The MING 57.05 Comet: A Worldtime Watch With An Ingenious Daylight Saving Time Solution

One of the longest-standing, and most intractable problems, in the design of world time watches, is the problem of taking account for time zones that switch between standard and summer time, or Daylight Saving Time (DST). While there are a few watches which have tackled the issue with varying degrees of success, the vast majority of both worldtime and dual time zone watches simply ignore the problem, leaving it to the owner to perform a little mental arithmetic. The MING 57.05, however, has come up with a most interesting and ingenious answer, which is patent pending, and which has never been used before. Even more surprising is the fact that the solution, which is a model of elegant simplicity, is mechanically straightforward.

The Comet is named after the world’s first commercial jetliner, the de Havilland Comet, which first flew in 1952 and which remained in use, in one form or another, for over sixty years (the last version in service was actually a military version: the Hawker-Siddeley Nimrod, which was a maritime patrol and antisubmarine warfare aircraft).

From a design standpoint, the watch pays obvious homage to the original invention of the worldtime watch by Louis Cottier, who developed the first version of the complication as we know it today in the 1930s. The case, which uses the triple stepped lugs MING first introduced in the 57.04 monopusher chronograph, has two concentric city bezels, as well as a driven 24 hour ring, whose position can be set via the crown. The hour indexes are reminiscent of those used on the 37.02 Minimalist, although they’re not exactly identical – on the Minimalist, there are three concentric sections, while the Comet has two, which means a broader area of luminous material filling the engravings on the lower side of the dial.

The lume is MING Polar White, a custom blend of Super-LumiNova X1, which produces a white emission; the 24 hour mark on the worldtime ring is a pair of double dots, with blue emission lume for the daytime hours, and orange emission for the nighttime hours.

As the 24 hour ring rotates, the area of the dial inside it rotates as well. The dial proper consists of what MING calls two “raster” structures (a raster is a grid made up of individual square elements; a digital image file, for instances, is a raster file made up of square pixels). This produces a kind of shifting moiré pattern, which MING calls the “Comet’s Tail.”

Showing the correct time in cities which observe Daylight Saving Time is handled by placing those cities on the rotating outer bezel; the cities which observe standard time all year are on the fixed inner bezel. To switch the outer bezel from standard time to DST, you simply rotate the bezel one click (fifteen degrees) counterclockise. At the same time, the DST ON aperture fills with red Super-LumiNova XL, confirming the switch.

Depending on what you consider intuitive, this is probably the most intuitive way of handling the changeover from standard time to DST and back, that’s ever been implemented in a watch. The actual city names are always aligned correctly with the appropriate hour on the 24 hour ring and there is nothing to go wrong mechanically.

The only thing missing is a Patek-style pusher for switching the positions of the city ring, 24 hour ring, and hour hand simultaneously, in one hour increments but that system is actually fairly recent, having first been used by Patek Philippe in 2000, in the reference 5110, which debuted in the year 2000. The Comet, except for the novel DST city ring, is actually functionally identical to the first series of Cottier world time watches, which also had a rotating 24 hour ring and fixed city ring.

Solutions to mechanical problems in watchmaking often involve increased levels of complexity, but coming up with straightforward answers which are notable for their simplicity and ingenuity, is rarer and requires its own kind of insights. When I first saw the press release images for the Comet, my first reaction was to take an instant liking to the design and my second was to wonder, once I read about the DST bezel, why on Earth it took so long for someone to think of it.

Sometimes understanding the answers to problems requires considerable specialist knowledge. Creating a solution that no one’s ever thought of before, but which seems glaringly obvious in retrospect, requires a particular kind of creativity as well as the ability to resist the tendency present in so much complicated watchmaking, to solve problems by adding components. Many talking-point complications nowadays require computer aided design, and computer prototyping, sometimes with the assistance of generative AI as well. The only thing the MING 57.05 Comet required was a human being with a good idea.

The MING 57.02 Comet Worldtimer: case, 40mm x 10.33mm, 47.8mm lug to lug; 316L stainless steel with triple step flared lugs and brushed finishing; 100M water resistance. “Comet Tail” dial with overlapping raster structures; rotating 24 hour worldtime ring. Movement, Sellita for MING 330.M2, automatic running at 28,800 vph in 25 jewels, 26.2mm x 4.10mm; skeletonized, brushed, anthracite coated bridges over an anthracite coated baseplate. Limited edition of 200 pieces; CHF 6,950 on a leather strap and CHF 7950 on a MING Polymesh bracelet (get the bracelet, though). Available now through authorized MING retailers, or, starting August 27th at 1:00PM GMT, directly at Ming.watch.