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- Casio Gives The Casiotron A Sleek Black And Gold Case; Tutima Glashütte Protect Elephants; Albishorn's Type 10 Chronograph, An Imaginary Ancestor of the Type 20; Panerai's Destro Luminor 8 Giorni
Casio Gives The Casiotron A Sleek Black And Gold Case; Tutima Glashütte Protect Elephants; Albishorn's Type 10 Chronograph, An Imaginary Ancestor of the Type 20; Panerai's Destro Luminor 8 Giorni
Kind of a slow day today as the industry is keeping an eye on the GPHG tomorrow
Vuk Radic
November 12, 2024 • Estimated Reading Time: 18 minutes
Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. Albishorn has released just two watches to date, and I can already say that they are in my top 10 favorite brands. Name a better idea than releasing vintage watches that were never made, but should have. Freaking cool.
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In this issue:
Casio Continues 50th Anniversary Cellebration With A Very Sleek Black And Gold Version Of The Casiotron
Tutima Glashütte Releases The Mara Safari Chronograph To Protect Elephants And Their Habitat
Albishorn Comes Up With The Type 10 Chronograph, An Imaginary Ancestor of the Legendary Type 20
Panerai’s Latest Release Is A Destro Version Of The 8 Giorni Luminor
👂What’s new
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Almost a year ago, Casio kicked off the celebration of their 50th anniversary with a number of redesigned models. But among them, was a brand new release. Actually, no. It wasn’t a brand new release. It was a revival of one of their most iconic watches of all time, the 1974 Casio Casiotron QW02. Now, as the celebratory year nears its end, Casio is releasing a new, much more sleeker, version of the Casiotron in black and gold.
In terms of size, it remains the same — 39.1mm wide, a bit portly at 12.3mm thick and with a really nice lug-to-lug of 42.7mm. The case is still made out of stainless steel, but it’s no longer silver. Instead, you get a black case with a very glossy finish on the edges and brushed on top. On top is also a polished gold bezel that surrounds the dial.
Speaking of the dial, the aperture surrounded by the gold bezel is fully round, but inside is not a regular dial. Instead, you get a black dial plate with white pinstripes that houses the solar cells that charge the batter, with a large cutout for the squarcicle display. The display has a range of fuctions, many more than the original. Sure, it has the same annual instead of perpetual calendar function, but it also comes with Bluetooth phone connectivity for automatic time changes, radio time-signal reception in different time zones, alarms, a stopwatch, countdown timer and an LED backlight.
The watch comes on a stainless steel bracelet that is very close recreation of the bracelet of the QW02. It’s very square, very 70s and has brushed segments on the outside and polished and raised central segments. But now it’s rendered in all black, with one all gold link and looks very cool.
Some bad news here — I couldn’t get all the info. While the new Casio Casiotron TRN50ZE-1 is limited, I couldn’t figure out to how many pieces. The previous version was limited to 4,000 pieces, so it could be a similar number. And I couldn’t figure out exactly when they go on sale. The Casio website doesn’t have them up, while others do have them in stock. The price is set at $600, so good luck hunting one down. See more on the Casio website.
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Tutima, a heritage watch brand from the iconic city of Glashütte in Germany, is one of those brands I wish would put out way more watches so that I can write about them more. They have a wide range of styles, from vintage to modern fliegers, dress watches and sporty chronographs. Their latest release is based on the very modern chronograph, a successor to the official pilot’s watch they developed for the German Air Force and NATO back in the 1980s, the M2 Chronograph. This particular one is called the Mara Safari Chronograph and is made to support the Mara Elephant Project in the Serengeti/Maasai Mara ecosystem.
