Hands-On MING's New 57.05 'Comet' Worldtime Is Out Of This World Innovation

The 57.05 Comet is not MING’s first worldtimer (they were the enigmatic 19.02 and the 29.01 Midnight), but this latest release is MING’s most accessible worldtime watch to date and, characteristically, one of its cleverest. Named after the de Havilland Comet, the world’s first commercial jet airliner, it has a rare-for-MING retro feel that nods to the romance of the early jet age and to Louis Cottier, the Geneva watchmaker who invented the worldtimer in the 1930s. 

For a team that is now spread across four countries, a part of the inspiration behind the 57.05 Comet comes less from romantic notions of jet-set luxury than from practical necessity. The 40mm stainless steel case arrives with plenty of MING 57-series design language and Art Deco drama in the stepped lugs, measuring 47.8mm in lug-to-lug and a relatively slimline in its profile at 10.8mm. The big draw here is that, featured within the confines of a vintage-looking split steel bezel, the 57.05 Comet hides a patent-pending solution for adjusting to daylight saving time – a detail that almost all conventional worldtimers leave you to figure out yourself.

I was fortunate enough to spend some time with the new 57.05 Comet during Geneva Watch Days this year, and as is often the case with MING releases, it left an impression. As far as the case, one detail the spec sheet won’t necessarily reveal is that, to keep the lug-to-lug short, the architectural Art Deco lugs sit quite high on the mid-case. This meant it didn’t exactly hug my wrist, but the proportions combined to ensure it still wore quite comfortably. 

Thanks to the wide worldtimer bezel, the deep blue dial is relatively small for a 40mm watch, while remaining legible thanks to the hours being marked by the usual castellated, lume-filled ring engraved on the underside of the sapphire crystal. This design is something of a brand signature, which works well when combined with the soft shapes of the stubby hour and minute hands, also benefiting from a liberal application of lume.

Though I wasn’t able to catch too much of it in sunny Geneva, the multi-emission lume runs throughout the watch to great effect. The hands glow blue, the 24-hour ring for day and night hours is finished in blue and orange lume, and the DST indicator shines red. This multilayered dial design makes for an eye-catching centrepiece on what is essentially a traveller's tool watch, with overlapping grids creating a moiré pattern that appears to flow and shift in the light - another example of how Ming Thein loves to experiment with optical effects, no doubt from his days of photography.

Arriving at the complexities of the world timer and DST functionality, and the way MING has approached the daylight saving time problem by putting cities that observe DST on a separate outer bezel, while those that don’t stay fixed on the inner bezel. Rotating the outer bezel a single click, exactly 15 degrees, advances only the DST cities by an hour against the 24-hour scale, locking into place via a spring-loaded ball. A small “DST ON” aperture between eight and nine o’clock confirms the state at a glance, with silver for standard time and red for DST. A simple solution – no spreadsheets or mental arithmetic required.

Inside the 57.05 sits the automatic Sellita for MING 330.M2 with around 50 hours of power reserve, which is visible through a sapphire exhibition caseback in its usual graphite grey finish. The movement isn’t what we’re here for, though. Like many of MING's watches, the 57.05 Comet is all about the dial, as well as the retro charm that comes with almost all worldtimer watches. My only qualm with this latest release is the amazing Polymesh bracelet, which, despite being jaw-droppingly innovative, wants to sit quite tight on the wrist to perform at its best. Personally, I like my straps and bracelets somewhat loose, so (gasp) I would likely go for a regular strap.

The 57.05 Comet is limited to 200 pieces at CHF 6,950 on a Jean Rousseau leather strap or CHF 7,950 on the Polymesh bracelet. Orders opened on August 27, and as it currently stands, the watch appears to have already sold out.

Brand: MING
Model: 57.05 "Comet"

Diameter: 40mm
Thickness: 10.33mm
Lug-to-Lug: 47.8mm
Case Material: 316L Stainless Steel
Dial Colour: Multilayered blue "Comet Tail" dial with overlapping raster structures creating a dynamic interference pattern
Indexes: Rotating 24-hour world time ring and top crystal engraved and filled with MING Polar White luminous material
Lume: Worldtime ring with Super-LumiNova X1, emitting blue for daytime hours and orange for nighttime hours; Hands with blue-emission Super-LumiNova X1; DST ON bezel aperture with red-emission Super-LumiNova X1
Water Resistance: 100m
Strap/Bracelet: Cobalt blue goat leather strap by Jean Rousseau Paris, with curved quick-release spring bars and flying-blade tuck buckle with micro-adjustment

Caliber: Sellita for MING 330.M2
Functions: Hours, minutes, 24-hour disc for world time function
Diameter: 26.2mm
Thickness: 4.1mm
Power Reserve: 50 hours
Winding: Automatic
Frequency: 28,800 vph (4 Hz)
Jewels: 25
Chronometer Certified: No
Additional Details: Skeletonised, brushed, anthracite-coated bridges over a matching anthracite-coated baseplate

Price: CHF 6,950 on a leather strap, or CHF 7,950 on MING Polymesh
Availability: Orders opened on August 27 at 1:00 PM GMT
Limited Edition: Yes, 200 pieces

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