Baume & Mercier Has THE Summertime Complication With The Tideograph; Junghans Remakes 1951 Chronograph; Praesidus Is Back With A Spectacular Dirty Dozen Recreation; And A New Franck Muller

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. One of my favorite watches of 2023 was by the Praesidus Rec Spec MACV-SOG. Now, Praesidus is back with another banger of a military-inspired watch, their take on the Dirty Dozen watches and it will surely turn some heads.

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In this issue:

• The New Baume & Mercier Riviera Tideograph Brings The Ultimate Summertime Complication

• The Latest From Junghans Is A Remake Of A 1951 Chronograph With A Combination Telemeter/Tachymeter Scale

• Praesidus Is Back With A Spectacular Recreation Of The Dirty Dozen, Available With Your Desired Level Of Patina

• Franck Muller Might Be A Bit Late With Their Dragon-Themed Watch, But It’s Also The Best Of Them All

Today’s reading time: 9 minutes and 11 seconds

👂What’s new

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The New Baume & Mercier Riviera Tideograph Brings The Ultimate Summertime Complication

Yes, I am fully aware that it is only March and that we won’t be jumping off of piers into the sea/ocean for at least two more months. And yet… On Friday we had Nomos introduce two summer colors to the Club Campus and yesterday we had the ocean-inspired Oceanguard Hawaii-based Imperial Watch Co. so I’m feeling very summery already. And just in time for that feeling, here comes a new version of the Baume & Mercier Riviera, their sports watch intended for water use. This one is called the Tideograph, hinting at a very niche and very neat complication at 6 o’clock.

The Riviera is by far Baume & Mercier’s most popular model, taking its name from from the French Riviera. As such, it’s supposed to be a sports watch with a very heavy nautical vibe. While the regular Riviera comes in either 39 or 42mm, the Tideograph is a slight departure at 43mm wide and 12.34mm thick. The case has a satin finish with the bezel made out of sandblasted ADLC-coated steel, affixed to the case with four polished steel screws. There’s a single pusher at 4 o’clock, just below the crown, but more on that a bit later. Water resistance is 100 meters, maybe a bit low for an aquatic-themed sports watch, but surely enough.

Unfortunately, this version loses one of the most attractive features of the Riviera - the semi-transparent colored disc that serves as the dial and often has a fantastic pattern engraved in it. Instead, you get a solid blue dial with a satin sunray brushed finish. You get a large Roman numeral at o’clock and rhodium-plated riveted indexes at 3 o’clock and 9 o’clock. They are coated with white Super-LumiNova, offering a blue glow, just like the tips of the rhodium-plated hands. The hands indicating hours and minutes are large and openworked.

At 6 o’clock is a curious dial that might be mistaken for a small seconds or moon-phase at a glance. Instead, it’s one of the rarest complications out there - a mechanical time graph. There are watches out there that track the tides, especially from Casio and Nixon, but these are digital watches as tide prediction is an incredibly difficult thing. Tides differ from location to location, which is why most tide-trackers are digital and need programming to specific locations to be accurate. Baume & Mercier uses the fact that high tides, usually, occur roughly every 12 hours and 25 minutes and divide the indicator into four quadrants and two 12-hour indicators. You use the pusher at 4 o’clock to manually set what point you’re at during the tide cycle at your location and the watch then tracks the tide. The downside is that it’s only accurate for one tide cycle after being manually set to the previous high tide. This makes it a bit difficult to use in places with semidiurnal tides which have two complete cycles per day and are common in east coasts of North America and Australia, the west coast of Africa, and most of Europe.

Inside is the self-winding Baumatic manufacture movement which beats at 28,800vph and has a 120 hour power reserve, which is really nice. The watch comes on Baume’s new woven-effect blue rubber integrated strap which comes with a quick-change system.

The Baume & Mercier Riviera Tideograph is a limited edition of 500 pieces and is available now. Price is set at €5,390. See more on the Baume & Mercier website.

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The Latest From Junghans Is A Remake Of A 1951 Chronograph With A Combination Telemeter/Tachymeter Scale

Being known for their Bauhaus-inspired Max Bill watch that just oozes mid-century style, it’s easy to forget that Junghans has been around since the middle of the 19th century and have been making everything from clocks, flight instruments to pilot’s watches and chronographs in the meantime. Looking past the Max Bill and to 1951, you’ll find a very interesting chrono from Junghans that featured a telemeter and tachymeter scale on the bezel. Using this as a starting point, Junghans is now releasing a modern Meister Telemeter Edition JF, a great looking retro piece that hits all the right spots.

The new Meister Telemeter is actually not that new. Junghans has already brought back a version of the Telemeter but with a silver dial. That one, just like this one, came in a stainless steel case that has a yellow gold-coloured PVD coating, measuring 40.8mm wide and 12.6mm thick. The watch is fully round with the thinnest of bezels that hold down the huge sapphire crystal and short lugs. The pushers are short and rounded, while the case gets a polished finish to match the overall vintage look. Out back is a mineral glass transparent caseback and water resistance is rated at 50 meters.

