AP Releases 34mm Royal Oak In White Ceramic, The 35mm PRX Gets An Arty Update, Bulova Launches Quartz Jet Star With Sweeping Seconds And New Watches From Nivada Grenchen, Ulysse Nardin And Escudo

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In this issue:

• Audemars Piguet Introduces New 34mm Royal Oak In White Ceramic

• Bulova Launches New Jet Star With A 262kHz Quartz Movement And A Sweeping Seconds Hand

• IFL Watches Gets Around To Modifying The PRX 35mm With Arctic And Midnight Sky Concepts

• Nivada Grenchen Teams Up With seconde/seconde/ and Time+Tide For One Of The Best Uses Of Emojis On A Dial

• Ulysse Nardin Has Launched The Final Versions Of Its UFO Table Clock

• Escudo Updates The Ocean Seacrest Collection With Great Looking Silver Inox and Silver Rose Variants

Today’s reading time: 8 minutes and 54 seconds

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👂What’s new

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Audemars Piguet Introduces New 34mm Royal Oak In White Ceramic

While it’s not explicitly stated so on their website, I’m willing to bet that Audemars Piguet created this new Royal Oak Selfwinding 34mm in white ceramic with their female customers in mind. It’s small, it has pink gold on the dial and a much more gentle look than the regular Royal Oak. I’m also willing to bet that you will soon see a bunch of men rocking this great looking watch. If for nothing, then for the fact that AP doesn’t make that many white ceramic watches, and they really should.

Twenty-two watches in AP's catalog use black ceramic. But there are only four white ceramic watches in the lineup. Of those four, two are grand complications that are almost impossible to buy, one is this year's Only Watch release and the white ceramic perpetual calendar is no longer listed either. So, this seems to be the only white ceramic AP you will be able to buy. Apparently, white ceramic is much harder to produce than black ceramic.

The 34mm ceramic case is satin-finished with brushed chamfers. The silvered Grande Tapisserie dial has pink gold applied hour-markers and Royal Oak hands with luminescent coating, just like the black version. The caseback is also pink gold, and through it, you can see the Calibre 5800 was designed specifically for the Royal Oak 34 mm, unveiled back in 2020. The watch is delivered on a fully ceramic bracelet.

The Royal Oak Selfwinding 34mm in white ceramic is available now for $53,000. I have a sneaking suspicion that this will be a huge hit for the brand - it’s different, it’s small, it’s quirky, everything rich buyers are looking for now. See more on the AP website.

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Bulova Launches New Jet Star With A 262kHz Quartz Movement And A Sweeping Seconds Hand 

I would venture a guess that we are all past brining down quartz movements. Despite the fact that they almost murdered the entire industry, it seems that today they co-exist along with mechanical watches and appear in two types of watches - those on the lower end of the price range as quartz movements can outperform any mechanical watch when it comes to cost-to-accuracy; and on the other end, quartz can show up in super-high end watches to achieve the pinnacle of accuracy and show off how far technology has come, as is the case with the Grand Seiko SBGN023 which retails for almost $5,500.

Then there’s the new Bulova Jet Star that gets their Precisionist High Precision Quartz Movement which beats at 262 kHz and gets a completely fluidly sweeping seconds hand and an accuracy within mere seconds per month for a very fair price.

The Jet Star is a watch that Bulova has yanked out of their archives and it’s based on a very handsome design from 1973. The 40mm stainless steel case is octagonally shaped and faceted, with a primarily mirror finish on the face and vertical brushing on the sides. The watch has a modest 50m water resistance, but with its 70s look, it doesn’t seem like a rugged sports watch that inspires ocean swimming.

Bulova is releasing a pair of non-limited edition and one limited. The standard editions are a steel model on a bracelet outfitted with a rich red dégradé sunburst dial, and a gold-toned PVD stainless steel model on a leather strap matched with a “butterscotch” gold-toned dégradé sunburst dial. The limited edition model, however, which includes both a bracelet and a strap, has patriotic red, white, and blue accents sprinkled over a largely sombre silver-toned sunburst dial.

It’s a great looking watch but it’s also one where the quartz movement inside might be more interesting than what’s outside. Bulova has made an in-house HPQ Precisionist movement for years now, but they were all in much, much larger watches. This is the first time it’s placed in a (somewhat) manageable case size. With its three-pronged quartz crystal, the 262kHz movement boasts a sweeping seconds hand that beats 16 times per second and is accurate within five seconds per month. The eight time increase in frequency does not drain the battery any more than a regular quartz movement.

The Bulova Jet Star is available now for purchase, and can be found on the Bulova website. Price is set at $595 for the regular red and gold-tone versions, while the silver limited edition is priced at $695.

