Bell & Ross Takes Inspiration From Motorcycles For New BR 03-94, Fears Introduces Two Spectacular New Watches, Vulcain Releases Incredible Lagoon Blue Dial, New Watches From Brellum And Krayon

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. I know I constantly repeat myself by saying that the Vulcain Cricket Nautical might be the best watch ever made, but just look at this new limited edition. It’s incredible.

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In this issue:

• Bell & Ross Shows The New BR 03-94 BLACKTRACK, This One Inspired By Motorcycles Instead Of Planes

• Fears Introduces Two Spectacular New Watches, A New Cushion Case With A Salmon Or Mother Of Pear Dials

• Brellum Releases The Incredibly Limited Pandial LE.5 DD DLC Full Black

• Vulcain Teams Up With Retailer Ocarat For One Of The Best Limited Editions The Brand Makes

• Krayon’s Anywhere Aurora Is Their First Titanium Watch With An Equally Incredible Dial And Price

Today’s reading time: 8 minutes and 37 seconds

👂What’s new

1/

Bell & Ross Shows The New BR 03-94 BLACKTRACK, This One Inspired By Motorcycles Instead Of Planes

Very few brands are as strongly connected to aviation as Bell & Ross is. Sure, the list of pilot’s watches throughout history is very long, but very few have approached it the way B&R has - take an airplane instrument and strap it to a wrist as a watch. Of course, they don’t use actual instruments, it’s all just a gimmick, but you get the point. What you might not have known is that Bell & Ross has for years taken inspiration from another motorised vehicle - the motorcycle. Back in 2011 they teamed up with Shaw Harley-Davidson for the Nascafe Racer Bell & Ross and in 2014 they paid homage to the golden age of speed records on two wheels with the B-Rocket. Now they’re taking inspiration from another motorcycle, the Blacktrack BT-06 for their latest watch, the BR 03-94 BLACKTRACK.

The BT-06 is a motorcyle from notorious French restomod and caffe racer manufacturer Blacktrak that has been styled much more aggressively than the other more retro offerings from Blacktrack and has a fairing that has seen inspiration from stealth planes. This hyper-futuristic and yet retro bike is al about sharp angles and dark colors. Just like the new BR 03-94 BLACKTRACK.

You get a 42mm wide and tall matte black ceramic with a water-resistance rating of 100 metres. It’s a familiar look with a brand new look, one inspired by Sascha Lakic, the designer behind Blacktrack. You still have the curved square of the BR 03 case, but the corners have been dramatically chamfered, giving it an almost octagonal look, while also retaining the signature Bell & Ross screws on the edges of the case.

The dial also looks very familiar, but also different. It takes the standard Bell & Ross bi-compax setup and with just a couple of lines transforms it into something that looks like the dial cluster of a motorcycle. You get hexagonal sub-dials within a frame, all on a matte black dial. In fact, pretty much everything is black about this watch, other than a few red details, an anthracite chapter ring and anthracite and partially skeletonized hands. The dial itself has deep vertical grooves cut into it, just like a motorcycle engine might have to aid cooling. An intriguing detail on the dial is the superimposition of the off-center chronograph second hand over the minute hand, forming the distinct "B" for Blacktrack.

Inside the watch is the BR-CAL.301, an automatic caliber with 42 hours of power reserve. This is a rebadged ETA 2894-2, which is used frequently throughout the Bell & Ross product line, so it’s a workhorse movement that gets around. Te final motorcycle reference comes from the strap, as the watch is delivered on quilted pattern black calfskin strap, the same leather often used on motorbike saddle covers and rider's suits.

The Bell & Ross BR 03-94 BLACKTRACK will be limited to 500 pieces and is on sale now for €6,990. This is a pretty steep markup from the €5,800 the regular ceramic version costs. You do get an entirely new case and dial, but it’s up to you to make up your mind if it’s worth it. See more on the BR website.

2/

Fears Introduces Two Spectacular New Watches, A New Cushion Case With A Salmon Or Mother Of Pear Dials

While you would be forgiven for seeing Fears as a newly started microbrand, you would also be very wrong. The company has been around for over 170 years. Many people do not believe that a relaunched brand should be able to bank on the heritage of the company, but with Fears things are a bit different. Yes, the original Fears shut down in 1976 and hasn’t been seen until it’s revival in 2016, but this is not just a case of an investment fund buying the rights to the name and cranking out vintage-looking watches. Fears has been restarted by Nicholas Bowman-Scargill, the great-great-great-grandson of Edwin Fear. So there’s an obvious through-line of heritage there. But despite this great history, Fears is still willing to try new things. Things like the dial on the two new watches they are just releasing - the Fears Brunswick ‘Aurora’ and Brunswick 40 Copper Salmon.