The Mara Safari Chronograph takes on the very familiar look of the M2 collection and it’s very, very cool. Made out of titanium, it’s a large watch that measures 46.5mm wide and 16mm thick, with a pearl blasted finish. It should, however, be much wearable than its size suggest thanks to the strap integrated into the case with no lugs. But the size, material and finish make sense, as you would expect a very rugged watch when you deal with elephants in the wild every day. No, really, this is not a gimmick — the head of the Mara Elephant Project, March Gross, wears a Tutima every day, one that he inherited from his father who wore it as a ranger and pilot in Kenya. It’s a very interesting case that has a cushion shape and a significant all-metal bezel on top which overhangs the case. It’s unidirectional, dramatically scalloped, notched and has lumed pips every 5 inutes. On the side are two very unique chrono pushers which sit in line with the case and are covered with neoprene inlays making it both non slip, and protected from accidental knocks.
The dial comes in a light matte olive color that just screams safari. It looks like the same green you would like to have you Land Rover Series I painted. It’s a tri-compax with a 12 hour counter at 6, a running seconds at 9 and a 30 minute timer at 12. At 3 o’clock you’ll find a date aperture with a white date disc inside. The two sub-dials at 12 and 6 are sunken, have a snailed surface and red hands. The central hour, minute and seconds hands have green bases, but are painted white.
Inside is what Tutima calls the calibre 310, but it’s an automatic chronograph movement based on an ETA/Valjoux 7750. It beats at 4Hz and has a decent 62 hour power reserve. Interestingly, despite being covered with a metal caseback with the Mara logo, it has a grey rotor with a gold seal. The watch comes on a rubber strap that matches the strap.
The Mara Safari Chronograph is a limited edition of 250 pieces and it’s priced at €4,600. The watch is not up on the Tutima website yet, but you might want to check it out on their Instagram.
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OK, so this is very cool. Do you, by chance, remember the Maxigraph? It was released just a few months ago by a new brand, Albishorn, in collaboration with studio Massena LAB. Albishorn was set up as a brand that will create “imaginary vintage” watches, and that’s exactly what they did with the Maxigraph — a hypothetical 1930s wrist chronograph that might have been commissioned by a competitor in the 1939 Bol d’Or regatta on Lake Geneva. Well, they didn’t stop there. Their new model is the Type 10 Chronograph. And yeah, it’s exactly what you think it is — a predecessor of the iconic Type 20 Chronograph pilot’s watch. The Type 10 would have been made back in the 1940s, as a missing link between airplane instruments and wrist watches for military pilots.
The new Albishorn Type 10 seems to take on the same case as the Maxigraph but with a completely new look thanks to a few key details. The case is made out of stainless steel and measures 39mm wide, 12mm thick and has a lug-to-lug of 47.7mm. On top is a box-shaped sapphire crystal surrounded by a steel bi-directional bezel that overhangs the case and has a glossy black DLC and a fully graduated 60-minute scale with lacquered numerals and beige lumed hash marks at 5 minute intervals. The case lacks the regular crown and pushers setup you would expect. Instead, the crown sits at 10:30 and underneath it is a large rectangular red aluminium monopusher to activate all of the chronograph’s functions. Water resistance is 100 meters.
Then, there’s the dial, which has one of the coolest setups you’ll find in any chronograph. You get a fairly conventional black grained base with large beige lumed Arabic numerals and hands. Where things get very wild is the position of the sub-dials. Now the crown and pusher make a lot of sense, because if you rotate the picture of the watch so that the crown is pointing to the right, you’ll see that it has a bi-compax setup with sub-dials at 9 and 12 o’clock. But the way they place the movement in the case, the sub-dials end up at 4:30 and 7:30, which is just spectacularly cool.
Inside is a proprietary chronograph movement, built on a modified 7750 architecture. This comes as no surprise as Albishorn is headed by Sebastien Chaulmontet, a known chronograph specialist who has worked as Head of Innovation and Marketing at Sellita and head of innovation and product development at Manufacture La Joux-Perret SA, while also in charge of the revival of Arnold & Son and Angelus. This movement beats at 4Hz and has a 64 hour power reserve. It also has a patented chronograph function dot indicator at 12 o’clock, usually hidden by the lollipop chrono hand. The indicator displays the three chronograph states – reset, start and stop — in three different colours —black, red and white. The watch comes with two leather straps, one black and one beige.
