St. Louis-based Monta Watches has just announced the final version of its Skyquest GMT, the Monta Skyquest Opalin Gilt, a nod to one of the rarest GMTs ever produced.
The Release
The Monta Skyquest Opalin Gilt comes in a 40mm stainless steel case that is 11.9mm thick and 49mm lug-to-lug. The case features a brushed top with polished sides and chamfers, including the crown guards around the 3 o’clock screwdown crown, which affords 304m of water resistance. The lugs are 20mm and the watch comes with Monta’s fully articulated oyster-style bracelet with a flip-lock clasp that features a built in quick adjust clasp for rapid sizing. The aluminum bezel insert on the 48-click bezel features 24-hour markings in gilt against a split red and blue background.
The white opaline dial has a minute ring around the periphery with a 24-hour rehaute. The gilt applied markers are partially recessed into the rehaute and are filled with Super-Luminova BGW9, as are the gilt sword hands. The gilt GMT hand kinks to allow it to rotate over the applied markers, ending in a red arrow filled with BGW9 lume. At 6 o’clock, a date window is surrounded by a simple gilt frame.
Our Thoughts
This Opalin Gilt swan song follows a 50-piece run of a black gilt Skyquest fitted with the same Pepsi bezel seen here, released in November 2021. That watch sold out in a flash, and this one is likely to do even better. With an explicit inspiration from the Rolex GMT Master 6542 “Albino”—a watch so rare that many didn’t believe it existed until around 2010, when irrefutable evidence surfaced—this is going to get a lot of motors humming. There is a part of me, though that wished Monta had done something more expressive of its own identity for this final Skyquest, as was the case with the final iteration of the Monta Oceanking earlier this year. As an owner of a black gilt Skyquest, the watch is a win for me. The only thing you should know is that some people (not me) find the folding clasp to be overlong, though I’ve heard this can be mitigated by moving some certain links around.
The other story here, though, is one of concern: including the Skyquest, Monta has announced the abrupt discontinuation of two flagship models in the last two months, with only vague plans for redesign and rerelease. In February 2022, owners Justin Kraudel and Mike DiMartini took to Instagram Live to make the announcement taht their Oceanking diver would be discontinued in 2022. They said retiring and redesigning models is a part of any brand’s natural evolution (which it is), but also suggested that there were supplier issues. While every brand has been facing supply chain issues in the past few years, I am not aware of any other brand that has discontinued models because of those issues.
The suddenness of the announcements, unclear timelines for the new models, and especially the disclosure of supplier issues as a partial cause suggest that this may not have been planned. Brands revitalize models and retire designs all the time. With smaller brands, a model sells out and then a new version is designed and released sometime thereafter (like the Nodus Avalon II); with larger brands, typically a new model is made available and stock of the old model is sold down (like the new TAG Heuer Aquaracer). Neither happened here, so I’ve come up with a theory: Monta abruptly found itself in a situation where it was unable to continue production of the Oceanking or Skyquest with its current suppliers. Instead of waiting to find new suppliers to resume production of the same designs, Monta took the opportunity afforded by the production lapse to go back to the drawing board on both models and release the new versions once the new suppliers have been established. Reportedly those new models will be here no earlier than the end of 2022, but the brand’s response to the situation shows a company committed to its product and nimble enough to respond to a tumultuous supply chain.
Availability
The Monta Skyquest Opalin Gilt is priced at $2,190 and is limited to 50 units. It will be available for preorder on Friday, April 22 at 2:00 PM CST via the Monta website and delivery is set for July 2022.