Both of these watches come in an updated stainless steel case that measures 40mm wide and 11.06mm thick. When I say updated case, I mostly mean the internals of the case as the watches keep their classic cushion shape. What has changed is that you now get a screw-down crown which increases the water resistance to 150 meters. Since this is not a sports watch, it’s nice to see such a high (deep?) water resistance.

The main attraction, of course, are the dials of the two watches. First up is the Aurora, the first time that Fears has used a mother-of-pearl dial. There are two sections of mother-of-pearl cut to different heights and both given a light blue colour treatment that emphasises the iridescent quality of the material. It’s designed to look like the Aurora Borealis, hence the name.

Then there’s the Brunswick 40 Copper Salmon, essentially a 40mm version of the previous Brunswick 38 Salmon, a watch that really catapulted Fears into popularity among collectors. The main difference is that it has the two layered dial with no small seconds subdial that most 40mm Dears watches come with. The outer ring features vertical brushing while the central disc is sandblasted. On top of that, it features black gold hands and numerals.

Inside the watches is a Top-Grade ETA 2824-2 automatic with 40-hour power reserve. It’s a time only piece with central hours, minutes and seconds. The watches can come on either a steel five link bracelet or a brand-new buffalo leather strap.

For now, the three-hand, no-date Brunswick 40 Copper Salmon is available from Fears for £3,550 (inc.VAT) on a strap and £3,750 on a bracelet. The Aurora is an additional £300 for each version (£3,850 and £4,050, respectively). See more on the Fears website.

3/

Brellum Releases The Incredibly Limited Pandial LE.5 DD DLC Full Black

PVD or DLC treated watches are an acquired taste. I’m not a huge fan, I’ll admit it, but have you seen the number of black watches that has been released just in the last few months? There’s dozens of them. And while most are a bit boring, there’s stuff like the amazing Porsche Design Chronograph 1 released just the other day. There’s a new contender in town, the Pandial LE.5 DD DLC Full Black Chronometer from Brellum, a small boutique brand that specialises in manufacturing vintage-inspired chronographs.

And since Brellum specialises in making vintage-inspired chronographs, the Pandial is exactly that. It’s a simple stainless steel case that has a DLC coat on it and measures 43mm. The case itself looks very thin, thanks to two box sapphire crystals on top and bottom. You also get pump-style pushers and 100 meters of water resistance. The dial is all black with diamond-cut hour and minute hands and faceted applied indices.

Inside the watch is the Brellum calibre BR-750-2, based on the tried-and-tested Valjoux 7750. It beats at 28,800vph and has about 48 hours of power reserve and is COSC certified. The movement decoration includes stripes, perlage and blued screws while the blackened rotor is personalised. The watch comes with an integrated Nebur Tec strap with a black DLC stainless steel deployment buckle or a black DLC stainless steel bracelet.

The Brellum Pandial LE.5 DD DLC full Black Chronometer is an extremely limited release of just 33 pieces available globally. Price is set at €3,450 so I assume they will sell out pretty fast. The only place you can buy them on the Brellum website.

4/

Vulcain Teams Up With Retailer Ocarat For One Of The Best Limited Editions The Brand Makes

Since 1947, Vulcain has been associated with alarm complications on watches when they released the first Cricket and have since made the mechanical alarm a signature element of many of their watches. Things got complicated in 1959 when Jaeger-LeCoultre introduced the Memovox Deep Sea, a diver with an alarm. Vulcain knew they needed a response and the result was the 1961 Vulcain Cricket Nautical, equipped with a “triple case back” that acted as a resonance chamber, to amplify the sound underwater while still guaranteeing water-resistance. Why in the world would you need a diver with an alarm? Well, sound waves travel fantastically underwater, so it’s a perfect tool to signal divers what point in the dive they are.

This year the Vulcain Cricket Nautical came back thanks to Guillaume Laidet who is the creative force behind Nivada Grenchen, Excelsior Park and the co-owner of Argon Watches. And as one of the best watches released this year, it’s no surprise that they are coming out with fanatastic limited edition, like this new collaboration with retailer Ocarat they call the Nautical Heritage Lagoon.

The case remains the same - stainless steel with a polished finish and the signature triple-layer bottom that serves as a resonance chamber for the alarm. It measures 42mm wide, 17.35mm thick (don’t judge it, the chamber needs space to amplify sound) and has a 51mm lug-to-lug. The right side of the watch features one push button and two crowns to operate the movement and alarm function. Water resistance is 300 meters.

The dial, however, is just magical. It’s finished in an eye-catching sunray brushed lagoon blue with a very subtle smoky gradient from a black to blue. The Arabic numerals at 3, 6 and 9 o'clock and baton indexes are covered with a thick layer of Superluminova. The watch has a significant and dramatic cutout in it that spreads from the centre all the way to the edge of the dial and allows you to see the copper colored lower layer which features your decompression stops. Creating contrast, the 60 on the dial and the tip of the alarm hand are pink.