The dial is domed and not a direct recreation of the original, which came in silver, but rather an homage. The new one has a black brushed finish with a bi-compax setup and snailed sub-dials. Around the perimeter of the dial are the two already mentioned scales - a tachymeter on a black ring and a telemeter on a silver ring with red markings. While you would use the tachymeter to measure your speed, the slightly less often used telemeter is used to measure anything that you can see before you can hear. The best example would be lightning - start the chronograph mechanism when you see lightning, stop it when you hear thunder, and the telemeter will show you how distant the lightning strike was. Applied Arabic numerals denote all the hours except for 3 and 9, and they are filled with beige lume. The hands are lance shaped and gold-plated, just like sub-dial hands. The central seconds hand is painted red and curved to match the curve of the dial.

Inside is the automatic J880-3 calibre, a movement found in other Junghans Telemeter watches. It’s a variation of the ETA 2892 with a Dubois Depraz 2030 chronograph module, a common alternative to Valjoux 7750/3s. It beats at 28,800vph and has a 40 hour power reserve. The watch comes on a black leather strap.

The Junghans Meister Telemeter Edition JF is limited to 150 pieces and available for sale only in stores. The price is set at €2,490, which seems like a decent deal. See more on the Junghans website.

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Praesidus Is Back With A Spectacular Recreation Of The Dirty Dozen, Available With Your Desired Level Of Patina

At the end of 2023., I put together a number of best-of lists of the year. It was an incredibly difficult task to pull off, as there were many, many great watches made last year. But only one watch found its place on two lists - the Best affordable watches of 2023, and My favorite watches of 2023. It was the Praesidus Rec Spec MACV-SOG, a faithful recreation of the legendary Seiko models that MACV-SOG special operations soldiers wore in Vietnam (you can read more about the OG Seiko watches on my Patreon, I just unlocked the MACV-SOG post for everyone). It was a great looking, extremely affordable and solidly built piece that was a must-have for everyone last year. Now, Praesidus is back with another military watch recreations, which is a bit of their specialty. The Praesidus DD-45 is inspired by arguably the most influential military watches to ever exist, the Dirty Dozen, and it comes not just with a great price, but also a very interesting approach to patina.

The Dirty Dozen, if you are not familiar with them, stands for a group of watches developed by 12 watch manufacturers to meed the call from the British Ministry of Defence which commissioned a watch for the troops in 1945. These watches had very strict requirements - they needed to be shockproof, have a shatterproof crystal, chronometer-regulated and waterproof, from which the W.W.W. for “Wrist Watch Waterproof” on the caseback comes from. They also needed to have maximal legibility, with a black dial, white Arabic numerals and a white railroad minute track with luminous markers, along with a small seconds subdial at 6 o’clock. It’s estimated that 150,000 of these wristwatches were delivered to Britain during the second half of 1945, classified for "General Service" but issued to special units, including radio operators, and artillery staff members. They are now desired collectors pieces with the worst condition pieces selling in the $1,500 range and the asking prices for the most desirable pieces creeping up to $10,000.

There are, of course, many, many recreations of the Dirty Dozen watches. But very few take the task as seriously as Praesidus, with their three versions of DD watches. One is a true continuation of the original, while the other two have received a special approach to patina that is just wonderful. All three come in a 38mm stainless steel case that’s 11.8mm thick and has a 45mm lug-to-lug, with a 20mm lug spacing. Before you say: “but the original DD watches were 36mm, so this can’t be authentic”, the original DD Longines from 1945 was made in 38mm. There’s a double-domed sapphire crystal on top, water resistance is 100 meters and the finishing on the case is brushed on the lugs and a combination of brushed and polished on the bezel.

Then, there are the three dials. True to the originals, all three start off from the same point - a grained black dial with white numerals and railroad track and sword- or obelisk-shaped hour and minute hands filled with lume. But the three variations come from the type of finish. First up is the Factory Fresh which is exactly what it says - white details on black, just like it came out of the factory in 1945. Second, there’s the Patina dial, a truly special looking piece that took Praesidus two years to develop. The metal bases and lume of the hands and numerals have all recieved a special chemical treatment. Since they treat each dial instead of painting it, each one has a unique look to it. Lastly, there’s the Tropical, which takes things a step further and gives the dial a beautiful rich brown color.

Inside is the Landeron L24 movement, a clone of the ETA 2824 which beats at 28,800vph and has a 40 hour power reserve. It’s not a particularly attractive movement, so it’s a good thing you get a closed caseback with the W.W.W. engraving. Any of the three version can be had with a choice of straps and bracelets - there’s a green woven Perlon strap, a brown leather strap with a pin buckle and a very cool Bonklip bracelet.

The trio of new Praesidus DD-45 Dirty Dozen watches goes on sale on the 14th of March with a price tag of $875 for the straps and $925 for the Bonklip. I’ll be honest and say that I have major issues with fauxtina - the practice of using aged-looking colors to convey an old look to a watch. I mostly hate it. But here? Here it works perfectly. I think they are fantastic pieces. See more on the Praesidus website.

