Romain Jerome Moon Orbiter GMT (RJ.M.TO.MO.012.01) Romain Jerome Watch Review

Hi, this is Tim of The 1916 Company. Welcome, and thanks for logging on. If you love this watch, email me, timosso at the1916company.com, for purchase, pricing, and availability questions concerning this watch. Today, I'm sharing the kind of watch that I most love to share, something that is unique, full of features, unusual in its aesthetic and function, and an excellent value. This is a 2016 launch made in 25 pieces in DLC and bare stainless steel from Romain Jerome. This is the Moon Orbiter GMT. Now, when this watch was new in 2016, it and its unique custom Le Jouperet caliber cost $121,000. Today, something approaching one quarter of that will be sufficient to take this home, and it's got a lot to offer. I really enjoyed my time with this watch. Big, but not so big that I didn't actually wear it around a bit. 48 millimeters in diameter, it's 15.7 millimeters thick, and it has an incredibly cool and deeply adjustable shock absorber, telescoping, variable geometry, lug setup. So, 56.5 is the most compressed lug to lug span. At full extension, it's 65.7, and then it has a 22 millimeter spacing between the lugs. On my wrist, and I'm going to emphasize, on my wrist is where it spent the last hour, it actually does fit. It's huge, but I can wear it. The look is big, it's over the top, it's easily described as a party watch, but then again, summer is kind of the season for party watches, and this can rock all summer long. I would say, yeah, it does fit on my wrist, and as much as it fits on any wrist, it fits fine. I wouldn't wear it on a smaller wrist, but certainly on a larger wrist, it's going to look and feel just as at home. A big part of that is those telescoping lugs, and I'm even going to say that this is a better execution of the variable geometry lug than Debitoon's floating lugs, because while those are hinged, they don't telescope. So, what we've got here is a more sophisticated articulation, and it really does result, you see how there's a double pivot, two of them right there, it really does result in both more adjustability and a better fit. I really like the way this was done. The strap is substantial, you can see we have large rectangular symmetrical scale alligator leather with a semi-distressed grain. You can see it's got a little bit of bolstering to add volume, a folded edge, a contrasting red stitch, and then on the bottom, it's got a rubber inlay to protect the Romagerome factory strap from the oil, sweat, heat, moisture, and grit of the wrist. This watch is fresh from service, so everything is in great shape. You can see that it's got a combination of polish and satin on its DLC pin buckle, which is nice attention to detail. The strap is very luxurious and extremely substantial. They certainly don't short you the leather here. The case is a complex execution, and there's a lot going on. Hardware of all descriptions, symbolic elements, functional elements, like you can see, these are purely symbolic. They're here for the sake of symmetry until you get to this pusher actuator, which jumps the retrograding second time zone, and you can see adjacent to that how there's a little day-night indicator, so you know whether you're looking at 12 midnight with stars or 12 noon with the sun. So, that's how that works right there. Now, taking a quick look, there's a lot going on on this dial, and the highlight, of course, is the flying tourbillon. You can see that the tourbillon is a four hertz beat rate, uses Kivshock protection, a flying tourbillon. It has no upper bridge to obscure your view of the tourbillon, and it's a one-minute tourbillon, which means it effectively acts as the seconds hand for the dial. Like most tourbillon watches, this one features a very vocal escapement, so in a quiet room, you can't hear it. We've got the retrograding second time zone, which is a lot of fun, and then at the bottom of the dial, a power reserve indicator for the 45-hour automatic winding power reserve. We have a watch that's not robustly water resistant to 30 meters, but it does actually have a screw-down crown for extra protection. The crown features a polymer shoulder to make it easier to grip, and you can see as I wind it, and I have to say it's one of the best winding automatic watches I've encountered. That power reserve indicator moves towards the end of its scale. Now, you can see the Romage Rome X motif. You can see how the dial has a crosswise stepped upper platform that sits on top of a cosmos themed base, and if you look at that base, you can see the image of stars in the sky. That's what this is designed to evoke, a combination of stars in the sky and craters on the face of the moon. Quite a bit of satin brushing, but also polishing of screws. Now, you can also see that we've got a bit of a sandwich style motif for the time over here, the primary time. This is all red lacquer, that's what you're looking at. There is no luminescence, but you have that stencil on top of the base that allows you to see the numerals. Turning it all over, we do have an automatic winding system. I talked about there being symbolic and ornamental elements on this alternately DLC and bare steel case, and there are quite a few of them, but the one element that Romage Rome wants you to know about that you can't obviously see is that metallic parts from Apollo 11, the original moon landing spacecraft, somehow found their way into the alloy used to make this case. So, just know it's there. You can't individually identify it, but rest assured, it's in there somewhere. You can also see that different finishes are used. We have both polished and satinated DLC black and steel, then both polished and satinated raw steel. Flip it over again, the movement is a custom piece by La Jouperie of La Chaux-de-Fonds, which was created for Romage Rome. Romage Rome, not a movement manufacturer, so they leaned on LJP, which is one of the best in the business. The rotor itself, you can see its direction of winding right there due to the presence of a rocket. It says moon silver. What that means is the mass is made of a type of silver that also includes moon dust. So, moon dust rotor, moon lander case, that's what this moon DNA script right here means. The movement does feature ceramic ball bearings for higher winding efficiency, and you can see it's a 38 joule movement that is exceptionally large in size. We have double solarization on the ratchet wheel, single solarization on the crown wheel, satination on the other wheels, all screw heads are polished, extensive snailing on the mass, as well as brushed surfacing on the rotor itself. And then you can see that the base plate of this physically enormous movement also includes those star and crater motifs. This watch almost has too much to say, and you can see it's lucky 13. 13 and 11 are my lucky numbers. I'm always happy to see them. If you look at the underside of the tourbillon structure, you can all see a little bit of media blasting. And if you look at the underpinning of the bridge holding the tourbillon, you can see some mirrored unglaze, also a bit more underneath the bridge for the winding system. There is quite a lot to love here. And my goodness, do I love it. If you love this watch too, reach out to me, Tim Masso at the1916company.com for purchase and pricing details.