Citizen Celebrates The Citizen With Washi Paper Dials; Tissot's Oversized MotoGP Chronos; MeisterSinger's Pastel Dials; Bōken Introduces The Breacher; M.A.D.2 Is Here, Inspired By 90s Clubing

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. The more you look at the M.A.D.2, the more details you will notice that set it apart from anything else on the market. These things really are a bargain.

In this issue:

• Citizen Celebrates 30 Years Of The Citizen With Two New Beautiful Washi Paper Dials

• Tissot Has A Couple Of New Oversized MotoGP-Inspired T-Race Chronographs

• MeisterSinger Brings Four Pastel Colored Dials To The Simple Neo

• British Microbrand Bōken Introduces New Breacher Collection

• MB&F Launches The M.A.D.2 Designed By Eric Giroud And Inspired By 90s Club Culture

👂What’s new

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Citizen Celebrates 30 Years Of The Citizen With Two New Beautiful Washi Paper Dials

It’s getting a bit repetitive, but I’ll say it again — Citizen is on one hell of a role. They are covering all the bases, moving into spaces left empty by Seiko, coming out with very modern designs, affordable entry level mechanical models and high end tool watches. But at the top, they have The Citizen collection. Sure, it’s one of the more clumsy naming schemes in the watch world, but think of The Citizen as Citizen’s Grand Seiko. The high-end collection was launched in 1995 and while they make pretty impressive mechanical movements for it, it’s their quartz movements that are truly impressive. They launched with a watch that was accurate to within 5 seconds per year and by 2010, they got the accuracy down to a pretty impossible 1 second per year. Now, to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the collection, The Citizen is launching a duo of limited editions with nature-inspired Tosa Washi paper dials and a light-powered Eco-Drive movement.

Both of the watches come in decidedly modern cases with a classic look. A round body, beveled lugs, chamfered edges and an overall brushed surface with polished details make it suitable for everyday wear. As does the size — 38.3mm wide and 12.2mm thick. Both are made out of Citizen’s Super Titanium which gets their Duratect hardness coatings, which is a lot of marketing speak that says it’s a light titanium case that can’t be scratched easy. The AQ4100-22L comes with a Duratect Platinum treatment, while the AQ4106-00A gets a Duratect Sakura Pink coating that looks like rose gold. Water resistance is 100 meters.

But it’s all about the dials. And The Citizen is taking a page from the Grand Seiko playbook and strongly linking their high-end models to nature. Not only is the collection called Iconic Nature, their marketing copy reads quite familiar. For example, the AQ4106-00A has a dial is “inspired by images of the early morning in spring”. They go on to say how the long fibers in the Unryushi paper “create unique swirling patterns, evoking fluffy white clouds floating in the sky soon after the break of dawn” while the “gentle white and pink hues express the colors of the sunrise and the subtle tones of cherry blossoms”. On the other hand, the AQ4100-22L “evokes a summer night with characteristic Japanese indigo blue on Washi paper”. Both of those sound kind of weird, but you won’t see me complaining because they are beautiful. You also get beautiful hands with polished bevels, faceted hour markers, a date aperture 3 o’clock and The Citizen Eagle above 6 o’clock.

Inside both watches is the calibre A060, which near the top of the line of Citizen high accuracy quartz movements. It’s accurate to 5 seconds per year and also features a perpetual calendar accurate to the year 2100. It also uses the natural transparency of paper on the dial to let light in and charge the battery. Speaking of the battery, a full charge will get you a run time of 18 months. Both of these watches come on crocodile leather straps, one in blue and the other in brown, both with case-matching folding clasps.

The new The Citizen 30th Anniversary limited editions are made in just 400 pieces per watch. The Duratect Sakura Pink is priced at $3,000, while the Duratect Platinum comes in at $2,900. See more on the Citizen website.

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Tissot Has A Couple Of New Oversized MotoGP-Inspired T-Race Chronographs

In a world in which watches are becoming smaller and smaller, subtler and subtler, Tissot is fighting its way through vintage revivals to put out their T-Race collection made up of large, brawny and expressive chronographs that would really be at home in the early to mid 2000s. It also serves as a canvas for their collaboration with MotoGP, the premier motorcycle race in the world. The partnership has been going for over 20 years and last year, to mark the 75th anniversary of the championship, Tissot unveiled a brand new generation of T-Race MotoGP watches. This year, the flagship automatic chronograph gets an update, along with its quartz counterparts.

