Blancpain Releases Fifty Fathoms In Steel; Timex Expands Deepwater Reef With Composite Case; Depancel's Quirky Série-R01 Calendrier; De Bethune's DB25NC Monopusher Chronograph; New F. P. Journe

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. This is a pretty straightforward issue, with some pretty interesting watches. Not much more to add.

In this issue:

• Blancpain Releases The Iconic Fifty Fathoms Automatique In Steel

• Timex Expands Their Deepwater Reef Collection With An Even Cooler Composite Case

• Depancel Brings The Full Calendar Option To The Quirky Série-R01 Calendrier

• The De Bethune DB25NC Monopusher Chronograph Puts Their Iconic Movement Into A Smaller Case

• F. P. Journe Goes All Dark With The New Chronomètre

👂What’s new

1/

Blancpain Releases The Iconic Fifty Fathoms Automatique In Steel

Come on Blancpain, I’m still not done reporting on the novelties from Watches and Wonders, and here you are releasing something really cool, distracting me. Last year, the brand took their iconic Fifty Fathoms and shrunk it down from 45mm to 42mm. But what was missing from that release was the simplest of the versions. We got it in titanium and a pretty wild rose gold, but no steel, the most ubiquitous of dive watch materials. Well, that’s changing now as Blancpain is introducing the 42mm Fifty Fathoms in steel.

This watch is very familiar to fans of the Fifty Fathoms, but in an all new steel package. The new stainless steel case measures 42.3mm wide, 14.3mm thick and a relatively accommodating 47mm lug-to-lug, with a combination of brushed and polished surfaces. I love it when a tool watch, a diver, has a polished surface. There’s something utterly ridiculous about it, but so cool. On top is a chunky sapphire crystal, surrounded by the notched bezel that has a black domed sapphire bezel insert with lumed 60 minute markers. Water resistance is 300 meters.

There are few, if any, changes to the dial. It has a black sunray brushed base that has applied hour markers and Arabic numerals at the cardinal positions. Those are painted with a slightly green shade of lume. There’s a date aperture at the 4:30 position, which is not the greatest choice, but it’s nicely integrated with a black date disc.

Inside, you’ll find the in-house calibre 1315A. It beats at 4Hz and has a a pretty great 120 hour power reserve. That’s five days, to save you the math. It does so with the use of three series-coupled barrels. It also features a silicon balance spring for resistance to magnetic fields and has a blackened gold rotor. The watch can be had on one of four strap options — stainless steel, sailcloth, tropic rubber, and NATO.

The new 42mm steel Fifty Fathoms is available now as part of the regular collection, with prices ranging from €14,000 to €16,200, depending on the strap you get it on. See more on the Blancpain website.

2/

Timex Expands Their Deepwater Reef Collection With An Even Cooler Composite Case

Last year, Timex killed it the Deepwater Reef 200 collection, a set of divers that you could get in a stainless steel case with either a regular quartz or a quartz GMT, or in a titanium case paired with an automatic movement, all offered at pretty incredible prices. It was one of the best sports watches of the year. And now, Timex is expanding the collection with a brand new case, one made out of XCF, a proprietary material that Timex claims is lighter than aluminum and stronger than traditional resin.

The previous Deepwater Reef releases measured 41mm wide and 13mm thick, which were pretty great dimensions for a diver, especially with the stubby lugs the case had. The new XCF version comes in a similarly shaped case, but slightly larger at 43mm wide and 12.5 mm thick. The increase comes from the fact that resin needs more mass to be as tough as metal. And XCF is exactly that, a resin that’s a mix of polycarbonate with extended carbon fibers. On top is a sapphire crystal surrounded by a black 60-minute unidirectional dive bezel. The 200 meter water resistance remains the same.

The dial remains exactly the same, with a black background and a really nice wave pattern grooved into the dial. It has lumed plots on all 12 positions, with no date indicator, which is a requirement for a ISO certified dive watch. The hands are lumed, just like the plots, with a red seconds hand.

Inside, you’ll find an unnamed quartz time-only movement, so I can’t tell you more about it. The watch can be had on either a black or blue rubber strap, embossed with the Timex logo.

The new Timex Deepwater Reef 200 XCF is available now, priced at €259. See more on the Timex website.

3/

Depancel Brings The Full Calendar Option To The Quirky Série-R01 Calendrier

There’s something liberating in setting very strict boundaries to your work. If you were to start a watch brand that makes cool watches, you would have no idea where to start and where to end. If, on the other hand, you decided to make automotive-themed watches, then things get much clearer. Depancel is a brand that did just that - focused on cars and racing, which led them to a whole range of interesting watches. Like, for example, their rectangular Série-R. Now, they’re introducing a full calendar movement and two new PVD covered dials.

The case of the Série-R might look familiar, almost like the TAG Heuer Monaco with its slab sides, but there are some obvious differences. First, this is a rectangle, one that’s supposed to mimic the look of a radiator grille (hence the curved top of the case and the straight bottom). Somebody will, however, have to help me out with the size of the watch. Depancel says the size is 40mm x 36mm, which I would interpret as being 36mm wide and 40mm long. But this seems to be a measurement without the lugs, as they state the lug-to-lug to be 48.5mm and the thickness is 13.3mm. The finishing on the steel case is brushed with nicely polished facets and water resistance is 50 meters.