Inside the watch is the same movement as the classic Vulcain Cricket, the hand-wound calibre V-10. It has a twin-barrel architecture (one for timekeeping, one for the alarm) and the classic buzzing hammer system for the alarm. It also retains the Exactomatic, a patented device to equalise the friction on the balance-wheel axis in all positions by modifying the Incabloc endstones. Running at a slow pace of 2.5Hz, it can store up to 42 hours of energy when fully wound. The watch comes on a black leather strap that tapers from 22mm to 18mm.

The Nautical Heritage Lagoon is limited to just 25 pieces and will set you back €4,500 (including tax in France). Seeing as how the Vulcain website lists the regular Cricket Nautical for CHF 4,900 or about €5,175 without any taxes, this is an incredible deal. See more on the Ocarat website.

5/

Krayon’s Anywhere Aurora Is Their First Titanium Watch With An Equally Incredible Dial And Price

In 2017, the Krayon Everywhere watch won an incredible amount of awards for it’s complication that allows the wearer to calculate sunrise and sunset times anywhere in the world. In 2020, Krayon followed that model up with the Everywhere which was easier to use, but still as complicated and with equal prize potential. Now, they are releasing a new colorway for the model - an incredible deep green - along with a first titanium case to make it even more wearable.

To be fair, there was one Krayon Anywhere done in titanium, revealed just a few months ago for the Only Watch 2023 auction. But that is a one of one watch. Following releases in platinum, gold and steel, this will be the first regular production Krayon Anywhere in titanium and it measures 39mm wide and 9.5mm thick (which is incredible, when you take into account what the movement can do). Thanks to the grade 5 titanium, the case of the Anywhere Aurora weighs just 50 grams.

The spectacle of the watch is even more intense on the dial which has been colored green with the process of atomic layer deposition which deposits ultra-thin films one atomic layer at a time interspersed with light-reacting copper oxide. This central area of the dial is decorated with a series of longitude and latitude lines to evoke the globe. The hours and minutes are indicated centrally with a sub-dial at 6 o’clock tracking date and month indications, essential for sunrise and sunset calculations.

Inside the watch is the complex in-house calibre C030, a manual-winding movement made with 432 components. It’s just 5mm thick and delivers a power reserve of 72 hours. Beautifully decorated with manual bevelling and undulating waves on the bridges, the screws for the watchmaker to personalise the latitude and longitude bearings are clearly visible. The watch comes on a green grained calfskin strap.

This Krayon Anywhere is a limited edition of 25 pieces and retails for CHF 142,000. See more on the Krayon website.

🫳On hand

Our selection of the best reviews we stumble upon

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Hands on with the Gorilla Fastback Drift Safari Wandering Hours

2/

Louis Vuitton’s new Tambour is a show of the brand’s watchmaking know-how

⚙️Watch Worthy

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

The Ollech & Wajs OW M-110 AS is a nice looking military watch with diving chops and a compass bezel

I mentioned that a skin diver needs to bring unique looks to the party to stand out from the ever-growing crowd. I think the OW M-110 AS does that well and continues the company’s pattern of blending very different colors. Here, the dial is light gray with brushed steel, light green, and white detailing. The date window is nicely integrated at 6 o’clock to look like an hour marker. It’s all very smooth and calming. I don’t think I’ve seen a watch with this palette, yet it works really well. It certainly isn’t garish, too sporty, or boring. Read the whole review on Fratello.

⏲️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’ve seen a couple of videos on YouTube of these wild guys who take superlight planes for camping trips to the most remote parts of the US. It looked like a lot of fun, but it turns out that it’s more than I thought it was. Thrills and spills abound, but do these recreational bush pilots go too far? Don’t skip this one, if for nothing than for the photos.

• You learn something new every day. Today I learned about Keju, China’s incredibly difficult civil service test established by the Sui Dynasty (581-618) and used until the very start of the 20th century. This gruelling affair strengthened the state at the cost of freedom and creativity and left a heavy burden on Chinese society that lasts until today.

• Young basketball superstar Ja Morant has been an electrifying presence since he entered the NBA with the Memphis Grizzlies in 2019. But as his fame and fortune have mounted, so have the controversies surrounding him. For ESPN, Baxter Holmes and Tim MacMahon reconstruct the last year and a half, speaking with Grizzlies employees and Memphis business owners in order to elevate their feature well beyond respectability politics.

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

What better way to start the week with a very short documentary about some badass people - the U.S. Navy members who put together SEALAB, the ultimate underwater habitat that defined the future of saturation diving.

💵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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