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- Another Super-Packed Edition: Bremont Moves Stunning Prototype Into Production, The Citizen Diver Gets Fugu Makeover, Seiko And Rowing Blazers Collaborate Again, Unimatic Releases Great Summer Watch and Swatch Features Basquiat
Another Super-Packed Edition: Bremont Moves Stunning Prototype Into Production, The Citizen Diver Gets Fugu Makeover, Seiko And Rowing Blazers Collaborate Again, Unimatic Releases Great Summer Watch and Swatch Features Basquiat
Looks like it's a day for collaborations - Bremont and Martin Baker, Seiko and Rowing Blazers, Unimatic and Huckberry, Swatch and Basquiat...
Vuk Radic
May 12, 2023 • Estimated Reading Time: 20 minutes
Hey friends, yesterday was a dry news day, but today the It’s About Time Newsroom (actually, a corner of my apartment) is standing in knee high news floodwaters. We have some amazing releases, so let’s get on with it.
In this issue:
Bremont Turns Prototype Into Reality With The MB Viper Limited Edition And Introduces New Vulcan Monopusher
The Citizen Promaster Dive Automatic Gets a “Fugu” Makeover
Seiko And Rowing Blazers Launch Third Collection of Seiko 5 Summer Watches
Unimatic Collaborates With Huckberry To Release The Colorful Earthform Collection
And… invite your friends to win a Seiko Alpinist
Today’s reading time: 10 minutes and 24 seconds
Everybody needs a green faced watch in their life. That’s why we have a new giveaway - it’s the Seiko SPB121J1, aka the Seiko Alpinist in a wonderful shade of green. In fact, we’re giving away two of them!
All you have to do is click the button below and have five of your friends subscribe. Both you and one of your friends will be eligible to win one of the watches
We only have two conditions when entering this giveaway - invite 5 of your friends to subscribe and live somewhere were you can buy the Alpinist, so we can get this for you and ship it to your address. That’s it!
👂What’s new
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British watchmakers Bremont have been working with the leading producer of fighter jet ejection seats Martin-Baker for over 15 years. Martin-Baker approached Bremont to create a definitive pilot’s watch, and the MBI was born, followed by the MBII and MBIII. However, MBI remans unavailable to the public - the only way to get one is to have ejected from a fighter jet using a Martin-Baker seat.
As part of this partnership, Martin-Baker has been helping Bremont test out their first in-house assembled movement, the Calibre ENG300 by strapping it to their testing rigs and launch the movement over and over. From this process, a new watch is born - the MB Viper, named after Martin-baker and the General Dynamics F-16 jet unofficial nicknamed the Viper.
As a watch, the MB Viper is an unusual-looking pilot’s piece. This 43.5mm three-hander features an orange and black case, a red seconds hand, a yellow and black striped minute hand - inspired by the pull handle pattern on ejection seats, according to Bremont - and a white and black striped hour hand. It is also quite light at 58 grams.
The unique watch case shape comes from a special mount engineered by the brand, designed to fix the watch movement in place while being subjected to Highly Accelerated Life Testing (HALT) they used for the movements and later on for the MB Viper itself. This comprises several rigorous tests completed by Martin-Baker in a lab. First, the watches are exposed to up to 15G forces. Then there’s the 24-hour temperature exposure test at +49°C and a four-hour test at -46°C. The seals and gaskets are tested by freezing the watch completely for 21 hours while submerged at -5°C. Finally, the watch is placed in Altitude Test Chamber to simulate taking it up to 100,000 feet for 60 minutes before rapidly bringing it down again over 15 minutes.
The movement has to endure all of this. And inside the watch is the new automatic ENG352 caliber. According to Bremont, it boasts a 65-hour power reserve, a silicon escape wheel, a free-sprung hairspring, inertia weights for precise adjustment, and KIF shock protection.
It’s a funky looking watch, but I don’t doubt it will sell out pretty fast as only 300 will be made. If you get yours, you will get two canvas straps - one orange and one black - but you will have to hand over £5,495 to Bremont.
But the MB Viper is not the only watch Bremont unveiled yesterday. They also showed the Vulcan, a more traditional pilot’s watch that’s more in line with the other stuff Bremont is known for. Named after the mighty and strange Avro Vulcan B-1 jet powered bomber that the UK used from the 50s to the 80s, this is a monopusher chronograph
It has a 42mm × 51.5mm × 14.9mm case in hardened stainless steel with a 100m water resistance rating. The matte black chronograph dial features a running seconds sub-dial at 9 o’clock with a camouflage design. You’ll also notice a nuclear symbol in the minute counter at 3 o’clock, indicating the arsenal carried aboard these bombers during the Cold War. The blue chronograph seconds hand, Bremont says, takes inspiration from the clocks found in the old bombers.
Inside is a Sellita SW510-based BE-51AE caliber with its 28,800vph frequency and 56-hour power reserve. It is decorated with an engraving of the Avro Vulcan B-1 bomber and the heraldic badge of the Royal Air Force. The Bremont Vulcan also comes with two 20mm-wide sailcloth straps — one in “RAF Blue” and another in Avro Vulcan-inspired camo. This is also a limited edition, only 250 will be made.
