Baltic Brings Spectacular Stone Dials To The Prismic; Seiko Adds Astron Tech To Prospex Speedtimer; Bell & Ross' New Horizon; More Expensive Studio Underd0g; New ID Genève And Montblanc Models

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. The summer is coming to an abrupt end here in Southern Europe. Despite the wind and rainstorms, I’ve taken the family for one last coastal trip. So, do excuse any errors or tardiness (yes, I do realise that I already owe the Patreon subscribers two articles, they’re coming later today, you’ll have to forgive me). In the meantime, can we all admire the Red Agate dial? Or am I just crazy?

In this issue:

• Baltic Brings Three Very Special Stone Dials To Their Retro-Futuristic Prismic Line

• Seiko Adds Their GPS Solar Technology To Three Prospex Speedtimer Chronographs

• Bell & Ross Puts An Artifical Horizon On Your Wrist Once Again With The New BR-03 Horizon

• Studio Underd0g Steps Into Higher Price Bracket With Swiss-Powered Salmon Dial 03Series

• ID Genève Unveils Nature-Inspired Elements Collection With Some Pretty Wild Looking Dials

• Montblanc Introduces Star Legacy Green Exploding Star Automatic Date And Chronograph Day-Date

Today’s reading time: 12 minutes and 57 seconds

👂What’s new

1/

Baltic Brings Three Very Special Stone Dials To Their Retro-Futuristic Prismic Line

I had the Baltic Prismic in for review and I liked it quite a bit. It has a sharp and well made case, a pretty nice bracelet and those dials that look equally at home in the 1920 as they do in the future, with a ton of facets and light play, were just fantastic. Everybody expected that Baltic would expand the collection with more colors, but I don’t think anybody expected them to release three stone dials. While stone dials are not surprising by themselves, the choice of stones is. Because that Red Agate might be one of the best stone dials I have ever seen. At any price point.

A lot remains the same with these watches. The case is exaclty the same, measuring 36mm wide, just 9,2mm thick (an even svelter 7,4mm without the double domed crystal) and has a lug-to-lug of 44mm. The bezel, lugs and caseback are made of stainless steel and are embedded onto a Grade 5 titanium case with a slight grainy finish. Water resistance of 30 meters is not ideal, but what can we do.

It’s the dials that are brand new, and boy are they nice. Baltic says that they have dedicated each stone to a city where they have their showrooms. The Green Jade dial embodies the vibrant spirit of New York, the Red Agate dial reflects the dynamism of London, while the Lapis Lazuli captures the timeless elegance of Paris. And sure, this is marketing speak, but you know what? I might be going crazy, but I see it a bit. It could, also, be the Red Agate stone that I have completely fallen in love with. It has a perfect red-orange shade with slight striations running through it horizontally. Because you get stone dials you don’t get the guilloché pattern, but you do get to keep the lied and polished indexes which have an almost pyramid-like shape and the sharp polished dauphine hands. The running seconds display at 6 o’clock remains, but now with no border to it, just barely-there markings for every 5 seconds. Love it!

Inside, no changes. The watch is still powered by the hand-wound Peseux 7001 caliber which beats at 21,600 vph and has a decent power reserve of 42 hours. It’s decently decorated with diamond polished bevels, Côtes de Genève on the bridges, soleillage of ratchet and crown wheel, blued screws and beading of the main plate balance wheel. The watches come on the genius braided mesh stainless steel bracelet or Italian calf leather straps.

The new Baltic Prismic Stone Dials Showroom Edition are limited to 200 pieces each, and won’t be made again. The watches go on sale on Thursday, September 19th at 4PM Paris time and deliveries are expected in early October. The price for all the watches in the same and is €1,250 on leather and €1,310 on the mesh bracelet, both without VAT. See more on the Baltic website.

2/

Seiko Adds Their GPS Solar Technology To Three Prospex Speedtimer Chronographs 

What is a person to do if they like the Seiko Astron tech but think that the Astron line of watches is a bit too futuristic for everyday wear? Well, Seiko have just fixed that issue for you, with the introduction of the SSH167, SSH165 and the 100th anniversary limited edition SSH169 which bring the GPS Solar Chronograph technology to the Prospex range.

If you know the Prospex Speedtimer then you should be well familiar with this watch. It comes in a stainless steel case with a hardened coating and measures 42mm wide, 12.9mm thick and with a lug-to-lug of 49.6mm. There are two case finishes to choose from — the SSH167 and SSH165 come in silver cases, while the SSH169 comes in a black case. On top is a double domed sapphire crystal surrounded by a thing, fixed bezel that matches the color of the dial. Interestingly, Seiko has moved the UTC markings to the outside of the watch, on the outer edge of the bezel, meaning you will have to move the watch around to see the markings. Water resistance is an expected 100 meters.

