Pierre DeRoche recently introduced the SplitRock MDA Full-Black Chronograph at Baselworld 2009. Above is a photograph that was taken through the vitrine at the Pierre DeRoche Basel booth.

The Pierre DeRoche SplitRock MDA features a long rectangle case (46/ 31.6mm), made of stainless steel and coated with a scratch-resistant black PVD treatment. The black finish is both polished and brushed.

The dial features a beautiful black guilloché pattern, black steel hands, and black hour markers. A few red contrasts are thrown into contrast with the dial (the medium date and chronograph hour and minutes hands). The hands and hour markers feature black Superluminova treatment.

At 6 o’clock is the chronograph, but unlike most chronographs, this one uses only one subdial. There are three concentric hands on the chronograph subdial. A chronograph hour, minute and seconds hand. If you look at the central timekeeping hands you will notice there is not a seconds hand. That is because you have to read the seconds off the small seconds display that is part of the chronograph subdial.

Then you start the chronograph the small seconds function is temporarily deactivated so that hand can be used to count chronograph seconds. And that brings me to another unique design element – the chronograph pushpieces. They are located on the left and right side of the case, instead of the traditional 2 and 4 o’clock positions.

The date is displayed through the medium date aperture at 12 o’clock. Inside is an exclusive self-winding Dubois Dépraz caliber, with significant decoration and an engraved cut-out oscillating weight. Water-resistance is 30 meters. The strap is black crocodile leather with steel folding clasp and red contrast stitching.