The price for this model will be £4,295.
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If you need a reliable and affordable diver, can you go wrong with a Citizen? Of course you can’t. You might, however, want to forgo a plain black one and go for one of the new additions to the Promaster Dive Automatic collection - the Fugu, with its new dial texture, caseback emblem and a couple of case updates.
Fugu means pufferfish in Japanese, and the recognizable fish is all over these watches. The three new Citizen divers are now fitted with a sapphire crystal and a 120-click unidirectional bezel. With the insert still made out of aluminum, Citizen has changed the bezel system to offer higher timing precision during diving scenarios such as tracking bottom time and decompression stops. That being said, the case remains the same at 44mm.
The bezel is also inspired by the Fugu, with its alternating combination of curved and sharp edges, just like a pufferfish that puffs up with its spikes. The new dial texture also draws inspiration from the small but mighty (and romantic) fish - to attract females, the male pufferfish creates elaborate works of art in the sand. This is reflected in the dial of the watch with a relief pattern.
The three new Promaster Dive Automatic models; NY0137-09A, NY0130-08E and NY0136-52L are differentiated by dial color, accents and attending straps. The NY0137-09A has a fully lumed dial with gray markers, a midnight blue bezel and a black case. The NY0130-08E gets the traditional plain steel case and gets a hit of yellow accents on the minute hand as well as the chapter ring. The NY0136-52L is the most conservative of the bunch with its matching navy blue dial and bezel, steel case and steel bracelet. All three models are rated up to 200M and ISO compliant.
The trio of Promaster Dive Automatics are currently available online through Citizen and range from $550 to $650.
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The Seiko and Rowing Blazers collaboration is quickly becoming one of the best in the watch world. And the two brands are back again with their third edition of Seiko 5 Sports watches that have been given completely new dials for the summer.
From a design and functionality standpoint, this new third series of Rowing Blazers x Seiko 5 Sports watches is largely identical to the models from the previous capsule collection, and they feature stainless steel cases that measure 40mm in diameter by 12mm thick with drilled 20mm lugs and and and overall lug-to-lug profile of 44.5mm.
While the overall case is more-or-less the same as what can be found on the standard-production models, it is the dial design of these collaboration watches that are inspired by Rowing Blazers owner Jack Carlson’s personal Seiko 6106-7107 Sport Diver. The black contrasting chapter ring and retro-styled hour markers are virtually identical to what can be found on the vintage 1970 model that serves as the inspiration for these watches.
Just like the previous limited-edition series that was launched last year in 2022, this new third capsule collection of Rowing Blazers x Seiko 5 Sports watches consists of four different models, and each one comes fitted with a different color dial and paired with a different secondary NATO-style strap. Dial colors include pink, purple, yellow, and white, with the white dial variant featuring hour markers in the colors of the brand’s signature “croquet stripe” design. Additionally, while all four of the models are fitted with the Seiko 5 collection’s standard three-link stainless steel bracelet, each watch also comes with an additional nylon NATO strap that compliments its specific dial color. The pink dial model is paired with a blue and white striped strap; the purple version receives a similar striped strap in green and yellow; the yellow dial variant comes with a three-stripe strap in red, yellow, and green; and the white dial watch receives a solid pink strap in order to keep the visual emphasis on its multicolored hour markers.
Unlike the recent Tudor x Rowing Blazers Black Bay Fifty-Eight, which was exclusively produced for friends and family of the brand and not made available to members of the general public, this new collection of can be purchased by anyone who wants one for an official retail price of $495 USD. That said, all four of these new models will be produced as limited editions of 888 numbered pieces. At the time of writing this, only the purple and the yellow editions are available for purchase - the other two sold out - so you might want to hurry if you want one.
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Swatch has messed up big in the past year and drew the ire of watch lovers everywhere with their botched release of the MoonShwatch and refusal to release it for sale online. However, the majority of Swatch sales do not come from watch enthusiasts, but rather casual watch shoppers that love well designed watches at an affordable price. And this is what they do best.
One of their more popular watch collections in the past year has been the Art Journey collection that has already seen releases this year with watches based on pieces by Roy Lichtenstein, René Magritte, and others. Now Swatch is launching a new box set in this collection, the last one for this year - set of watches inspired by the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat.
Their paring with Basquiat couldn’t be better. Swatch became what amounts to a pop-cultural institution throughout the 80s thanks to their accessible, affordably priced, and colorful watches, and Basquiat rose to considerable fame and acclaim during roughly the same time.
The three watches in this small collection are all built on the Swatch’s basic 41mm case size and feature quartz movements. The artworks represented are all pulled from Basquiat’s early 80s output. “Hollywood Africans” has a predominantly yellow colorway and is inspired by a Basquiat piece that deals explicitly with the perceptions of Afrcan Americans in the entertainment industry (the three figures represented on the dial include Basquiat himself as well as rap musician Rammellzee and visual artist and painter Toxic). “Ishtar” is based on a 1983 painting depicting the Mesopotamian goddess of fertility and war, and features dial text rendered in a style that is unmistakably Basquiat. The final piece is “(Untitled)” and features Basquiat’s signature three-pointed crown, an image he would sometimes use as an actual signature in his work.