As dials are concerned, there are three options. The SSH167 features a black dial and bezel paired with bright yellow hands, inspired by a 1972 chrono. The SSH165 is a panda version of the dial with a milky white dial, silver bezel and black accents. Lastly, the SSH169 has a black dial and bezel that match the case, but with gold colored rings on the sub-dials, gold hands, pushers and crown. All three versions feature a 60-minute scale on the perimeter of the dial, facetted hour markers and a three and a half sub-dial distribution. At 12 o’clock is the 1/20th second chronograph sub-dial, at 6 o’clock is a 12-hour chronograph timer that doubles up as a second time zone indicator, at 9 is the days of the week sub-dial and at there’s a tiny sub-dial (the half) at the 4 o’clock position that indicates AM/PM. To make things a bit more busy, there’s a date aperture at 4:30.

Inside the watch is the 5X83 calibre, a movement we know very well from the Astron collection. Like other solar watches, the dial is transparent enough to let light pass through and charge the batteries. GPS means that the watch connects to satellites in order to automatically set the time and adjust to local time zones. But even if keep it in the dark, where it can’t charge or connect to satellites, the watch will continue to run for 6 months and with an accuracy of +/- 15 seconds per month. The watches come on a stainless steel bracelet with no adjustment in the clasp.

The new Seiko Prospex GPS Solar Chronograph will be available in October, with the SSH169 limited to 1,000 pieces and the other two as not limited editions. The SSH167 and SSH165 are priced at €2,300, while the limited SSH169 will go for €2,500. See more on the Seiko website.

3/

Bell & Ross Puts An Artifical Horizon On Your Wrist Once Again With The New BR-03 Horizon

Bell & Ross is best known for their aviation-inspired watches. They took the iconic circle-within-a-square shape of aviation instruments and seemed to just strap them to wrists. Many find their watches unwieldy, others, like me, love most of them. But Bell & Ross is at its best, at least when I love them the most, put actual aviation instruments onto your wrist. They take the already instrument-like shape and turn the dial into a recreation of one of the recognisable instruments. Over they years they turned a monochromatic artificial horizon, an altimeter, a turn coordinator, a gyrocompass, even a multimeter, into watches. Now, they’re remaking the Horizon, this time in the smaller 41mm BR-03 case (instead of the 46mm BR-01) and with more color to make it look even more like an instrument.

Like I said, the new BR-03 Horizon comes in a smaller case that measures 41mm wide and 41mm tall, with tiny lugs, making for a great lug-to-lug measurement. The thickness is also very manageable at 10.6mm and the case is made out of micro-blasted black ceramic. Helping wearability are more rounded corners and more pronounced bevels on the edges, and you still get the four screws in the corners of the squarecicle case. Water resistance is 100 meters.

The dial, fully round in the squareish case, is not just an illustration of the artificial horizon with hands over it. Nope, it uses the actual instrumentation to tell the time. Hour and minute markers are painted in white on the black inner bezel, which is then pointed to with two hands — a white thin hand for the minutes and a black and white-striped hand for the seconds. But what of the hours? The hours are indicated by the central part of the dial, which is split into blue and black to show the horizon, which rotates completely with a black triangle in the centre of the blue part pointing to the time. This also means that one point the blue part will be pointing towards the 6 o’clock position, which in a plane would mean that you are flying upside down. Not an ideal situation. But a cool look.

Inside the watch is the automatic BR-CAL.327 calibre, which is just a rebranded Sellita SW300, an automatic movement that beats at 4Hz and has a 54 hour power reserve. The watch comes on the same strap that other BR-03 watches come on, a black rubber strap with a steel pin buckle with a matte black PVD micro-blasted finish. But more interestingly, you get an additional orange synthetic fabric strap with a Velcro closure, much more fitting to the aviation instrument look.

The Bell & Ross BR-03 Horizon is limited to 999 pieces and priced at €4,900. See more on the Bell & Ross website.

4/

Studio Underd0g Steps Into Higher Price Bracket With Swiss-Powered Salmon Dial 03Series

People lost their cool when Studio Underd0g joined forces with H. Moser & Cie. at Genva Watch Days to release a duo of watches that sold only as a set for $65,000. This was an extreme move for a brand whose ethos was to make incredibly fun, very affordable watches that often reached for tongue-in-cheek jokes and April Fool’s themes. The collaboration with Moser was criticised for being out of touch from their core fan base, but I thought it was a brilliant take on the Swatch collaborations with Omega and Blancpain. Most people who don’t like the Swatch collaborations argue that they are cheapening exclusive brands. What Studio Underd0g and Moser did was the exact opposite - uplift an affordable brand. But on a more serious note, as pointed out by a friend and reader of the newsletter, this wasn’t just Studio Underd0g unveiling the 03Series. It was their announcement that they were moving to a higher price bracket.