Starting off with the automatic chrono, it’s a huge watch. The stainless steel case measures 45mm wide and 14.8mm thick (but only 47mm lug-to-lug) and it caries the unique shape introduced last year. This means that it has a multi-level architecture, with a black PVD-coated middle case that has stripes on it to mimic the cooling fins on an engine and a black PVD-coated bezel that’s made to look like a brake disc screwed down to the watch. It’s a lot to take in. On the side are exaggerated pushers, on top and bottom are sapphire crystals, and water resistance is 100 meters.

The dial continues the look of last year’s edition, but now gets a skeletonized treatment. On the periphery is a blue tachymeter scale, matching the tracks around the small seconds and 30-minute counter. The movement is partially opened and reveals some of its wheels and levels, while the hands and markers retain an oversized design with lumed inserts. Also, they ditched the date for this version.

Inside, you’ll find the Valjoux A05.951, an evolution of the venerable Valjoux 7750. It has a Nivachron balance spring with anti-magnetic properties and a 68 hour power reserve. The watch comes on a black silicone strap. The Tissot T-Race MotoGP Automatic Chronograph 2025 Limited Edition will be available in 2,025 pieces, at a price of €2,175. See the watch on the Tissot website.

Then, there are the quartz movements which actually make much more sense for this watch. Not only is quartz more resistant to vibrations you might find on a bike, it’s also a much thinner watch. The quartz versions measure the same 45mm wide and a more reasonable 11.76mm thick. There are three versions of the watch — the regular T-Race Quartz Chronographs come in black PVD cases, while the MotoGP version of the quartz movement comes in a brushed silver case. They all share the same look with the Automatic version, down to the brake-inspired bezel.

The dials also try to mimic the look of the Automatic, by kind of drawing the bridges of the skeletonized dial on an actual dial plate here. It’s a look, that’s for sure. It’s the standard three-compax setup of an ETA quartz chronograph and each of the three has it’s owncolro for the highlights — turquoise, orange and red. Inside the watches you’ll find a rather unremarkable quartz movement and they all come on colored silicon straps. The regular Quartz Chronographs are part of the regular collection, while the MotoGP one is limited to 8,000 pieces. Quite the limitation. Price on these is €595 for the regular editions and €695 for the Moto GP one. See them on the Tissot website.

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MeisterSinger Brings Four Pastel Colored Dials To The Simple Neo

Find the one thing you’re really good at and put your all into that one thing. I think that’s how the proverb goes. MeisterSinger also heard that proverb and since 2001 they have been honing into making just one type of watch - watches that use a single hand to tell the time. These won’t be watches for everyone. They won’t even be watches for the majority of people. But out there, there is a very enthusiastic fan base that just can’t get enough of the single-handed creations, and MeisterSinger is here to keep cranking them out. Thank you! And of all the watches that MeisterSInger makes, the minimalist Neo seems to be the most honest. Now, they made the Neo even better with a quartet of very nice pastel dials.

The new Neo collection comes in a stainless steel case that is very wearable at 36mm wide and 9.7mm thick. The Neo recently got a great update, which saw it’s acrylic crystal replaced by a domed sapphire, and water resistance has been updated from 30 to 50 meters.

They simplified the dial even more, by getting rid of the date window, and this new update gets four pastel dial — light blue, pink, yellow and light green. The subtle colors are paired with printed silver hour markers and a silver needle-shaped hand. Just the one. The hour and half-hour markers are painted in contrasting colours.

Inside is the same movement you’ll find in a lot of MeisterSinger watches, the very basic Sellita SW200 which has been modified for a single hand. The movement beats at 4Hz and has a 38 hour power reserve. The watches can be had on a choice of either a Milanese bracelet or gray velour leather straps.

The new MeisterSinger Neo pastel will go on sale in April at a price of €1,890. See more on the MeisterSinger website.

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British Microbrand Bōken Introduces New Breacher Collection

British Watchmaker’s Day this year was a huge deal. It showed the world how huge British watchmaking really is and I hope it laid an example for other countries to rally around their industries as enthusiastically. I wrote about a couple of releases on that day, mostly limited editions, but I missed a pretty interesting one. Thankfully, it wasn’t limited to just British Watchmaker’s Day. It comes from the Bōken microbrand and it’s a tough and classic tool watch called the Breacher which comes in a stainless steel finished time-only variant, a stainless steel GMT and a black DLC coated GMT.

The Breacher is suer to be a hit in the watch community, especially since Bōken founders Nacho Fernandez and Daniel Banks asked the community for input and what they wanted to see in a watch. The result is a fairly simple, but good looking case. It measures 39mm wide and with a 46mm lug-to-lug. The watches are not thick at all, but they have an interesting quirk — the three hander measures 11.2mm thick, while the GMT is actually thinner at 10.8mm. The cases have a brushed finish with polished edges, with a knurled crown on the side and 200 meters of water resistance.

