What-a-watch: Glycine Airman MLV

Yesterday a volcano in Iceland erupted, so I decided to write about this watch. You might ask what does a volcano have to do with watches? Not much in general, but it has everything to do with this specific watch.

The Glycine Airman MLV was produced in September 2004 in a limited series of 500 pieces. The watch above is featured on www.sometimeago.com (item 1673) and was found by a collector in a small shop in the high north of the Netherlands in 2006. It is numbered 112/500. The Airman MLV was introduced together with the Airman Special model, which was limited to 200 pieces, and its suggested price was CHF 2'000 while the MLV was to cost CHF 1'400. The reference number for the MLV is 3830.

The Volcano erupted. "MLV" stands for Mauna Loa Volcano, the world’s largest active volcano and which towers more than 4,000 metres above sea level in Hawaii. Take a good look at the watch again.

The dial is completely luminescent, it shines in the dark as a beacon in the night! The effect is stronger in the dark. The association with a volcano crater is enhanced by the black bezel. Aside from its relevance to Mauna Loa, the watch features the ability to display time in three time zones. First is the normal fashion using an extra hand. The red hand is a 24-hour hand that can be set in accordance with the crown in one-hour steps, and with the bi-directional bezel, a third time zone can be set—again using the red hand. This feature is specific to Glycine's Airman series.

The watch comes with a complete set of documentation and is presented in a wooden box that holds an additional strap. In this instance, it is a rubber strap. A strap-changing tool is also provided. Normally this watch is sold on the rubber strap and an extra light brown leather strap could be found in the box, but this MLV was sold on a very nice original steel bracelet accompanied by the rubber strap in the box. The photo above shows the special display case back through which the automatic ETA movement can be viewed in action. All in all, a very nice and complete watch!

Complete specifics to this model are to be found on the glycine website in PDF.