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  • Certina Recreates Cool 70s Diver, The DS Super PH1000M, Bell & Ross Introduces Blue Ceramic BR 03-92, G-Shock Is Auctioning Off Their Most Expensive Watch Ever, New From Bulgari And Greubel Forsey

Certina Recreates Cool 70s Diver, The DS Super PH1000M, Bell & Ross Introduces Blue Ceramic BR 03-92, G-Shock Is Auctioning Off Their Most Expensive Watch Ever, New From Bulgari And Greubel Forsey

The new Certina Diver takes all the tenets of the beloved vintage piece and makes it just a bit more modern

Author

Vuk Radic
November 01, 2023 • Estimated Reading Time: 18 minutes

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. Just as I hit publish on this, Breitling is introducing an all-new Avenger. Unfortunate timing, I know, but expect a full report in tomorrow’s edition! Until then, look at that G-Shock. That’s crazy.

I you like this newsletter, you might consider supporting it directly through Patreon. If you were subscribed, you could have already read my lengthy piece on Only Watch and it potentially being the biggest scam of the watch world. Other subscriber-only articles include the Completely Sterile Secret Watches Of MACV-SOG and my choice of 11 vintage Heuer watches that would make the perfect basis for new TAG Heuer recreations, including a possible MoonSwatch type watch that could actually break the internet.

In this issue:

  • Certina Recreates It’s Cool 70s Diver, The DS Super PH1000M

  • Bell & Ross Introduces Special Blue Ceramic BR 03-92 Diver That Benefits Oceans

  • G-Shock Is Preparing To Auction Off Their Most Expensive Watch Ever Made And It’s Wilder Than You Could Imagine

  • Bulgari Teams Up With Tattoo Artist Mo Coppoletta Release For The Octo Finissimo Tattoo Fuoco

  • Greubel Forsey Unveils Its 8th Fundamental Invention, The Tourbillon Cardan

Today’s reading time: 8 minutes and 16 seconds

👂What’s new

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While they might have lost their edge for a while a few years ago, Certina actually made some of the nicest divers in the 1970s. Try and go look up vintage examples of these watches and you will see that they command quite a premium over their competitors at the time. No wonder - they still look very modern, they were overbuilt and, at the time, they were quite accessible. Certina has recently started getting their diver reputation back, with models like the DS Super PH500M, the DS PH200M, and the DS Action Diver, but now they’re taking the original recipe and freshining it up a bit. The new DS Super PH1000M is a very faithful recreation of the vintage model that has practically the same name and it uses the same tenets - looks great, it’s well built and it’s quite accessible.

Certina doesn’t leave the 70s design behind, but rather brings it into modern times, with a barrel-shaped stainless steel case. It’s a large watch with a 43.5mm width and 42mm lug to lug, making it almost square. Interestingly, while we think of vintage watches as small, this one actually shrinks down the width from the original 44.5mm. The original was also hugely thick at 18mm and Certina points out they have slimmed it down, they just don’t say how much thinner it actually is.

You get a fluted unidirectional bezel with the black aluminium ring, as a good diver should have, and 5-minute graduations all around. The marks and numerals on the bezel, as well as the triangle at 12, are all painted in Super-LumiNova. There’s a a ribbed screw-down crown at 3 o’clock and helium escape valve on the side at 9, which indicates this is a serious diver. It sure is. As the name suggests, it can go down to 1,000 meters.

The watch comes with two dials - orange or black - and has geometric white indices, just like the original. There’s a date window at 3 o’clock and pretty much everything is covered in Super-Luminova.

Seeing as how Certina is part of the Swatch Group, it’s expected that you find the Powermatic 80 inside. This movement has received some criticism for not being easily repairable, but it is low-cost, reasonably accurate and has an impressive 80-hour power reserve, along with an operating frequency of 21,600vph and magnetic field-resistant Nivachron balance spring. The watch comes on either a black rubber strap or a textile strap made of #tide ocean material, closed with a pin buckle.

The DS Super PH1000M with black dial, which I think looks better than the orange, will be part of the regular collection and will sell for the great price of CHF 845. The orange-dial version will be limited to 1,000 pieces and will sell for CHF 900. Unfortunately, the watch is not yet included on the Certina website, but they say it will be available early November, worldwide.

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The premise behind Bell & Ross is very simple. While they have a number of regular models, their bread and butter are watches styled after aircraft instruments - square pieces with a round aperture, as if taken right out of the cockpit and slapped to your wrist. So, naturally, their strongest connection is with aviation. But this does not mean that B&R doesn’t make divers either, and some serious ones at that. Their latest diver, however, continues using the classic BR 03-92 aircraft instrument shape and adds to it a wonderful blue ceramic, fantastic colors and gives back to ocean exploration with a partnership with the Fondation Tara Océan.