Interestingly, the three watches within the Swatch x Jean-Michel Basquait collection can be purchased individually, or as a triptych set. The watches, if purchased as a set, rather than individually, feature subtle differences from the main capsule collection. Not only is the triptych set presented in special packaging, but the watches also feature distinctly shaded central seconds hands and two belt-loops bearing both the artist’s name and signature crown rather than one.
The price is low, as you would expect on a swatch - $105 per watch.
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Another week, another Unimatic release. Not really, but almost. It’s been two weeks since Unimatic’s last release, but I’m not mad since I enjoy their watches and appreciate a good collaboration. Now Unimatic has teamed up with Huckberry to create the Earthform Collection, a trio of their Modello Quatro models in fantastic summer colors. In fact, I’ll go a step further and say that this is a better summer option than the controversial pastel Panerai I mentioned a week ago and still get blasted for on social media.
The second model is the Lichen Modello Quattro ref. U4S-HG, inspired by the soft teal lichen that grows all over Yosemite. It features a lichen grené dial with Super-LumiNova C5 and a dark gray open seconds track and dial text. It comes fitted on a pale blue TPU two-piece strap and extra gray nylon NATO strap. Rounding off the Earthform Collection is the third model, the Redwood Modello Quattro ref. U4S-HM that draws inspiration from the sun-drenched leaves of the towering redwoods that line the West Coast of the USA. That one comes with a green dial, light green Super-LumiNova markers, and a cool gray open seconds track and dial text. The watch comes fitted with a meadow-green TPU two-piece strap and an extra gray nylon NATO strap, just like the other two models.
All three watches feature a 40mm stainless steel case that is 12.4mm thick and 49mm from tip to tip with a 22mm lug spacing. The Modello Quattro case is characterized by its thick, flat, fixed bezel that gives the watch its distinct presence. The texture of the sandblasted cases works nicely with the grainy dial texture and is nicely contrasted by the rubber straps. In terms of aesthetics, the three watches offer colorful variations of the design style that we know from Unimatic and the Modello Quattro specifically.
You get 300m water resistance and inside is a Sellita SW200-1. This will be a very limited model of just 75 pieces of each of the different colors and will set you back €850 excluding taxes. At the time of writing, all three are available on the Huckberry website.
🫳On hand
Our selection of the best reviews we stumble upon
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⚙️Watch Worthy
A look at an off beat, less known watch you might actually like
The brand's first watch, the MEC 1, features a custom in-house designed manually-wound movement with instantaneous jump hour with a 45-hour power reserve and running at 21,600vph, and with a regulation that they say is outperforming COSC-certification. One of the key things Ramirez says he wanted to contribute by jumping into the industry (pardon the pun), was a new take on the classic jump hour display. But another pillar of the brand's ethos is a focus on design, with an Art Deco reinterpretation in a modern package, inspired by the co-founders' current home cities of New York and Miami.
⏲️Wait a minute
A bunch of links that might or might not have something to do with watches. One thing’s for sure - they’re interesting
There’s been a lot of talk about generative AI and the many industries that it could upend and the jobs it could replace. What I, and probably many others, didn’t expect is for it to have a huge effect on the creation and propagation of conspiracy theories
This epic true story of a war hero, his rescued dog, and their improbable quest to find a living brontosaurus in the Congo is a good read
How about this Alabama kidnapping that’s stranger than fiction: Rousted from his house by an audacious pair of criminals and their kids, a wealthy Birmingham businessman gets taken for the most terrifying—and bewildering—ride of his life
👀Watch this
One video you have to watch today
Rising out of the arid Mexican Desert lies a 900ft ship's prow of elegant limestone, sporting a 9-pitch 5.13 established in the 90s by Jeff Jackson. A cutting-edge Big Wall free climb at the time, this climb shut down hard men for years. Shrouded in mysticism, the bolts rusted and the holds collected dust, until a couple of gals from Canada decided to give it a try
💵Pre-loved precision
Buy and sell your watches. Think of this section like old school classifieds - i don’t guarantee anything except that a bunch of people will see your ad and I’ll put the buyer and seller in touch. Want to advertise your watch? Contact us
LOOKING TO BUY: One of our readers is looking to purchase three very specific watches: an Islander ISL-133 Mother of Pearl, a Sinn 556 Mother of Pearl or a Zelos 300m GMT Mosaic Mother of Pearl. If you’re selling any of these, reach out to us and we’ll put you in touch
FOR SALE: Longines Heritage Skin Diver, box and papers. €1400. Reach out to us and we’ll put you in touch
Want to sell your watch to a community of passionate horologists? Reach out to us and we’ll put your ad up. $15 per listing without photos, $25 with photos. 10 available slots per day, discounts for multiple slots.
Everybody needs a green faced watch in their life. That’s why we have a new giveaway - it’s the Seiko SPB121J1, aka the Seiko Alpinist in a wonderful shade of green. In fact, we’re giving away two of them!
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