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- Citizen Equips Its Caliber 0200 With A Lot Of Gold; Hamilton Revives The Groovy Pulsar Cushion; Ochs Und Junior Remembers Its Roots; Triton Spirotechnique Is Back; Union Glashütte’s New Releases
Citizen Equips Its Caliber 0200 With A Lot Of Gold; Hamilton Revives The Groovy Pulsar Cushion; Ochs Und Junior Remembers Its Roots; Triton Spirotechnique Is Back; Union Glashütte’s New Releases
Is this the most expensive Citizen we've ever seen?
Vuk Radic
November 04, 2024 • Estimated Reading Time: 21 minutes
Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. It seems that today’s newsletter has a thru-line — weirdly expensive divers. I reviewed the Sherpa Ultradive for which I can see a justification why it’s expensive as it is. Then, there’s the Triton Spirotechnique is just puzzling. I hope they have a good story about that price.
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In this issue:
Citizen Continues 100 Year Anniversary With A Gold Laden The Citizen Caliber 0200
Hamilton Revives The Groovy Pulsar Cushion, A 1970s Iconic Digital Watch
Ochs Und Junior Remembers Its Roots For The Settimana Christmas Edition 2024
Triton Spirotechnique, The Legendary Diver Developed For Jacques Cousteau, Is Back
Union Glashütte’s Latest Two Releases Are Very Similar But So Very Different
Today’s reading time: 9 minutes and 50 seconds
👂What’s new
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I have pointed out many, many, times that The Citizen is perhaps the worst name possible for a high end Citizen brand. If you missed that, all they did is add “The” before Citizen to form The Citizen, their version of Grand Seiko. But regardless of the incredibly silly name, Citizen has exploded this entire model line over the past few years, making some spectacular solar-powered washi-dialed peices and interesting mechanical watches. But their latest watch, Citizen Caliber 0200 100th Anniversary NC0210-11A, is a pretty special rendition of a gold-filled understated watch with their high-accuracy Caliber 0200 mechanical movement.
You would expect a Citizen, even a high-end The Citizen, to be made out of steel, and you would not be wrong. It has an angular stainless steel case with beautifully crisp beveled and chamfered edges, measuring 40mm wide and 10.9mm thick, with a mix of vertical brushed and polished surfaces. On top is fixed plain bezel that looks to be made out of stainless steel, but it’s in fact made out of 18k white gold that’s been circularly brushed. There’s something you don’t see every day. The watch doesn’t have traditional lugs, instead the watch ends abruptly as if it is meant for an integrated bracelet. Water resistance is 50 meters.
The dial is made using electroformed patterns, giving it a very rough, paper-like, texture and it’s painted silver. The sharpness of the silver color is emphasized by the equally as sharp Dauphine-style hands. You get applied baton hour markers, an applied Citizen eagle symbol, and a small seconds sub-dial which has a smooth surface.
Inside is the already mentioned Caliber 0200 automatic. Made in-house, it beats at 4Hz and has a 60 hour power reserve. It has a free-sprung balance wheel for greater long-term accuracy and it’s supposed to be very accurate. Citizen claims -3 to +5 seconds per day, better than COSC. It’s also a beautiful thing to look at. It has a 22k gold skeletonized rotor and Citizen hands it off to La Joux-Perret, which they own, for decoration which includes perlage and anglage polishing, satinage brushing and embossed text. The watch comes on a black strap made out of Himeji Kurozan leather which is made with traditional tanning and lacquering techniques.
The Citizen watches are quite expensive, especially for a high end Citizen brand that still hasn’t established itself as strongly as Grand Seiko, but this new The Citizen Caliber 0200 100th Anniversary ref. NC0210-11A takes the cake. The use of gold on the bezel and rotor have bumped the price up to $10,095. Only 160 pieces will be made and they go on sale in January of 2025. See more on the Citizen website.
