Christopher Ward's C65 Super Compressor Elite Is All Retro, All Colors; Airain x seconde/seconde/; Delma Celebrates 100th Birthday; UN Has Diamond-Studed Divers; Parmigiani's Gold Tonda PF Trio

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. A slightly better day when it comes to watches today. Christopher Ward makes some interesting watches, but they are best when they step outside their usual model lineup. Like with this one.

In this issue:

• Cristopher Ward Goes All In On Retro Style, Bright Colors On The New C65 Super Compressor Elite

• Airain Teams Up With seconde/seconde/ On The Very Literal Type 20 “Up in the Air”

• Delma Celebrates Big Birthday With The New Heritage Chronograph 100 Years Limited Edition

• Ulysse Nardin Equips The Diamond Set Diver Atoll With A Truly Unique Chrysocolla Dial

• Parmigiani Releases Trio Of Fleurier Tonda PF Automatic 36mm In Two Tone And Rose Gold

Today’s reading time: 11 minutes and 7 seconds

👂What’s new

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Cristopher Ward Goes All In On Retro Style, Bright Colors On The New C65 Super Compressor Elite

Aside from being one of the pillars of modern British watchmaking, Christopher Ward has also established itself as a brand that is exceptional at implementing a set style. Just look at the number of model lines they have and then look at how perfectly they develop these collections, adding colors and editions until they reach their logical conclusion. However, every now and again, they go off the rails and do something crazy. Like, for example, the C1 Bel Canto, an incredibly avant-garde watch that offered a complication, a chiming mechanism, seen only on 5+ figure watches for an incredibly low price. Now they’re introducing a new model - actually a recreation of a one-off watch they made in 2020 - that again stands apart from the rest of their model line. This is the new C65 Super Compressor Elite, a watch that hits pretty much at every thing I like about watches - a 70s iconic case design, a decompression scale on the dial and pretty funky colors.

I said that this was a recreation of a model from 2020, but even more-than-casual fans of Christopher Ward might have trouble remembering which. That was the C65 Super Compressor, which they still make but requires a lot of digging through the website to find. That watch also featured the 70s super compressor case but with a bit more reserved dial that was a sunray blue and a couple of details in red. But that watch wasn’t special just for its interesting design, it was actually a functional super compressor case. What does this mean? In recent years, the super compressor-style has become increasingly popular. Watches started including two crowns and internal timing bezels, but without the main advantage of the super compressor, and that is the watch getting more water tight the deeper a diver goes as the pressure pushes on the caseback which pushes an internal ring which, in turn, compresses the gaskets, sealing them even better than at surface pressure. But what CW did was very similar to the old Ervin Piquerez (EPSA) cases which almost every dive watch from the sixties and seventies utilised them, meaning that it was an actual super compressor, but with modern tech inside.

And it’s this cushion shaped case with the super compressor that CW uses for the new C65 Super Compressor Elite. The case is made out of stainless steel and measures 41mm wide, 13.75mm thick and has a 47.12mm lug-to-lug with a 22mm lug width. It has an overall brushed finish, with a few polished details on the bevels and the thin bezel. On top is a box-style sapphire crystal. The watch has two crowns on the right side - the bottom one sets the time and the top one operates the internal dive-time bezel, both of which crew down. Out back, there’s an exhibition case back with a central solid medallion with the original EPSA Super Compressor diving-helmet logo in relief. The caseback allows you to see the compression spring, held down by an orange aluminium ring, that makes the super compressor possible. Interestingly, water resistance is 150 meters, which sounds a bit low.

Underneath the crystal, a whole variety of colors. On the very edge of the dial the white diving bezel which has blue numerals and an orange triangle at the 12 o’clock position. The dial is still sunburst blue, but it now has a gradient from light blue on top to a darker blue on bottom. Not that you’ll see much of the dial, since it’s covered with a light blue and orange decompression scale. This, of course, is perfectly useless in a world of computer diving, but I love the look a lot. The hands are simple batons - steel for the hour, orange for the minutes, both filled with lume, while the seconds hand has an orange tip.

Inside is the well regarded Sellita SW300-1 which has COSC certification in this watch. Thanks to the certificate it’s accurate to -4/+6 seconds per day, it beats at 28,800vph and has a 56 hour power reserve. The watch comes on a choice of two straps - a light blue Aquaflex rubber strap or a blue and orange rubber Tropic strap, both of which look amazing - or CW’s stainless steel Bader bracelet.

The C65 Super Compressor Elite is available for pre-order now at a price ranging from €1,795 to €1,960, depending on the strap or bracelet choice and should be delivered by the end of July. See more on the Christopher Ward website.

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Airain Teams Up With seconde/seconde/ On The Very Literal Type 20 “Up in the Air”

The story of Airain is one of the good ones. The brand was a powerhouse in the 1950s and 60s, when it supplied watches to the French air-force but it, like so many others, didn’t survive the quartz crisis. It was completely gone until 2020, when it was revived by the same person who revived Lebois & Co, Tom van Wijlick. His work with both brands has been a perfect example of how to rework a brand. Airain’s first watch was the Type 20 chronograph, just as it should have been. Now, Airain is teaming up with seconde/seconde/ whose cultural cache has waned a bit after almost releasing one collaboration per week last year. It seemed as if he would work less, more thought out and provocative. This collaboration isn’t that, but could have been an amazing use of colors in an otherwise serious watch. If only seconde/seconde/ didn’t jump the shark, once again.

