The green Chronometre Souverain has no power reserve indication, which makes it the only version of the model with a symmetrical dial. Journe built ninety-nine of them in 2020 to mark the opening of his first boutique in Dubai, in partnership with Ahmed Seddiqi and Sons, and chose green because of what the color carries in the region. The case is platinum at 40 mm and eight millimeters deep, and the numerals are applied 18K white gold. The edition sold out on release and has been among the more pursued Chronometre Souverain executions since, which has as much to do with the layout as with the number, since a symmetrical Journe dial is a genuinely rare thing in a catalogue built on off-center layouts.
Removing the reserve indication changes the dial more than any color could. On a standard Chronometre Souverain the register at three balances the seconds at seven thirty and the layout reads as deliberately asymmetric; take the reserve away and what remains is a single subdial on an otherwise open plate, which is a considerably calmer face and one the model has never otherwise had. Against green the applied white gold numerals read cool and hold at any angle. The hands are rhodium plated steel. Everything else about the case follows the standard reference exactly. Green is also a difficult color to put on a solid silver dial, since the metal underneath influences whatever goes over it and a green that reads well in a studio can turn olive or gray on the wrist. Journe's own dial workshop developed the tone, as it did the Havana and the boutique blues, and the result holds its color across lighting rather than shifting the way a coated surface does. Against it the white gold numerals stay neutral, which is why they were chosen over the 5N gold used on the warmer dials. Rhodium plated hands complete a face with no warm element on it at all, and the case is platinum rather than gold for the same reason, since a warm case would have pulled the dial toward olive.
The movement is Calibre 1304 with the reserve indication omitted rather than a different mechanism. Two mainspring barrels in parallel still give the watch fifty-six hours; the owner simply is not told where in that span the watch is, which on a manual watch is a real decision rather than a cosmetic one. Journe has taken it only once. The rest is unchanged: 18K rose gold plates and bridges, four millimeters thick, a free sprung balance with four inertia weights, and the same finishing the rest of the collection receives, all visible through the sapphire back. What the omission actually costs an owner is worth thinking about before buying. Fifty-six hours is long enough that a watch taken off on Friday can still be running on Sunday, and long enough that guessing wrong means finding it stopped. Owners of this reference generally settle into winding it at a fixed time each day rather than reading an indication, which is how every watch worked before reserve indications became common. Journe removed it for the sake of the dial and made that trade knowingly, and the watch is better looking for it. Nothing else about the calibre was touched, and the movement is the same four millimeter 1304 that goes into every other example of the model.
Boutique opening editions are a recurring format for this house and the green Dubai piece is among the larger ones. Beirut received the ninety-nine piece Chronometre Bleu Byblos in 2014, Tokyo has received an edition roughly every anniversary since 2005, and the pattern is consistent: a current reference, a dial made for the occasion, a number attached, and distribution through the boutique the edition marks. Green was chosen for its associations with fortune in the Middle East rather than as a design decision, which is the sort of thing that dates an edition and in this case has not. What separates this one from the others is that the dial change went further than a color. Every other boutique or anniversary edition keeps the standard layout and alters the surface; this is the only Chronometre Souverain where an indication was taken off the dial entirely, and it is the only one that reads as a different watch from across a table rather than as the same watch in another shade. That is a larger departure than it sounds for a house that has changed almost nothing about this model in twenty years, and it is unlikely to be repeated. Journe has made green dials since, on other references, but has not removed an indication again on any reference.
This has become one of the more sought after Chronometre Souverain executions and the reason is the dial rather than the number. Ninety-nine is not especially small by the standards of the limited editions, but a green Journe with no reserve indication looks unlike anything else in the collection and cannot be confused with a standard example. Numbering is engraved and the papers should confirm it. Beyond that the watch is a platinum Chronometre Souverain, with the same service requirements and the same daily wind. Condition on the dial is what matters, since a green surface cannot be refinished and a marked one cannot be replaced from a run of ninety-nine. The platinum case will look much as it did in 2020, and the movement is serviceable in the ordinary way, since nothing inside it differs from a standard Chronometre Souverain. Papers and the engraved number are what establish which of the ninety-nine an example is, and on an edition this recent the full set is usually intact, including the white gold deployant clasp the edition was delivered with.