The French have a long history with ocean exploration, boviously. And their most modern incarnation is the Tara Ocean, an initiative that explores the sea, studies the effects of climate change and pollution, and anticipates their impacts. The team works of the schooner Tara, an impossibly beautiful 36-meter aluminum-hulled vessel with an incredible story. It was once owned by New Zealand yachtsman Peter Blake who was shot and killed by pirates in 2001 while monitoring environmental changes on the Amazon River.

The watch is named after the boat, the BR 03-92 Diver Tara and it comes in a 42mm matte blue ceramic case with a unidirectional rotating blue ceramic bezel with an orange sector for the first 15 minutes. The watch has a screw-down crown and the a solid caseback (with an image of the Tara), which all adds up to 300 meters of water resistance.

The dial is metal and the same shade of blue, with very legible and bold applied indices and a white minute track on the inner flange. Everything is slathered in Super-LumiNova and there is more orange on the seconds hand. And like other BR 03-92 models have date apertures at 4:30. Unfortunately.

Inside the watch is the BR-CAL.302 automatic calibre, which is Bell and Ross’ version of the Sellita SW300. It beats at 28,800 vph and has a power reserve of 40 hours. The watch comes with two straps, a woven blue rubber or an ultra-resilient orange synthetic fabric.

The Bell & Ross BR 03-92 Diver Tara is a limited edition of 999 pieces and is priced at €5,700. This is a €1,000 premium over the regular black ceramic Diver, but seeing as how Bell & Ross pledges to donate a portion of the profits from each watch sold to support the Tara Océan Foundation’s critical initiatives, it might be worth it. See more on the Bell & Ross website.

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Pretty much every online forum has had a person new to watches come in and ask what the perfect first and affordable watch for them would be. And if they have even a hint of a sport in their life (seriously, even if they play chess), the inevitable answer will be G-Shock. That’s because are incredibly though, durable, capable and, above all, affordable. This makes it the perfect starter/beater watch for anyone. G-Shock is celebrating 40 years this year and there’s been a barrage of new releases. However, none of them like this one, the one-off G-Shock G-D001. It will be auctioned at Phillips this December and Casio is hoping it will become the most expensive G-Shock ever sold.

Becoming the most expensive G-Shock ever sold should be an easy task, right? All you need to do is pump the price up to a few thousand dollars. Wrong. The current most expensive G-Shock is the predecessor to this one, with both being part of the Dream Project line. The G-D5000-9JR, or Dream Project #1, was a solid 18k yellow gold G-Shock that was made in 35 pieces to celebrate the 35th anniversary and each sold for $70,000.

Dream Project #2 is also made out of 18K yellow gold and G-Shock has thrown everything at it, including claims that it was co-developed using artificial intelligence, to create a watch unlike any other in their lineup. It most closely resembles a CasiOak, but that would be an understatement. 45.1mm wide, 14.3mm thick and with a 57.3mm lug-to-lug, it’s a beast. The case, bracelet, and dial are all heavily skeletonized, with a combination of brushed and polished surfaces. Despite having numerous cutouts, it’s also a porker, at 355 grams. Just to put that into perspective, a regular Rolex Daytona weighs about 130 grams. A platinum Daytona, one of the heaviest luxury watches out there weighs 285 grams.

It’s not just the case that is skeletonized, but also the dial. The base is a metal main plate, the cogwheels are made out of silicone, and the bearings are actual rubies to ensure greater accuracy. The movement inside is accurate to ±15 seconds per month when it cannot connect to the Multiband 6 radio waves to self-adjust.

The watch will show up at the Phillips New York Watch Auction on December 9th and 10th and it is estimated to sell for between $70,000 and $140,000. Which is just ridiculously awesome. What’s even more amazing is that people predict it will sell way above estimate. See more of the watch on the G-Shock website.

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Watch brands love to collaborate with tattoo artists. AP, Hublot and a handful of customised Rolexes all come to mind. And every single one of them comes out “meh” at best. Call this new one “meh” as well, call it ugly if you want, but seeing as how the Buglari Octo Finissimo is one of those rare perfect watches, they can only be made better. And I love the latest Bulgari Octo Finissimo made in collaboration with retailer Chronopassion and tattoo artist Mo Coppoletta, the rose gold Octo Finissimo Tattoo Fuoco.

This isn’t the first time the three have teamed up. In fact, it is the third and we should be expecting a fourth at one point. The first two were named Aria and Aqua, Air and Water in Italian, while this new one is named Fuoco, which means ‘fire’ in Italian. See a pattern? It’s the four basic natural elements, with earth the only one being left to cover.