And the move made sense. It would give buyers a fantastic Swiss made chronograph movement, give them a bit of breathing room in terms of customer service by lowering the number of watches sold and, most importantly, ween them off of dependance of Seagull movements. The Chinese movement manufacturer recently announced that they would only sell wholesale with supposed minimum order quantities for movements in the five figures, way more than a brand like Studio Underd0g would be able to purchase at once. Like I said, all of these arguments make sense. But at this new price point there’s a lot more competition in both the fun multi-colored watches and more serious pieces, so it will be interesting to see how they evolve their design. Another thing to note is that SU said they will continue releasing 01Series and 02Series watches, meaning that you will still be able to purches affordable Studio Underd0g watchs.

But let’s move onto this first 03Series watch that’s released as a standalone edition. It’s the new Studio Underd0g Salm0n. In terms of case design, you’re looking at a watch very similar to the much cheaper 01Series — a fully round steel case with very short lugs and no bezel to speak of, with a double-domed sapphire crystal that extends from edge to edge. The case measures 38.5mm wide, 13.6mm thick and has a 44.5mm lug-to-lug. However, you will notice something new — the lack of a second pusher for the chronograph. That’s because this is a monopusher movement, which is both rare and cool.

Richard Benc, owner of Studio Underd0g, says that “every reputable brand must have a salmon dial” and this is their entry. However, since this is Studio Under0g, they have to take a comedic approach to the salmon dial. Instead of a salmon color, the centre of the dial gets a grained texture and a silver color that fades to a darker grey, just like the skin of a salmon. Only on the periphery, where you find the tachymeter scale and the oversized 30-minute counter at 3 o’clock do you find the salmon color. I like it.

Inside, like I said, SU ditches the Chinese chronograph in favor of the Swiss Sellita SW510 which is based on the cam-operated architecture of the venerable Valjoux 7750. It’s a monopusher, beats at 4Hz and has a pretty good power reserve of 63 hours. It’s additionally decorated with a ruthenium coating on the bridge that covers the majority of the visible movement. The watch comes on a black grained Epsom Calfskin strap made by The Strap Tailor. Also of note is Studio Underd0g’s now ongoing partnership with Horologium, a company that does repairs and service for indie brands. Horologium carries out independent QC inspection on all watches before they’re shipped out from the UK, which includes demagnetisation, accuracy review in 3 positions and regulation, if necessary.

The Studio Underd0g Salm0n Monopusher Chronograph goes on sale tomorrow, September 17th, and will be available only for 9 hours — from 3PM to 12AM BST. The first 400 will be delivered in October of this year, and all others starting in January 2015. Now, for the price — €1,800. Right at the lower end of SW510 powered watches, but more than three times the 01Series and twice the 02Series. I wonder what the future holds for Studio Underd0g. You can see more on the Studio Underd0g website.

5/

ID Genève Unveils Nature-Inspired Elements Collection With Some Pretty Wild Looking Dials

The Swiss upstart watch brand ID Genéve’s made it to a lot of headlines last year, even beyond watch publications. Mostly because of the high-profile investment they received from Leonardo DiCaprio, most likely due to their rather unique position as a manufacturer that deeply cares about sustainability. But we haven’t heard a lot from them since. A week or so ago they released the cool Circular 1 “Nisiar” Limited Edition, which uses winemaking by-products to create pieces of the watch. But their new collection, the ID Genève Elements is a really refreshing collection with a lot of recycling and cool holographic nano-engraved dials.

This is a new collection for ID Genève, so we get new cases. Made out of 100% recycled stainless steel, the watch measures 37mm wide and 8.8mm thick. It has brushed and polished finishes and a super interesting faceted construction that makes it look both angular and soft at the same time. Sapphire crystals on top and bottom and a 50 meter water resistance is about what you would expect.

But the truly unique thing of the watch are the five new dials which are intended to represent the elements of earth, air, fire, and water, along with the mythical fifth element. The dials are created using a nano-engraving process developed by the Swiss company Morphotonix, which specializes in advanced printing technologies for high-security items such as banknotes. This treatment gives them a unique iridescent appearance that’s impossible to put into words.