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IFL Watches Gets Around To Modifying The PRX 35mm With Arctic And Midnight Sky Concepts

I’m risking my life when I type this out on the internet: I’m not a huge fan of the Tissot PRX. I get it, I’m just not a fan. It’s retro, it’s affordable, it doesn’t have a horrible movement (although, don’t ask watchmakers about the Powermatic 80, they won’t have nice things to say) and it’s made in huge numbers so everyone can have a nice watch. I just find it a bit boring. Even more so if it’s the quartz version.

Interestingly, it seems that I wasn’t the only one to find it a bit dull. IFL Watches, a Swedish design studio studio that perhaps started out as just a watch customizer but has now turned into a cult sensation that turns watches into their own mini works of art, took the quartz version of the Tissot PRX 35mm and jazzed it up a bit. Enough to make it a very beautiful watch, despite the price tag. But more on that later.

So, IFL Watches took the quartz 35mm PRX and reimagined its flat white and blue dials with enchanting artwork of the Arctic and Midnight Sky Concepts. The dials, devoid of personality when compared to the automatic PRX which have a tapisserie dials, have now been given a new lease on life with hundreds of tiny colorful dots.

The brilliance behind these lies in the artistry and expertise that transforms a classic timepiece into a canvas that comes alive with colors. Painted by hand, each dial showcases incredible attention to detail. They employ an abstract pointillism technique with such finesse that it draws your gaze and holds it captive. I always assumed that IFL Watches painted dials using a “splatter” technique, so I was surprised to find that each dot on the custom dial was individually and purposely painted.

Now the issue of the price. The regular 35mm quartz PRX will run you about EUR 375. The IFL Watches Arctic and Midnight Sky Limited Edition Concepts retail for EUR 1,090. That’s a huge jump in price, yes. But two things are important when considering the price. First, you get a piece unique, however ridiculous that might sound. It’s a hand painted dial in a PRX. Second, pricing is all about supply and demand. IFL has hard core fans and most of their customized watches sell out pretty fast, despite the high markups. So, maybe it’s not for you, but there are others who will buy one. If you want one, however, it seems that they are still available on the IFL website.

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Nivada Grenchen Teams Up With seconde/seconde/ and Time+Tide For One Of The Best Uses Of Emojis On A Dial

Rolex caught a lot of flack at Watches and Wonders this year with their Day-Date Emoji Puzzle watch. For some inexplicable reason, Rolex released a watch that replaced the dates on the date wheel with emojis. While not that crazy, the watch came off as your old uncle trying to be cool with his use of emojis in the family group chat. But it seems that there’s one major collaboration out that that can make emojis on watch faces work.

Announced back in November, but unavailable until now, the Australian watch blog Time+Tide is releasing a limited edition box set of three Nivada Grenchen watches customized by the legendary watch modifier seconde/seconde. Due to supply chain issues, it took them 9 months to produce them and there are only five of what they call the ChaosMaster Collector Trios now available for sale.

The Set is comprised of the Nivada Grenchen Chronomaster Aviator Sea Diver in three variations, with two out of three dials in new colours. The basis is the same, a 38.3mm stainless-steel case with alternating brushed and polished finish and a bi-directional bezel with the aluminium insert printed with two different scales. The more obvious one is the countdown timer, which can be equally useful for aviation and dive purposes alike. The more subtle printing is the 12-hour scale, allowing you to use the Chaosmaster for tracking a second time zone – you’ll just have to keep track of your AMs and PMs.

The three versions are called Swirly, Sunglasses dude and Sigh of Relief, after the three emojis that seconde/seconde/ placed on the respective dials. Swirly has an off-white dial and black bi-compax subdials with the emoji with swirly eyes placed in the 9 o’clock subdial instead of the seconds hand. Sunglasses dude gets a tropical dial with matchin tropical subdials, with a sunglasses emoji instead of the seconds hand. And finally, Sigh of Relief gets a standard black dial with just the emoji in the 9 o’clock.

Movement-wise, the watch is powered by the manually wound version of the Sellita SW510. The 23-jewel calibre provides 63 hours of power reserve, beating at 4 Hz. This is the two-register version of the cam-operated SW500, with a 30-minute counter at 3 o’clock and running seconds at 9.

There still seem to be some for sale on the Time+Tide website, so if you like them, head on over there. Swirly and Sunglasses Dude are limited to 5 pieces and Sigh of Relieve, which was part of the original ChaosMaster collection is limited to 33 pieces. Pricing is as follows A$9,500 / US$6,475 / €5,800 and Time+Tide says this includes all GST / VAT taxes and duties, but please check if this applies to your region as well.

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Ulysse Nardin Has Launched The Final Versions Of Its UFO Table Clock

Ulysse Nardin is marking an end to its unusual timekeeper, the UFO with a final release. The final iteration of the UFO table clocks is made up of three limited editions, each dedicated to a different retail partner: green for Yoshida in Japan, ice blue for Bucherer, and champagne for The Hour Glass in South-East Asia.

