage BiCompax Annual watches that were introduced in 2018. The 41mm steel watches feature gradient dials, the silver colour centre gradually getting darker as it moves to the edge. The sunray brushed dials are in five colour options – yellow (München), brown (Lucerne, Paris, Zermatt), burgundy (Basel, Beijing, Geneva), green (Beijing, Berlin, Bern, London, Mumbai, New York, St. Gallen, Zurich) and mint (Tokyo, Wein) – with each city’s colour decided after discussions with local boutique teams. 

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 The central hours and minutes hands get black Super-LumiNova treatment, and the dial features white 10 Arabic hour markers and black SLN colour hour markers for 6 o'clock and 12 o'clock. Also on the dial is a tachymeter scale, the annual calendar’s month window at 4:30, and a big date window at 12 o'clock. A contrasting chronograph counter sits at 9 o'clock (minutes), and at 3 o'clock is the small seconds, both in black. The Carl F Bucherer logo is positioned at 6 o'clock with two pushers for starting the chronograph and other to reset it at 2 o'clock and 4 o'clock respectively. The watches get a double-domed sapphire crystal with anti-reflective coating, and a 30 metre water resistance. Powering the watch is the automatic CFB 1972 calibre, with a power reserve of 42 hours.

The watch is finished with a two-tone perforated calfskin leather strap with stitching that matches the dial. The straps have a quick-release system, and a stainless steel pin-lock folding clasp.

Images: Courtesy Carl F Bucherer