Hodinkee
Introducing: The Raymond Weil Freelancer World-Traveller Celebrating The Founder's 100th Birthday
What We Know It seems as though Raymond Weil has been everywhere this year as the Geneva-based, family-owned independent brand celebrates its 50th anniversary. The company entered the integrated-bracelet sport watch realm in June with its A.R.T. collection, launching a lovely chronograph—The Fifty—featuring a vintage, new old stock Valjoux movement from the year the brand was born, 1976. But RW is marking another milestone this year. Today, on October 10th (also World Watch Day, btw), Raymond Weil himself would have turned 100 if he were still with us. A frequent and enthusiastic traveler, the brand is paying tribute to its founder with a limited-edition model, the Freelancer World-Traveller. The star of the show for this run of 260 pieces is, most certainly, the dial. It's a relief-rendered world map in the style of the Mercator projection, rendered in textured champagne, against a dark blue background, representing the oceans. Rather than the brand logo, Raymond Weil's signature sits at 6 o'clock and above the date window. The indexes are applied and surrounded by a 24-hour scale in blue for the evening and beige for the daytime. The outer ring of the dial features 24 world cities and their corresponding time zones. Turning the knurled bezel rotates the city ring to allow for shifting time zones or tracking. The local time display features tapering baton hands filled with Super-LumiNova, while the GMT hand, which can be manipulated by moving the screw-down cro...