All three versions share the same matte black dial, with 3, 6 and 9-hour Arabic numerals and pops of red color. The numerals and indices are made out of blocks of Super-LumiMova BGW9. The GMT version features a slightly different lume in the GMT hand.

Inside, you’ll find trusty Sellita movements. The time-only piece uses the automatic SW200 calibre, while the GMT versions carry the SW330 automatic caller GMT movement. That means that the time-only version has 38 hours of power reserve, while the GMT runs for 56 hours. Both variants are regulated by Horologium to an average of +2/-3 seconds per day. The watch comes on a three-link stainless steel bracelet with a micro-adjustment system on the clasp.

The Bōken Breacher Collection is available for pre-order now, with shipping expected in June or July. Price is set at £1,399 for the time-only, £1,799 for the GMT and £1,999 for the black GMT. See more on the Bōken website.

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MB&F Launches The M.A.D.2 Designed By Eric Giroud And Inspired By 90s Club Culture

MB&F makes some of the most intricate, complicated and expensive watches one can buy. I mean, they call their watches horological machines, which kind of tells you everything you have to know about them. But what if you could apply the same out-of-the-box approach that MB&F is known for to a more affordable watch. That was the idea Max Busser, the head of MB&F, had when they started M.A.D, a line of more accessible watches that carry the same ethos as MB&F. The M.A.D.1 featured a pretty spectacular look with crawling hour and minute displayed on the side and a wild rotor where the dial should be. They released a couple of variants of the M.A.D.1, but it was only a matter of time when they would have to move away from that model and introduce something new. And new we are getting. This is the new M.A.D.2 and it’s just as cool.

The M.A.D.2 is designed by long time MB&F collaborator and designer Eric Giroud and it’s fool of easter eggs from Giroud’s design past. The watch is housed in a 42mm wide and 12.3mm thick steel case that has a rounded pebble shape with an extremely smooth finish. Giroud calls this an almond finish. It’s polished and brushed, with a gently curving round bezel. It’s water resistant to 30 meters.

More almonds can be found on the indicators on the twin subdials in the centre of the display. This is quite the dial. The two subdials act as jumping hours on the left and minutes on the right. They are inspired by a DJ’s deck, as Giroud was an active DJ in the 1990s in the Lausanne rave scene. Below the two rotating discs is the main disk of the dial, which comes in either orange or green, and is snailed to look like a vinyl record. But perhaps coolest of all, around the perimeter you’ll find a sunken black display with cutout holes and bright dots on it that move creating a strobe light effect.

That strobing effect is achieved by the “stroboscopic platter”, as MB&F describe it. But it’s actually just the automatic rotor that’s visible from both the front and rear of the watch. The movement they use is the La Joux-Perret G101, which has a module to convert it to jumping hours. Beat rate is 4Hz and power reserve is 64 hours.

Like previous M.A.D. watches, the M.A.D.2 will not be an easy watch to get. First, the orange version of the M.A.D.2 will be available only for “Tribe and Friends”, which means previous MB&F customers and people who worked on the watch. The green version will be raffled and it’s unknown how many will be made. The raffle starts on April 1st at 2:00 PM and will stay open for one full week. Price is the same as the previous M.A.D. watches, CHF 2,900 without tax. See more on the MB&F 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

• Not far outside Boston, a criminal investigation unfolded in relative quiet. An arrest was made. Then the accused woman’s friend reached out to a loudmouthed local blogger who goes by Turtleboy. The rest was almost too ridiculous to be believed. For The Atlantic, Chris Heath brings his considerable powers to bear on a tale of citizen journalism—a tale that also suggests just how much our society is currently ruled, above all, by repeating things as often and as loudly as you possibly can.

• On March 24, 1975, the beaver became the official symbol of Canada by royal assent. It’s been 50 years since the squat, toothy animal achieved national status. While sometimes deemed a nuisance for downing trees, their unparalleled construction skills have reduced flooding damage during times of unprecedented rainfall. Today, this industrious rodent-engineer seems to have become a symbol for much more, having bounced back after being hunted to near-extinction at the beginning of the 20th century.

• Sam Anderson isn’t the first writer to seek enlightenment by walking. But most writers aren’t Sam Anderson. So when he sets out to retrace the steps of a mysterious 19th-century wanderer, your best choice is to go ahead and read the ensuing story. It’s exactly as humane and affirming as you hope it might be.

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

I live in a (partially) Mediterranean country so we have pretty much constant access to fantastic fresh seafood. Which makes my love for tinned seafood way more ironic. But I really do think that a good can of seafood, the really high-end stuff, is a perfect meal.

Thanks for reading,
Vuk