On the outside, nothing changes. You still get the vintage-inspired chronograph case with angular lugs and a round shape that measures 39,5mm wide. The case has a combination of polished and brushed surfaces, with a domed sapphire on top, surrounded by a bidirectional 12-hour countdown bezel. On the right side is an oversized crown and vintage-looking pushers. Water resistance is 50 meters.

The dial also retains a lot of the original. This means it has a black base, Arabic numerals that are painted in yellow lume, just like the hands. It has the same bi-compax setup with a 30-minute chronograph counter at 3 o’clock and running seconds subdial at 9 o’clock. But now, instead of having those sub-dials in black or a contrasting color, this is where seconde/seconde/ did his thing. Taking inspiration from both the name Airain and the flight history of the watch, he paints two windows out into a blue sky with 8-bit pixel art clouds. The 9 o’clock subdial also pays a bit of homage to French heritage by showing the very top of the Eiffel tower. It’s a perfectly fun intervention into an otherwise serious watch and then seconde/seconde/ goes and messes it up. He underlines the ‘Air’ in Airain in light blue and this is something that he does wrong so often - he needs to learn that customers are not stupid and don’t need every single thing pointed out to them. Yeah, we get the Air reference in the purpose of the watch and the sub-dials, just leave us alone!

Inside is a very interesting movement. Made by Manufacture AMT, a high-end branch of Sellita, it’s called the AM2 and a manually wound column wheel chronograph with a flyback function. It has Incabloc shock protection, beats at 28,800vph and has a 63 hour power reserve. The watch comes on a suede leather strap.

The Airain Type 20 ‘Up in the Air’ is limited to 88 pieces and pre-orders start on July 14. Deliveries will happen in two batches, the first 44 in August and the second 44 in September. The watch is priced at €3,450. See more on the Airain website.

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Delma Celebrates Big Birthday With The New Heritage Chronograph 100 Years Limited Edition

While not a household name to the broadest public, Delma has a cult following among enthusiasts of rugged and capable tool watches. And they have been doing that for 100 years now. Delma has recently introduced a really nice watch that takes on their icon from the 1980s, but now they are looking to the 40s for a model to mark the centenary. The new model is the Heritage Chronograph 100 Years Limited Edition, which builds on the immense success of their now sold-out Bicompax Heritage Chronograph, which itself was based on some of their greatest chronographs.

The design of the watch is very much vintage inspired. A fully round case, sharp and angled lugs and a lot of polished surfaces make for a great look. The steel case measures 43mm wide and 15.7mm thick. On top is a domed sapphire crystal, with a minimal bezel to allow an unobstructed look at the dial inside. Vintage-style pushers are on the side and water resistance is a decent 100 meters.

The dial gets a sunray brushed base, with three sub-dials that have a circular snailed finish. The postiion of the sub-dials is very characteristic of Delma chronographs - 6, 9 and 12 o’clock, while at 3 o’clock you’ll find the Delma logo and the day-date opening. The Arabic numerals are applied, outlined in red and filled with cream SuperLuminova C3. The hands are cathedral-shaped (well, without that characteristic cathedral hour hand) and palladium-nickel plated. On the very edge of the dial you get a Tachymeter and Telemeter scale with red accents.

Inside is the ETA Valjoux 7750, a cam-style chronograph movement that beats at 4Hz and has a 42 hour power reserve. It’s nicely decorated with rhodium plating, perlage and blued screws, as well as a custom rotor with Côte de Genève. The watch comes on a black leather strap with red stitching.

The Delma Heritage Chronograph 100 Years Limited Edition is limited to 100 pieces and priced at €2.913 (this very specific number makes me thing this is with my 25% included, so your pricing might vary). See more on the Delma website.

 4/

Ulysse Nardin Equips The Diamond Set Diver Atoll With A Truly Unique Chrysocolla Dial

The chances that you will go diving with a watch that has a diamond studded bezel are very slim. And yet… it exists. Not only does it have a diamond bezel, it also has an incredible teal-blue-green dial made out of chrysocolla stone, making it not exactly the most readable thing in the world. And yet, a watch like this exists and it’s pretty fun - because why not. This is the new Ulysse Nardin Diver Atoll in 39mm.

The 39mm Diver has always been a bit of acanvas for excess for Ulysse Nardin. They made them in several diamond-equipped versions, and they were all as controversial as this one. The recycled stainless steel case is 39mm wide and 11mm wide. It has a brushed finish with a polished bezel surround. Speaking of the bezel, it’s unidirectional and has an insert with a 60 minute scale - just the cardinal quarter markings - as well as 40 brilliant-cut diamonds. It’s delightfully silly. Water resistance is a surprising 300 meters.