The Fouco limited edition comes in a rose gold case that measures 40mm wide and an incredible 5.15mm thin. The Roman-inspired case of the Octo Finissimo is known for it’s thinness, so that’s no surprise. The entire case is laser engraved with a fire motif and the same drawings extend to the dial and bracelet, making a uniform canvas for the tattoo artist. With no indices or branding, Coppoletta’s design takes advantage of the swirling pattern on the left to indicate the running seconds.

Inside the watch is the very familiar extra-thin mechanical self-winding movement BVL 138, with a platinum micro-rotor. It beats at 21,600vph and has a power reserve of 60 hours. There’s a transparent caseback so you can see the very nice decorations that include Côtes de Genève stripes, chamfering, and circular-graining.

The Octo Finissimo Tattoo Fuoco is a limited edition of 15 pieces and is available exclusively from Chronopassion, Paris. It retails for €60,000. See more on the Chronopassion website.

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Back in 2004, at Baselworld, a duo of watchmakers, Robert Greubel and Stephen Forsey, showed off their first watch. It was the Double Tourbillon 30° and from that second on, they have been lauded as the masters of the toubillon. It was a previously unseen design - two tourbillon cages that resulted in the greatest accuracy and consistency possible. Greubel Forsey continued to develop the complication with models like the Quadruple Tourbillon and Tourbillon 24 Seconds, and now they are introducing their 8th Fundamental Invention: the Tourbillon Cardan.

The new Cardan might not be as radical as that first watch they made, but Greubel Forsey really does continue with the innovation. The swiveling tourbillon has a flying appearance suspended by two arched cardan rings or gimbals. They optimized the approach that pocketwatches held in the vertical orientation had, and now added a tilt of the rings oscillating between +30° to -30° in conjunction with the fixed 30° incline of the tourbillon. Altogether, the design offers a better ratio of angular velocity to chronometric performance.

It’s also the fastest tourbillon GF has made. Most tourbillons have a revolution of 60 seconds but this one makes a full revolution in just 16 seconds. In addition, it incorporates a large balance wheel that has been designed, developed, and made in-house to optimize oscillations. The whole tourbillon assembly is situated on the lower left of the stunning dial, while the time display is in the opposite upper right corner. It almost looks like an 8, standing for the 8th Fundamental Invention.

All of these complications require a lot of space. That’s why it comes in a 45.5mm case with a domed sapphire crystal, giving the watch a sizable height of 18.15mm. Big, yes, but made out of titanium to keep the weight very low. The watch comes on a vegan leather strap with a titanium folding clasp.

The Greubel Forsey Tourbillon Cardan will be made in only 11 pieces over the next five years and will retail for €532,000. See more on the Greubel Forsey website.

🫳On hand

Our selection of the best reviews we stumble upon

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⚙️Watch Worthy

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

The black/grey configuration, however, uses unaged and crisp white Superluminova throughout the entire dial. I personally would have done it the other way around, pairing the black configuration with the faux-aged elements instead of the blue configuration. I also would have rendered all luminous elements in the same tone of lume, rather than have contrasting coloured hour indices. Luminous hues aside, each also has a date complication that is executed with a white-on-black disc that blends well into each dial. Having said that, with the Azur 300m, the aperture has moved from the 3 o’clock position to the 4:30 position – a switch up some may not favour. While I am usually a dial purist who prefers date windows at 3 or 6 o’clock, this is a 4:30-positioned date complication done well. Considering the fact the entire date wheel is subtly visible at all times, the position is less of a factor for me. I also think the dial looks more balanced with 12 hour indices rather than a truncated one to make space for the date aperture. Read more on Time & Tide.

⏲️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

  • The cover story of this month’s The Nation features a fantastic look at the last word of Louis Armstrong. For decades, Americans have argued over the icon’s legacy. But his archives show that he had his own plans.

  • Growing up "in a house where murder was born," Mikal Gilmore spent a lifetime haunted by real-life horror, but has come to understand his love of the original Universal movie and Mary Shelley's book — it's the story of his family

  • Survival food has become a booming business in the wake of the pandemic. For Wired, Jacopo Prisco samples the “ready-to-eat” lasagna in reporting on this disturbing trend.

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

OK, I messed up. I was pretty sure that November 1st was Winston Churchill’s birthday. And I wanted to share with you a tradition many people embark on on his birthday, but I got it all wrong. His birthday is November 30. But I’m not one to let a good story go to waste, so listen up.

Churchill obviously led an intense life. And yet, most of his day was spent either working form bed, drinking, napping, smoking or drinking. With some time taken off from that schedule to eat, drink and sleep. And there are thousands of people around the world who recreate his daily schedule every day for his birthday. So, consider this video, in which someone attempts to drink as much as Churchill, as your signal to get ready for November 30th, the day when you should try to live like Winston Churchill.

💵Pre-loved precision

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