The new Albishorn Type 10 Chronograph is not supposed to be a limited edition, but when the watch went on sale in late October, only 25 pieces were released. More will be coming soon and you can join the waitlist. I assume that the list is wrong, because the CHF 3,950 price tag is pretty fair for such an original watch. See more on the Albishorn website.
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Panerai certainly wasn’t the first watchmaker to do a destro version of their watch. Destro, of course, meaning that the watch is made to wear on the right wrist, suiting left-handed people. This would usually mean that the crown would be switched to the left side of the case in order to point towards the hand when worn on the right wrist. They weren’t the first mostly because the early days of watches weren’t as uniform, with crowns showing up all over the place. But as standardization moved most crowns to the right, a need popped up among tool watches for a different crown orientation. And Panerai responded to this need in the 1960s, with their reference 6152/1. Today, destro watches are just plain cool, at least I think they are, so say hello to the new Luminor Destro Otto Giorni PAM01655.
You know the cushion case of the Panerai Luminor really well by now. But now, it gets left-handed crown with the same huge and instantly recognizable crown guard that clamps down. It’s a brushed and polished steel case that measures 44mm wide, with short lugs that make it more wearable than the size would suggest. A good thing is that water resistance is not sacrificed here like it has been lately on some other Panerai models, so you still get 300 meters of it.
The dial is also as classic as can be, with a sandwich construction that is filled with beige lume for the numerals underneath the black base. The thin pencil-shaped hands are also black, with beige lume inserts. The one big change is the position of the small seconds hand, which now sits at 3 o’clock instead of 9 o’clock.
Inside the watch is the very familiar calibre P.5000 which beats at 3 Hz and pays homage to the requirements set on Panerai in the past by the Italian navy. Back then Panerai used the Angelus Caliber SF240 to provide the watches for the navy with 8 days of power reserve, and that’s the exact amount of very impressive dates that the P.5000 gets. The watch comes on a light brown calf strap with beige stitching.
The new Panerai Luminor Destro Otto Giorni 44mm PAM01655 is part of the regular collection and will be available in November. It’s priced quite aggressively at $8,100. See more on the Panerai website.
🫳On hand
Our selection of the best reviews we stumble upon
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🫳On hand
Our selection of the best reviews we stumble upon
The Monbrey MB2 Kenkyū does come in seven different dial variations. This is split across two main dial variants – ‘jewel steel’ and ‘mother of pearl’ – with three and four colour options for each texture respectively. This collection gets its name from the era in Japanese history when the first shogunate was established: a short span of nine years which began in April 1190 and ended in April 1199. The ‘jewel steel’ texture’s moniker is a reference to tamahagane, a type of steel traditionally used to craft Japanese swords. I would describe this texture as being in-between laval rock and meteorite as it comes with a pronounced rock-like appearance whilst showcasing many sparkling reflective areas.
⏲️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
Lake Lanier, the largest lake in Georgia, is one of the deadliest in the U.S. Since its formation, 500 people have died there, nearly 200 since 1994. About eleven million visitors descend upon its shores every year, about the same number as visit the Louvre. But the lake’s popularity doesn’t explain the high number of fatalities. Lake Allatoona, forty miles to the west, receives close to the same number of visitors every year but has only one-third of the deaths. So, is Lake Lanier haunted, or what?
My dad and I love to make up conspiracy theories. The crazier the better. And we have a good laugh about them. But I’ve always wondered what it’s like to live with one of those conspiracy theorists that make the theorizing their entire persona. Who are convinced that what they believe is true and it drives them halfway mad. Well, this is exactly what happened to Lucille Howe’s husband. He fell down the conspiracy theory well and she writes about it for the Guardian and it’s a fantastic read.
So, if paths take you to Washington D.C. sometime between now and early January, make sure to stop at the National Gallery, where they have put up the Paris 1874 exhibition. According to The Atlantic, this will challenge everything you know about impressionism and reveal its dark origins.
👀Watch this
One video you have to watch today
I’ve been a fan of comedian Tom Segura for a while now. And it’s great to see him get into watches. Like, really get into 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: 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
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