Louis Cottier’s worldtime display has been the gold standard for tracking every time zone at once since the 1930s, and it’s carried the same blind spot the entire time. Twice a year, daylight saving time knocks a chunk of those 24 cities off by an hour. For its ninth anniversary, Malaysian independent Ming decided to finally do something about it with the new 57.05 Comet.
A Tale of Two Bezels
Ming’s patent-pending fix is almost annoyingly simple. Cities that ignore DST live on a fixed inner bezel, while the ones that observe it sit on a separate outer ring.
When the clocks change, you rotate that outer bezel one click (exactly 15 degrees), shifting only the relevant cities forward an hour on the 24-hour scale. A spring-loaded ball locks everything in place, and a small aperture between 8 and 9 o’clock flips from silver to red to confirm you’re in DST mode. It even glows red in the dark.
The name, by the way, honors the de Havilland Comet, the world’s first commercial jet airliner and the machine that made complications like this actually useful.
Chasing the Comet Tail
The blue center of the dial is built from overlapping raster grids tied to the rotating 24-hour disc, so the layers slowly slide against one another and generate a shifting interference pattern Ming calls the Comet Tail. Glance at it at 9 AM and again at noon, and you’re it almost feels like you’re looking at two completely different watches.
After dark, it becomes a full-on light show. Daytime hours glow blue, nighttime hours glow orange, and the 12-hour markers, etched into the underside of the box sapphire crystal, fire off in Ming’s proprietary white lume.
The $650,000 Elephant in the Room
Now, it’s worth mentioning that Ming isn’t technically first here. Bovet’s Récital 28 Prowess 1 tackled DST back in 2024 with a 744-component roller-based movement stuffed into a case over 46mm wide. And, expectedly, it costs CHF 650,000. The Comet however, handles the everyday version of that mission with a bezel click, in a 40mm x 10.33mm steel case, for barely one percent of the money.
Inside, a Sellita-based caliber 330.M2 (a modified GMT movement) provides 50 hours of reserve behind skeletonized anthracite bridges. Even the lugs are extra, requiring nine separate components for the construction alone.
Spec Sheet
Model: Ming 57.05 Comet
Case Size: 40mm
Case Thickness: 10.33mm
Lug-to-Lug: 47.8mm
Case Material: 316L stainless steel
Water Resistance: 100m
Movement: Sellita for MING caliber 330.M2 automatic
Power Reserve: ~50 hours
Band: Jean Rousseau blue goat leather or titanium Polymesh bracelet
Limited Edition: Yes, 200 pieces
Pricing & Availability
Orders open August 27th directly through Ming and its retail partners, with pricing set at CHF 6,950 (~$8,630) on the leather strap and CHF 7,950 (~$9,870) on the titanium Polymesh bracelet. With just 200 pieces on the docket, don’t expect them to stick around. Head over to Ming’s website to learn more.
Recap
Ming 57.05 Comet
Limited to 200 pieces, Ming’s ninth-anniversary worldtimer uses a clever two-bezel system to keep daylight saving time from wrecking its 24-city display.
