A Maurice Lacroix classic, the Cinq Aiguilles was the very first watch in the now celebrated Masterpiece Collection. Over its sixteen years of existence, it has proved to be enormously successful, but despite that the brand has decided to introduce a new model by giving the watch a spectacular facelift. Additionally, the brand also introduces an innovative chronograph with its ‘Own Manufacture Movement’.

Masterpiece Cinq & Cinq
The Masterpiece Cinq & Cinq (42 mm) continues to be a watch with five central hands, a relatively delicate complication given that the five hands must be finely tuned to avoid too much or too little play. The benefit of the five-hand watch is the instant readability of useful information and is simplified by controlling all the functions with a single crown at 3 o’clock. The stainless steel Cinq & Cinq model has two broad hands with luminous tips for the hours and minutes, a smaller hand with a moon crescent at the tip to indicate the date, a red sweep hand for the seconds and a long white hand with a red tip which moves anti-clockwise for the days of the week which are spectacularly indicated on the outer area of the dial in seven different colours.




Movement: Hand-decorated mechanical, hand-wound ML 126 movement, based on the manufacture movement TT 738 (Technotime), 33 jewels, blued steel screws, Technotime shock protection, Technotime polished steel pallet and escapement wheel, Technotime balance wheel, Nivarox-1 balance spring, Nivaflex-1 main spring, skeleton rotor.
Functions: Five central hands display hours, minutes, seconds, weekday and date.
Case: Stainless steel or 18K carat pink gold; domed sapphire crystal with anti-reflective coating on inside, screwed caseback with sapphire crystal; water-resistant to 50 m, diameter 42 mm.
Dial: Solid silver 925; silver-coloured or black with fine hand-guilloché, Arabic numerals and index marks applied and gold-coloured or luminous hands (hours/ minutes) blued or rhodanised and luminous.
Watchband: Genuine croco leather with folding clasp.


The second Cinq of the Cinq & Cinq refers to the 5-day power reserve (120 hours) achieved by the two barrels of the ML 120 Calibre automatic movement – that uses a base manufacture TT 738 Techno-time movement with a specially developed Maurice Lacroix module. The other features are a guilloche dial, sapphire crystals front and back, skeleton rotor and water-resistance to 50 metres. The 18 carat pink gold and stainless steel model features all the same technical details, but with a silver guilloché dial, blued steel and gold-coloured or luminous hands and has a more classical presentation of the days of the week.

Masterpiece Le Chronographe
It’s taken Maurice Lacroix three and a half years to perfect its new Masterpiece Le Chronographe. Three years given that, as the brand explains, ‘Good things take time, because time respects nothing created without it.’ And one of the ‘good things’ is the ML 106 Calibre movement – the first Maurice Lacroix ‘Own Manufacture Movement’.
The 18 carat red gold chronograph is big firstly because Maurice Lacroix believe ‘Big is beautiful’: a 45 mm case and a hand-wound movement of 16Ð’’’ lines, and secondly the larger dimension offers further benefits by using bigger components, thus offering improved reliability and precision – for example, the larger barrel gives a 48-hour power reserve.




Calibre ML 106
Base movement: 16Ð’’’ lines, Maurice Lacroix
manufacture movement
Movement dimensions: Diameter 36.60 mm, height 6.90 mm
Winding: Hand-wound
Power reserve: 48 hours
Frequency: 18,000 a/h
Adjustment: In 5 positions after complete winding and after 24 hours operation
Number of jewels: 20
Components: Glucydur coiled balance wheel / Swan neck precision adjustment / Kif shock protection / Polished steel pallet and escapement wheel /
Nivarox-1 balance spring / Nivaflex-1 main spring
Decorations: Hand-decorated / Two 18 carat gold chatons / Rhodanized / Bridges with polished bevels / Engraved and gold-plated Maurice Lacroix logo / Blued steel screws / Gold-plated false settings / Circular Côtes de Genève / Perlage


The new lever mechanism, designed and patented by Maurice Lacroix, limits the small, but all-important play between when the chronograph lever is raised and the zero position lever and zero position heart meet. The chronograph hand therefore remains, even upon impact, in its previous position until the zeroing process actually takes place. Unlike permanent zeroing (flyback) the ML 106 Calibre movement requires a stop at the start before zeroing can be carried out – thus ensuring that there can be no false operation or the loss of a measurement time interval.
There are two counters – 60 minutes and small seconds and the large second hand starts to move in fifth of a second increments, indicated by the 300 divisions on the exterior circle of the silver dial decorated with Côtes de Genève ‘Rayon de la Gloire’ decoration.

Finally, for chronograph enthusiasts, the first edition of this Masterpiece comes as a Limited Edition of just 250 pieces.


Source: Europa Star April-May 2006 Magazine Issue