The 43mm Bulgari Octo Bi-Retro Brazil with a ceramic bezel is powered by the Calibre GG 7722 automatic movement and is limited to 50 pieces. The “champlevé technique is employed when applying the blue, yellow and green colours on the dial. Photo: © Bulgari
Is there wax on lacquered watch dials? Well, according to Billericay of horologica.com, the silvered chapter ring typically seen on brass dials of vintage long case and bracket clocks will usually have engraved numerals filled with wax.
To restore such antique dials, re-silvering is performed whereby multiple coats of matt lacquer are applied. This process will protect the new “silvering”.
With the Brazilian colours of blue, green and yellow featured on the lacquered dial of Bulgari’s Octo Bi-Retro Brazil, was wax also used, thereby allowing this dial to be classified as a “Brazilian wax” job?
[Note: Brazilian wax is a hair-removal method that is known to be painful.]
To be honest, we do not have the answer on hand and this is most unlikely as one must bear in mind that this is a modern dial and the use of wax is probably more relevant to antique watch dials.
The Octo Bi-Retro Brazil is officially known to be “a tribute to Brazilian colours” and it is obvious given the blue, yellow and green colours.
As its name implies, the Octo B-Retro Brazil has two retrograde functions: one is for the minutes which sweeps over a 210-degree arc before returning back to its origin and the retrograde calendar date pointer covering a 180-degree arc.
The jumping hours are indicated through the aperture at 12 o’clock. The Octo Bi-Retro Brazil has a ceramic bezel and this 50-piece limited edition model was specially made this year because of the 2014 FIFA World Cup hosted by Brazil.
Brazil is an easy pick not just for brands wanting to be a part of the 2014 World Cup but perhaps even for investors wishing to “jump” into the country’s equity market.
According to the research report, The World Cup and Economics 2014 put together by Goldman Sachs in May 2014, the host country, in this case Brazil, tends to enjoy an outperforming stock market in the month after the event.
This host country out-performance occurred for every World Cup event Peter Oppenheimer and the Portfolio Strategy Team at Goldman Sachs researched.
While the average out-performance is 2.7%, one has to be cautioned that the gains tend “to fade fairly quickly, with nearly half under-performing over three months,” as stated in the report.
The report further states that “being the host nation and winning is the ultimate goal” (we suspect there was an intentional pun here) and it would lead to very positive performance for a month but there is no “consistent pattern of ongoing outperformance” in the stock market.
If you have already “jumped” into the stock market of Brazil and wish to follow its progress in the World Cup, do note that Brazil faces Croatia on Thursday, 12 June 2014 at 5 p.m. Brazil time which means it will be at 4 a.m. on an early Friday morning (13 June 2014) in countries such as Singapore, Malaysia and Taiwan.