The dial is where things get even weirder. The base is made out a silicate mineral called chrysocolla, known for its blue, turquoise and green colors and a couple of brown patches mixed in for good measure. Since it’s made out of natural stone, no two dials will be the same, so that’s cool. Also, there are more diamonds on the dial, 11 of them to mark the hours, with a trapezoid applied marker at the 12 o’clock position. There’s a cutout in the stone above the 6 o’clock diamond to display the date, and the hands are lumed.

Inside is the UN-816 in-house automatic movement which has a silicon escapement wheel and anchor and a 42 hour power reserve. The watch comes with both a white alligator or a white rubber strap.

The Ulysse Nardin Diver Atoll is limited to 10 pieces and is priced at CHF 15,000. See more on the Ulysse Nardin website.

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Parmigiani Releases Trio Of Fleurier Tonda PF Automatic 36mm In Two Tone And Rose Gold

After an extravagant excursion from Ulysse Nardin above, we’re back to a luxury brand that’s just chipping away at its most classical models, adding more and more options. For a while I didn’t really understand what Parmigiani Fleurier was all about, but now I get it. Despite having years-long partnership with Bugatti that ended a few years ago, Parmigiani could perhaps best be described as the horological equivalent of Aston Martin - super classical, built with the best materials available and priced accordingly. Parmigiani will rarely shock you, but they will always deliver. Now they have a new trio of 36mm Tonda PF watches, one in two tone steel and rose gold and two rose gold models.

The 36mm Tonda PF is exactly what most people will think of when they think of Parmigiani. It measures in at 36mm wide and 8.6mm thick. It has the recognisable knurled bezel and teardrop-shaped lugs. Water resistance is 100 meters.

First up is the 18k rose gold model with an integrated gold bracelet with an incredible 232 diamonds set in the bezel and on the outermost links of the bracelet. Go look at the close-up pictures, it really is incredible. The dial has the traditional Tonda PF hand-guilloché barleycorn pattern on the dial, here rendered in a sand color and with 12 baguette-cut diamonds as indices. Very similar is the rose fold model which comes on a gold bracelet, but with only 84 brilliant-cut diamonds set in the bezel and no diamonds on the bracelet. It gets the same texture dial, but in a color that Parmigiani calls warm grey, but is in fact anthracite. Last is the two tone model which has a stainless steel case and bracelet, with just a few details in rose gold. The dial is a very light beige and it too has diamond markers.

Inside all three models is the in-house automatic calibre PF770. It has a 60 hour power reserve and a 22k gold skeletonized rotor. Like I said, the watches come on integrated bracelets which expertly hide their five-link construction.

The Parmigiani Fleurier Tonda in rose gold with 242 diamonds retails for €88,600; the rose gold model with a warm grey dial for €71,800; and the two-tone for €35,900. See more on the Parmigiani website.

🫳On hand

Our selection of the best reviews we stumble upon

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A review of the Citizen Forza Chronograph

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Hands on with one of the most impressive watches of the year, the Singer Divetrack

3/

A review of the full-gold Cartier Santos

⚙️Watch Worthy

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

The Apiar Invenire brings the best of British engineering to watchmaking

The case is really the star of the show here. It is by far the most unusual element of this watch, made from grade 23 titanium, the finish achieved through a 3D printing process called additive manufacturing. The simple explanation is that a laser accurately melts small amounts of a metal powder into a desired shape. It is usually used in the production of aerospace components, in the medical industry, and in the high-end automotive space as it creates parts by using as little material as possible, making them both lightweight and strong.

Read the whole review on Time and 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

• Science has come a long way in uncovering and understanding some of the mysteries of Earth. But we don’t know where and how life emerged on the planet. “For more than two centuries,” writes Ferris Jabr, “Western science has re­garded the origin of life as something that happened on or in Earth, as if the planet were simply the setting for a singular phenomenon, the manger that housed a miracle.” This thought-provoking read explores the idea that the living creatures on Earth—humans, animals, plants, microorganisms—aren’t just products of evolutionary processes over millions of years, but rather participants in their own evolution. In other words, we are Earth. Jabr recounts his descent deep into the Earth’s crust, witnessing the very hot, very active interior of the planet: a subterranean environment teeming with ancient intraterrestrial microbes that may well have helped form the continents and laid the foundations for terrestrial life.

• For Eater, Jaya Saxena interviews Estelle Lamotte, Sodexo’s director of the Olympic Village, and senior executive chef Jeff Leidy to learn how they’ll meet individual food requirements for 15,000 athletes who must fuel medal-winning performances at the Paris olympics. Anyone have three million bananas to spare?

• If you think buying a car is painless, you’ve never bought a car. As David Dayen reports for The American Prospect, though, most of the pain comes after the price has been settled; that’s when the F&I (finance and insurance) folks take over. The violations range from egregious price inflation to illegal bundling. That’s why Jase Patrick became a car dealer in the first place, and why he offers his services now to would-be buyers—so he can help people avoid getting fleeced the way he was back when he bought his first truck.

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

Driving embargoes for the new generation of 911 models have lifted and the videos are here. I have a feeling that this new 992.2 model GTS, the first with a hybrid system that easily puts it at power levels beyond Turbo S models of just a few years ago while virtually not adding any excess weight, will go down in history as one of the classic models among already classic models.

💵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