Maurice Lacroix Pontos Automatic Chronograph Review

Some watch manufacturers occasionally create gems that fly under the radar and are overlooked. Let's discover this special watch together while examining the Maurice Lacroix Pontos Automatic Chronograph.

For some reason, I don't remember reading or writing enough reviews about a Maurice Lacroix watch over the years. The market is flooded with so many great watches that it becomes increasingly difficult to give each one the attention it deserves; But today this situation is changing! We will talk about a watch that not only looks beautiful but also has something worth talking about at length inside its case.

Maurice Lacroix Pontos Automatic Chronograph Review

There's something aesthetically appealing about this watch that's a bit hard to say exactly. From its monochrome design to its tasteful use of textures and intertwined radial lines on the sub-dials, this watch has a modern and forward-thinking look. It doesn't look futuristic, but it has a lot of traditional design elements mixed with more current elements like rubber straps and ultra-thin typography.

Good examples of this include the matte black PVD case and lugs, the wavy turbine textured crown grip surface and smooth lines, and the fonts used in the typography and Roman numerals around the tachymeter.

The dial has black central hour and minute hands with white tips. The small seconds indicator is located in its own sub-dial at the 9 position. The chronograph function works with a thin central seconds hand, which also has a white tip. There is a sub-dial for a 30-minute counter at position 12, and a 12-hour counter at position 6. You'll also see a date window built into the 12-hour sub-dial at position 6.

The back of the case features a transparent sapphire case back with a few markings in white; Among these is the PONTOS series name printed in white in a thin, sans serif font on the upper left quadrant of the case back.

The word Swiss Made is printed in white on the upper right side of the case back, and the model number PT6188 is located in the lower right corner of the case. There is a 5ATM water resistance symbol on the back of the case, in the position corresponding to the crown. The case is held closed by five steel screws, which can be seen on the case back.

Caliber

The Maurice Lacroix Pontos Automatic Chronograph is powered by the Maurice Lacroix ML112 caliber (this caliber is basically an ébauche, meaning it uses the ETA/Valjoux 7750 automatic movement). The ETA/Valjoux 7750 deserves its own article on its own. Some interesting information about the mechanism and its history:

The Valjoux 7750 was one of the first watch movements to be engineered using computer-aided design (CAD). It was developed by Edmond Capt, famous for his work with Blancpain and Lemania. In the early 1970s Edmond Capt used the computer in Neuchatel to perform mathematical calculations and simulations for its various components. The ETA Valjoux 7750 was historically the most popular Swiss-made automatic chronometer movement. It was so popular that its production was outsourced to Sellita to keep up with demand, and at one point Sellita produced a caliber they called the SW500, which was essentially a cloned version of the Valjoux 7750. Valjoux 7750 was used as the basis for many watches from many manufacturers.

The watch shown in this article has the model number pt6188-ss001-331 and is secured to the wrist with a soft and comfortable rubber strap with a black PVD pin buckle, branded with the Maurice Lacroix logo in white.

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