Christopher Ward’s New C60 Sapphire Edge Updates Transparent Dial Design

Christopher Ward have been producing sapphire dial watches for more than half a decade at this point, with the C60 Sapphire from 2020 having a special place in the brand’s history as the first watch they ever advertised on television. Now they’re revisiting the sapphire dial concept by combining it with all the C60 upgrades from recent models like the immensely popular Trident Lumière. The resulting timepiece is the Christopher Ward C60 Sapphire Edge.

The most significant change, from which all other changes stem, is that they’ve upgraded the movement to the Sellita SW300-1 as opposed to the previous Sapphire model that housed the SW200-1. The 300 is approximately 1mm thinner than the 200, which has a knock on effect when it comes to the case of the C60 Sapphire Edge as the movement now fits inside their signature Light Catcher case, reducing the thickness by 2.25mm (or 3.4mm depending which C60 Sapphire edition you compare it to). That’s a significant reduction, leaving the watch with a thickness of 10.7mm, which is great for a 42mm diameter watch.

You can admire the Christopher Ward C60 Sapphire Edge’s updated movement through the dial due to said dial being made from sapphire. Sapphire is one of the core materials in watchmaking due to its extreme scratch resistance, making it ideal for watch crystals as they’re incredibly durable. In fact, they’re more likely to shatter completely before they ever scratch, such is their hardness. The material’s use as a decorative element is much rarer, though not unheard of, and one such use is as a replacement of a traditional dial. Here the sapphire dial has been tinted blue to fit the aquatic theme of the dive watch (it has 300m water resistance).

It’s fun to see all the inner workings of the watch exposed below the dial, such as the distinctive date disk that runs around the periphery of the display. The closest analogy I can think of is when you’re in a glass bottom boat and pass over a wreck at the bottom of the sea, a glimpse into a forgotten mechanical world. In terms of specs, the Sellita SW300-1 has a 56-hour power reserve and an accuracy of +/-20 seconds per day with functions of hours, minutes, seconds and date.

For keeping the Christopher Ward C60 Sapphire Edge secured to you wrist you have two options. Christopher Ward’s classic Bader steel bracelet or a brand new rubber strap, which is blue on top and lumed along the edges and bottom so that it glows in the dark. It makes for quite a cool aesthetic though I’m not sure what the practicality of it is in day to day life. I suppose if you were to take it diving and the worst came to the worst and the watch fell off your wrist, having a lumed strap would make it easier to find.

On bracelet the watch is priced at £1,095 and on strap it’s £995. For a 300m diver with a Swiss movement that has a power reserve of more than 2-days, that’s pretty solid value, especially when you throw in the difficulties of producing a sapphire dial into consideration. On a personal level I would take one of CW’s cool dials like the Atoll or Lumière but there’s definitely room for a sapphire edition and the Sapphire Edge ticks all the boxes you could possibly want from it.

More details at Christopher Ward.

​Oracle Time 

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