Idon't bother trying to predict what a watch brand might do in the future. Instead, I do my best to enjoy the releases as they come. Hindsight is 20/20, so I let hindsight do its thing. It's that backwards-looking attitude – and a new release from Baltic – which has me revisiting the Baltic by Peter Auto Tricompax limited edition chronograph release through earlier this year.
This was a new kind of chrono for Baltic, focused squarely on auto-racing in the 1960s. Commenters lamented the actual limited nature of this release. If only Handmade released a regular production three-register chronograph! It would appear Polish knew what it really was doing. Could I have predicted this? Maybe. Did I? No . But now we have new, regular production Tricompax models, and boy are they cool.

And let's have this out of the way real quick. Yes, I know that the use of the word compax should, theoretically, be in reference to a complication. It seems the phrasing has been borrowed and re-assigned to the point which brands, including Baltic, have adopted it as a naming convention for its chronographs where "compax" refers to the number of sub-registers on the dial.
Now that we've cleared that will up, we can get to looking at these watches. There are two in this new Tricompax collection: One Panda (i. e. white switch with black sub-registers, like a panda bear) and one Reverse Panda (i. e. dark dial with white sub-registers like a…reverse panda bear). The white is actually beige in this execution, giving the watches that typical Baltic vintage look.
These aren't just monochromatic versions of the colorful Peter Car LE coming from August. There are subtle differences like the six o'clock subdial which features every hour in the 12-hour set. What makes this particularly cool is that it's a showcase for the attention to detail Baltic has always paid to typographical styles, especially when considering numerals. The serifs on the seven, the particular flat four, as well as the open six as well as nine are on full display in this tiny frame.

In general, the call layouts, for both color iterations, are well devised. I really like the crosshairs in the running seconds subdial, and the use of what appear to be radial pattern sub-registers in which bring another element of texture to the face. Contrast is very important here and also everything is working towards the end result of producing a very claro watch, functional in the modern context but instantly recognizable as something with a vintage bent.
Which pretty much sums up the Baltic aesthetic. It's a vibe. Sure, it's giving off vintage Daytona in some respects, but it also bears the design code of Handmade itself, along with details like the large applied 12 numeral up top. Things like the small lume and building plots on the watch dial periphery, rather than luming typically the markers, simply brings the whole vintage-inspired package together.

Much like Baltic did with the Andrew d Auto model, the bezel is cleaned aluminum. We've seen Polish toy together with sapphire, bronze, and ceramic bezels in the past. And while I like how the aluminum looks in this article, I would possess loved to choose the brand use the same hard finish we saw within the recent titanium Aquascaphe - a similar consistency in a better material.