The dial gets the familiar Série-R tri-compax layout, but the three sub-dials are now used to display the day, month and 24-hour indicator, with a date indicator between four and five. There are two versions available — a blue and white — with a sunray finish in the interior circular section and vertical ridges outside. Both versions get a red central seconds hand, with the blue having a silver and red stripe on the left side of the dial and the white getting a red white and blue stripe.

Inside, you’ll find the Miyota 9120, which is not a movement we see all that often, which is a shame because it’s super interesting to have this calendar setup. It still beats at 4hz and has 40 hours of power reserve, just like all 9-series Miyota movements. The watches come on a choice of brown or black leather straps, with a choice of a pin buckle or a deployant for €30 more.

The new Depancel Série-R01 Calendrier is available now, priced at €850, which is a fantastic price for such a unique looking watch. See more on the Depancel website.

4/

The De Bethune DB25NC Monopusher Chronograph Puts Their Iconic Movement Into A Smaller Case

De Bethune has a few signature moves that they will forever be able to capitalize on. One are their very cool skeletonized hinges mounted on a pivot on the centre of the case, allowing them to flex. This new watch doesn’t have those. It does, however, have their other signature move — the monopusher chronograph, a complication that showed up in their first watch in 2002. Now, they’re bringing it back in a new, smaller, case. This is the new DB25NC Monopusher Chronograph.

The new case is made out of grade 5 titanium and measures 40mm wide and a handsomely svelte 9.15mm, a great thickness for a chronograph. You still get those openworked lugs, just fixed on this watch instead of hinged. You get sapphire crystals on top and bottom, and water resistance is 30 meters.

The silver dial is extremely subdued and elegant, unlike many of the watches put out by De Bethune these days. It has a large 60-minute counter at 6 o’clock with barleycorn guilloché, while the central disc is decorated with a radiating guilloché pattern. Around the perimeter is a blue minutes track and blue Arabic numerals, pointed to by a blued hand.

Inside, you’ll find Denis Flageollet’s hand-wound calibre DB3000, a column-wheel chronograph with an instantaneous 60-minute counter. The escape wheel is in silicon and you get 60 hours of power reserve, with a beat rate of 4Hz. Decorations include hand-beveled and polished steel parts, hand snailed barrels and a blued titanium balance wheel with white gold inserts. The watch comes on a blue alligator leather strap.

The new De Bethune DB25NC Monopusher Chronograph is priced at CHF 80,000. See more on the De Bethune website.

5/

F. P. Journe Goes All Dark With The New Chronomètre Furtif

Last year, F. P. Journe put out a piece unique for the Only Watch auction in tantalum that took a very dark approach to time telling. Now, as part of the lineSport collection, the brand is releasing the Chronomètre Furtif, a very similar watch with an even darker dial and a slightly different material, one that is harder than steel, nearly as dense as gold, and extremely shock resistant.

So, the 42mm wide and 9.5mm thick case is made out of tungsten carbide, the material that gives it the characteristics mentioned above. But as a nod to the Only Watch piece unique, the bezel, crown, and caseback are made out of tantalum. The same can be said for the bracelet — it’s made out of tungsten carbide with a folding titanium clasp that’s capped in polished tantalum.

The dial uses a white gold base with a mirror-polished anthracite grey Grand Feu enamel on top. The dark theme is continued with laser-frosted numerals and minute track, making it nearly invisible unless viewed at an angle. The hands — elongated, teardrop-shaped, and rhodium-plated — are dark grey, making them only slightly lighter than the background. The only thing that really stands out here is the white seconds hand.

Inside, you’ll find the stunning new manual-winding Calibre 1522. It’s made out of 18K rose gold and features, for the first time for F. P. Journe, an in-line geartrain and central direct seconds. There’s a power reserve indicator at 12 o’clock and a moonphase at 6 o’clock, both placed on the movement side. The movement beats at 3Hz and has 56 hours of power reserve.

The F.P. Journe Chronomètre Furtif is released as part of the permanent collection and priced at CHF 85,000, without taxes. See more on the F.P. Journe website.

⏲️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

• An interview with a tinge. Richard E Grant’s “old-school reserve and biting humor” makes this a rather prickly exchange, but it is all the more fascinating for that. With Grant so unguarded, we gain a real insight.

• NBA athletes who retire generally find life to be easier than it was while they were active. Not so much with Dwyane Wade. For The Atlantic, D. Watkins traces Wade’s path from South Side Chicago to the heights of success, at which point the athlete’s real work began—on himself. An uncommonly vulnerable and forthright profile.

• You’ve probably heard of the internet of things, which is connectivity within everyday objects that can receive and send data. (Think smart TVs, dishwashers, fridges, cars, etc.) For Audubon Magazine, Ashley Stimpson reports on the internet of animals, offering five examples of bird species who, with small censors attached, can help humans learn more about weather patterns, protect whales from ship strikes, nab bird poachers, and more.

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One video you have to watch today

I just so glad that Petrolicious is back with such incredible videos.

Thanks for reading,
Vuk