The UFO was first introduced back in 2021 to celebrate the brand’s 175th anniversary. In the same year, Ulysse Nardin also presented an orange variation as its entry for Only Watch. Much like the preceding models, the final editions measure 263mm in height, 159mm in diameter, and weigh 7.2kg each.

Housed inside the blown glass case and aluminum base, the clock is capable of operating three different time zones via its manual-winding UN-902 caliber. Made up of 675 components, the movement is equipped with an extra-large oscillator and beats at an hourly rate of 3,600 vibrations.

Produced in a limited run of 30 pieces per colorway, Ulysse Nardin’s final UFO timekeepers will retail for $68,600 USD (excluding taxes) at its corresponding retailer for each region. For more information, head over to Ulysse Nardin’s website.

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Escudo Updates The Ocean Seacrest Collection With Great Looking Silver Inox and Silver Rose Variants

I LOVE when I discover a new watch brand. That doesn’t mean that Escudo is a new brand. It’s just a brand that’s new to me. I heard the name, I just never looked into their watches. And boy was that a mistake. These things are amazing! The brand has recently update their Ocean Seacrest line with two new versions - the Silver Inox and Silver Rose, essentially recolours of the existing range featuring white dials and silver mirror bezels.

And the bezels will be the first thing you see. Mirror polishing is a type of finishing that is not necessarily uncommon in watchmaking but neither do you see it all the time and this is most similar to Grand Seiko’s Zaratsu polishing, which is also known as black mirror polishing. Look at the photo of the watch. That is not a black bezel. It’s a silver bezel so highly polished that it more often looks black or white, depending on the angle.

Both versions come in a 39mm wide and 12.8mm thick polished stainless steel case that has a 200 meter water resistance and both have matte silver dial. The main difference between the two comes from their accent colors. The Inox has a silver coloured bezel ring, crown and hour markers while the Rose is bronze. Additionally, the Inox has white lume and the Rose has beige.

Inside the watch is the Escudo Calibre 1488, in essence a modified Sellita SW200-1. It’s subtly decorated and has a 38hour power reserve , 26 jewels and a frequency of 28,800 A/h or 4hz. I couldn’t exactly find how the movement was modified, other than the subtle changes in its look, as all the basic specs are the same. However, the SW200-1 is a robust movement that’s easily servicable. Both watches come on leather straps, grey for the Inox and brown for the Rose, as well as additional tropic rubber straps. You can see more on their website.

🫳On hand

Our selection of the best reviews we stumble upon

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Up Close And Personal With The 2023 Rolex ‘Le Mans’ Daytona Ref. 126529LN

2/

Hands-On With The Completely Redesigned Casio G-Shock Mudman Range

3/

A review of the Chopard Mille Miglia GTS Power Control Bamford Edition “Desert Racer”

⚙️Watch Worthy

A look at an off beat, less known watch you might actually like

The Rosenbusch Quest is a truly accessible integrated-bracelet sports watch

The words of the day here are “asymmetric hexagon”. Indeed, the bezel, dial, chapter ring and crystal have six sides, and one distinctive element of the Quest is the fact that the sides are not symmetrical. In other words, some of the sides are longer than the others, notably those at the top (12 o’clock) and bottom (6 o’clock) are shorter than the other ones. This is smart as it makes the fixed bezel taper down towards the integrated lugs. Seen from a profile, the case is pleasant to look at given the two large chamfers that make up the case sides. The top one is brushed while the bottom one is polished, which matches the brushed upper section of the bezel and its polished lower section. This alternation of finishes is playful and helps in making the case look better on the wrist. As it is customary for this type of watch, the fixed bezel is complemented by six screws to match the hexagonal shape of the case, so is the case-back whether one gets the see-through version or the full one.

⏲️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

• Two weeks after the end of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s mutiny, people are still asking how was all that possible? The answer is simpler than it may seem: Prigozhin, a violent, out-of-control criminal, had been breaking numerous laws of the state and morality for decades and getting away with it, all thanks to Vladimir Putin’s personal involvement in his fate. This is a great criminal and psychological portrait of Putin’s chef.

• Mont Blanc is Western Europe’s tallest mountain. For four young English climbers it held the promise of adventure, camaraderie, and escape from mundane worries. But on January 9, as Vanity Fair reports, two of them plummeted nearly half a mile to a brutal death, leaving questions to be answered.

• When a group of canyoneering beginners were swept away in a flash flood last September, it was the worst disaster in Zion's 97-year history. And it illustrates a growing question: How far should national parks go to keep their visitors safe?

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

A bit of a different video than the usual YouTube documentary stuff. My buddy who owns Marnaut, the Croatian-based microbrand that makes great diving watches has started making videos going into details about how his watches are made. It’s a great look behind the scenes of how a microbrand functions and makes decisions. Head on over to Marnaut to see more of his watches.

💵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

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