Ulysse Nardin 2004 Exhibition
July 8, 2004 Taipei, Taiwan
Chung Mei Watch Co. 

After having spent a wonderful afternoon with many masterpieces from Vacheron Constatntin earlier last month; I received another invitation to an Ulysse Nardin 2004 Exhibition from Chung Mei Watch Co. The store itself is located at the Section  4 of Chung-Hsiao East Road, which one can find five high-end watch stores within a walking distance of 20 minutes, and Chung Mei has three of its five stores located on this road. Since this exhibition features a series of  watches with beautiful enamel dials as well as some highly complicated pieces from UN, I had my visit during the first day of the exhibition as usual. Here's a scan of what the entrance looks like: 

A closer look of the two front display shelves. On the left we have a full range of watches with enamel dials including last year's "Lighting" as well as this year's "Flying Cloud". 

On the right there's the gold Blue Max standing along with a gold San Marco chronometer with blue enamel dial. 

Under the roof left to the entrance there's big UN banner featuring the "Flying Cloud".

In one of the windows right underneath the UN banner there's a video highlighting the UN manufacture and the man who made UN what it is today: UN's CEO Mr.Rolf Schnyder (here he was saying that he tried to find a job within Switzerland's French-speaking region in order to become more fluent to the French language). 

Once inside the store, there are four display shelves which contain various product lines from UN (in case you're wondering, I didn't miss those two showcases standing in front of me while I was there!).

A better view starting from the far left, will the ladies be content with these dual time models? 

Right under it we have several perpetual calendar GMTs, two San Marco Gigantes in the middle, and a chronograph monopusher on the far right : 

This is the first time that I have seen such a perpetual calendar GMT filled with diamonds all over, very impressive but certainly not my style. 

The "Maxi Marine" and "Michelangelo" section:

And finally some dual time models for us:

Now let's get back to those two showcases in the front:

On the left we have the enamel dial watches, including the latest "Flying Cloud". 

Since the "Flying Cloud" is one of the highlights of this exhibition, here's the "Flying Cloud" in detail with many close-up shots:

From another angle, the enamel dial is absolutely fantastic and it matches very well with the platinum case!

The view from the back, revealing the beautifully decorated gold rotor. With a retail price of over $30,000 I really do think that UN should consider using more sophisticated ebauche than the current ETA 2892-A2. 

As this picture suggests, this watch is a limited edition of 30 watches in both rose gold and platinum. 

Back to the showcase on the right. Three UN complicated watches are shown:

The Freak in white gold and the Jungle minute repeater in platinum. 

The Sonata in white gold. I had the pleasure of seeing the rose gold one for the first time last December and it's always nice to have them around. 

Now for the highlight of this write-up, the Jungle minute repeater in platinum, limited edition of 18 watches in yellow gold, rose gold, and platinum. 

The dial of this watch is simply incredible. Its beauty is beyond the description of any word. Definitely one of the most beautiful dials I have ever seen!

Here are my two best attempts to show the complexity of this multi-layered dial. Notice the gold edges as well as the richness of the colors. I will bring home this baby in a heartbeat if I win the lottery tomorrow.

The picture speaks for itself, no explanation needed!

UN's wonderfully executed Lemania-based movement. 

From another angle. I never get tired of seeing those lovely hammers when they're in action. 

Now for the "real" highlight of this write-up, a video featuring the sound and the animation of the Jungle repeater. Unfortunately I missed the first couple hour strikes and sorry about the extra sound near the end. Look for three actions on the dial! (the file itself is about 4mb). 

Once again my sincere thanks to Chung Mei Watch Co. for allowing me to take the photos as well as making the video. I would also like to express my appreciation to Ms. Mei-Lin Yeh from Chung Mei Watch Co. and UN Taiwan's brand manager Mr. Anderson Cheng for their great assistances. As an independent watch manufacture, UN is one of the very few Swiss watch companies who have a direct branch located in Taiwan. An exhibition like this one demonstrates UN's dedication to the Taiwanese watch market, and I applaud them for their great efforts. Thanks for reading! 

Greetings from Taiwan,

Roger Tsai