Perigraph – blue

The name is the instruction manual. Perigraph comes from the Greek peri, around, and graph, to write: on this MeisterSinger the date is written around the dial rather than hidden inside it.

There is no window, no arc and no off-center subdial. A fully open ring rotates in the center of the dial carrying numerals for the odd dates and index markers for the even ones, and you read it against a fixed red arrow at 12 o'clock. At midnight the whole ring jumps to the next position. Above it, a single heat-blued needle hand crosses the five-minute scale, showing the hour and how far into it you are, almost to the minute. The design holds both Good Design and Red Dot awards.

The blue dial version gives the blued hand a ground of its own tone, so the date ring and the red arrow do the contrast work instead. The case is 43 mm stainless steel on 20 mm lugs with a cognac strap, water resistant to 5 bar, powered by a Sellita SW200 automatic modified for single-hand use.

Large, legible and genuinely unusual, the Perigraph rewards anyone who likes a mechanism they can watch working.

Perfect for: blue dial watch shoppers, buyers who dislike date windows, 43 mm large watch wearers.