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Franck Muller Might Be A Bit Late With Their Dragon-Themed Watch, But It’s Also The Best Of Them All

2024 is a huge year in Asian cultures as it is the Year of the Dragon according to the Lunar calendar. If you’ve been reading this newsletter for longer than a few months, you have likely seen the good fun we have had with the many, many dragon-themed watches that brands with a wide range of price points, from Swatch to Roger Dubuis. I think we got up to 20 dragon watches released, and even at that, it seems that I might have missed one or it’s been released after the Lunar New Year. This is the Franck Muller Cintrée Curvex Ryoko Kaneta Dragon Limited Edition, made in collaboration with Japanese artist Ryoko Kaneta who specialises in the manga style. And I have to say, this one might be one of my favorites of the dragon watches.

Other than the dial (and strap), this is basically a Cintrée Curvex. It has the very famous Franck Muller tonneau-shaped case and it comes in a size that the brand claims is for ladies, but can, obviously, be worn by everyone. It measures 32mm wide, 9.35mm thick and has a 45mm lug-to-lug. Also familiar from other Franck Muller models are the spade hands, which work fantastically with the whimsical nature of the watch.

And that’s one of the main reasons why this watch is the best of all the dragon watches - the whimsy. Pretty much every single one of the previous releases took itself incredibly serious. Not the Franck Muller. It comes with a turquoise dial bearing the brand’s signature oversized Arabic numerals. Hiding behind the numerals are Kaneta’s friendly depictions of dragons who look almost like they are playing hide and seek. The dragon characters on the dial are printed in black, white, and aqua blue lacquer.

Inside is the FM 2536-SC, an in-house movement with a bi-directional winding system and a relatively short 42-hour power reserve. The watch comes on a turquoise aligator strap.

The Franck Muller Cintrée Curvex Ryoko Kaneta Dragon Limited Edition is limited to 500 pieces and it’s available in the Asia-Pacific region. Price is set at $13,400. See more on the Franck Muller website.

🫳On hand

Our selection of the best reviews we stumble upon

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A review of the Ming 29.01 Dubai Edition

2/

Hands on with the Traska Commuter Collection

3/

A review of the Unimatic x Massena LAB U5S-ML

⚙️Watch Worthy

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

The Ritmo Mundo Pegasus is truly unlike anything else you have seen before

Boutique brand Ritmo Mundo was launched 22 years ago in Los Angeles by watch dealer, lawyer, and entrepreneur Ali Soltani. Over the last few years, the brand has been very quiet as Soltani and his team strove to determine how to make the watchmaker relevant for today. Over the years, Ritmo Mundo has been both a platform for unique designs, as well as familiar designs inspired by current trends and popular looks. Soltani will probably admit that much of the success came not from his more ambitious creations but rather from popular looks that fit into modern trends and buying tastes. With the Pegasus collection of watches for 2024, Ritmo Mundo attempts to be both original and trendy.

Read the whole review on A Blog To Watch

⏲️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

• I know a guy here in Zagreb, Croatia, where I live who just goes around talking about how he opened the first robot-restaurant in the world. That’s not a restaurant for robots, but rather a restaurant in which robots cook. There are two main issues with that claim: none of it is true - he’s not the first and the chefs are not robots, it’s people placing all the prepared ingredients into a series of chutes that are then pushed out at set times into a pan that has a robotic mixer affixed to it - and the food was mediocre at best. But more importantly, who cares? Why in the world would someone want a robot to prepare their meal, something that more often than not has to be prepared with love and emotion. This is exactly why I sat back and observed the downfall of Zume Pizza which I knew had to happen. Zume promised to revolutionize pizza by using robots to prepare them. In the end, they spent half a billion dollars, made shitty pizza and ran off in the wind.

• Tracy King was twelve when her father was murdered in his Birmingham neighborhood by a group of local boys, but when she reinvestigates his death in adulthood she finds that the version she had been told by police was a fiction. “My childlike notion of heroes and baddies, good and evil, had to dissolve,” King writes, “to be replaced with a complex, messy, sudden insight into who my dad was when he wasn’t being my brilliant father.”

• Why do oenophiles seem intent on declaring just about every year the “vintage of the century?” “I’m not a vintage denier,” the drinks writer Jason Wilson declares as he catalogs some of the most egregious examples—the folks who described 2015 to be Brunello di Montalcino’s “vintage of the century,” and then did it again in 2016—in a way that will placate readers with a rarified palate for wine and those of us who just love language and are gluttons for marketing bluster.

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

Two things about this video. I wanted to post something from Andrew Morgan before, as he is the guy you know as The Talking Hands, the dude who did those amazing Watchfinder videos. Well, he left Watchfinder and has his own channel, so give that a follow. Also, I love the Christopher Ward Bel Canto he is teasing hard in this video.

💵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 Ōtsuka 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