Inside, a relatively robust, simple and familiar movement, the ETA 2892 automatic, which also fits into the ID Genève recycling story since these are used ETA 2892 calibers that have been refurbished to factory specifications. The movement beats at 4Hz and has a 42 hour power reserve. The watch can be had on either a three-link bracelet also made out of 100% recycled stainless steel or a hemp-based fabric strap.

The ID Genève Elements collection is being produced as a limited edition of 400 peices per element, with the fifth element being limited to just 50 pieces. The price is set at CHF 3,400. See more on the ID Genève website.

5/

Montblanc Introduces Star Legacy Green Exploding Star Automatic Date And Chronograph Day-Date

While they haven’t been making watches for a long time, not even 30 years, Montblanc has managed to position itself as a maker of fine pieces that often, especially when using the legendary Minerva movements which they bought in 2007, punch way above their price range. The two watches they just released won’t be dropping any jaws, but they are solid pieces that won’t dissapoint, while also being part of their original collection that paid homage to their white star logo that they use on their pens. These are the pretty nice green guilloché-style Montblanc Star Legacy Automatic Date and a Chronograph Day & Date.

The two watches share a case, one that measures 43mm wide and 11mm thick for the time-and-date variant and 14.76mm for the chronograph. The cases have been around for three or four years and are inspired by Minerva pocket watches from the late 19th and early 20th century. Additionally, the onion shaped crown is decorated with the Montblanc logo. Polished on top, brushed on the sides, the cases hold a domed sapphire crystal and have 50 meters of water resistance.

The watches share the dial design as well, despite one being a chronograph and the other a time-and-date model. They both have the same deep green dial which has a stamped guilloché design that mimics the star-shaped Montblanc logo that radiates from a point above the 6 o’clock position. You get rhodium-plated and Super-LumiNova painted applied oversized Roman numerals and sword-shaped hands. Additionally, the Chronograph gets 12-hour and 30-minute totalisers, as well as running seconds display at 9 o’clock with another outline of the Montblanc logo.

Inside both watches are slightly modified Sellita movements. The time-and-date gets the MB 24.17, which is the humble but reliable Sellita SW200-1, beating at 4Hz with a 38 hour power reserve, while the Chronograph gets the MB 25.07, or the Sellita SW500-1, which has the same beat rate but a power reserve of 42 hours. The watches can be had on a stainless steel bracelet or green calfskin leather straps with an embossed alligator print.

The Montblanc Star Legacy Green Exploding Star Automatic Date and Chronograph Day-Date are limited editions of 800 pieces each. The Automatic Date is priced at CHF 3,150, while the Chronograph is priced at CHF 4,705. See more on the Montblanc website.

🫳On hand

Our selection of the best reviews we stumble upon

1/

A review of the Bremont Terra Nova Chronograph

2/

Hands-On with the Hamilton Khaki Field Quartz In 33mm And 38mm 

3/

A review of the Daniel Roth Tourbillon Rose Gold

⚙️Watch Worthy

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

The Circula ProTrail TRTS SE is a testament to the people behind the scenes in watchmaking

To meet with success, a watch should, at the very least, be an excellent product. With so much choice available today, especially at more accessible price points, there’s simply no excuse for putting out something that is materially sub-standard. But beyond that, the more emotional reasons for a watch’s being — its origin story, if you will — and how it fits into and enriches the brand’s collection en masse are important. It isn’t so much that marketers expect a good storyline or a well-justified raison d'être to be enough to sell a watch on its own, but it should be competent enough to not dissuade you from buying, at least.

Read the whole review on Watch Gecko

⏲️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

• Even if you don’t particularly like tennis, or how the game will evolve in the coming years, this piece from the Verge is so incredibly well designed and illustrated that you have to see it.

• The penny may seem like a harmless coin. But few things symbolize the dysfunction of the United States more than the inability to stop minting this worthless currency. So, can America free itself from the tyranny of the penny? A spectacularly fun story.

• A shocking act of violence divides a Minnesota town. John Rosengren unravels the troubled characters and disturbing tensions in vivid detail. This is an anatomy of a murder.

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

I’m a horrible photographer. Don’t let me even take a group portrait at family functions, I’ll manage to mess it up. Which only drives me into deep despair when I see stuff like this. Look at the photo that Pete McKinnon just took. And the video is just as incredible.

💵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: Here’s a crazy request. One of you is looking to buy the Lotēc No. 7.5. Sure, it’s a big ask, but if any of you have one and want to sell, reach out to and I’ll put you in touch

• SOLD: Well, not really new. It’s a great looking mid-90s Tudor Submariner 75090, offered for sale by a member of the It’s About Time reader crew. I love the way it looks and seems to be in great condition. Check it out over on Chrono24.

• 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

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-Vuk