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The 1970s were obviously a wild time. The drugs were different, music was weirder, the movies were better… And out of all this, we got some pretty crazy watches. One of them was the Hamilton Pulsar, what was supposed to be a glimpse at what the future of watches would look like. It built on the invention of quartz technology and was a choice of stars like Elvis and Elton John, as well as Roger Moore as James Bond in Live and Let Die. A couple of years ago, Hamilton revived the Pulsar as a cool throwback that kept the look of the original down to the slightly glowing red display. Now, they’re reviving another of the Pulsar watches, the Pulsar Cushion introduced in 1974. This is the new Hamilton PSR 74.
Looking at the picture of the watch doesn’t do it justice. Check out the article on Time & Tide which had the watch in hands to get a sense for its proportions. You see, while the modern pulsar measures 41mm wide and 13.3mm thick, the new PSR 74 is tiny! It measures just 30.9mm wide, 12.4mm thick and has a length of 25.6mm. Now, that might sound too small, but its weird oval shape makes it look larger on wrist, so I assume it will fit a wide range of wrists, despite looking like more of a bracelet than a watch. Water resistance is also surprisingly great at 100 meters. Not that you’ll go diving with this thing.
There’s not much to the dial here — it’s a just a red hybrid LCD-OLED display that shows the time in either 12 or 24 hour formats, date and alarm. So the only design choice comes from the case and dial combinations. You can get the watch in brushed steel or yellow gold PVD. Inside is an unspecified quartz movement and the watch comes on a pretty amazing tapering metal bracelet with a butterfly-style clasp.
The new Hamilton PSR 74 is available now and priced at CHF 775. See more on the Hamilton website.
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There is a very special reason why I love ochs und junior watches. And that’s their designer, Ludwig Oechslin. He has this incredible capability of turning hyper-complicated watches into something supremely simple. It’s as if Oechslin said “hold my beer” to the entire industry and started coming up with simple modules bolted onto regular movements to do what others need hundreds of parts to accomplish. For example, their recent moon phase watch adds just 5 parts to a regular movement to create a perfectly accurate moon phase display. But it all started in 2008 with their first watch, the Settimana, which displayed the 7 days of the week (and had a cool way to do it) with a module that used only four parts. And every year, ochs und junior release a Christmas Edition. This year, it is a throwback to the original Settimana, which has since become an important entry level model line for the company.
The new Christmas Edition 2024 Settimana is a very faithful recreation of the original. Made out of grade 5 titanium, it measures 36mm wide and 10.5mm thick. The brand doesn’t give a lug-to-lug measurement, but the watch has super-short 22mm wide lugs. The lugs are so short, and so widely spaced, I wouldn’t be surprised if the lug-to-lug measurement is 38-39mm. The bezel on top seems to have a satin finish, but the rest of the case is unfinished to the degree of having visible machining marks, something that ochs und junior is known for.
The dial is also a direct reference to the first Settimana. The brass base gets a dark blue colorway, with huge Arabic numerals that are painted bright orange, making for great contrast. The centre of the dial has eight cutouts, seven dot shaped between 1 and 7 o’clock and one long to connect from 8 to 12 o’clock. Those serve as indicators for the week complication, as an orange dot moves through the seven openings to show which day we’re at. When it moves past the seventh hole, the dot speeds up to quickly to cover the 8 to 12 o’clock segment.
Inside you’ll find two things — a classic ETA 2824-2 top grade that beats at 4Hz with a 38 hour power reserve, as well as a module made by Oechslin for the week display. It uses only four parts, if you count the dial as part of the module. And they do. Because the rest is a gear with weekday display, a triple function wheel and a transmission wheel. The watch comes on a orange Ecopell leather strap with a titanium buckle.
You can order the ochs und junior Christmas Edition 2024 Settimana now and all orders before November 20th will be delivered by December 20th, 2024 and lager orders will be delivered by January 31st, 2025. Price is set at CHF 2,400 without taxes. See more on the ochs und junior website.
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So, there are a lot of watches that are connected with Jacques Cousteau — Rolex, Omega, Doxa, Blancpain… all of these were seen on his wrist at some point in the long and storied career of the many who basically invented the SCUBA system. But if I’m not mistake, only one watch was developed for him. OK, I might be exaggerating a bit. The 1963 Triton Spirotechnique was developed for the Spirotechnique company, later renamed Aqualung, that was founded by Cousteau, and not Cousteau personally. It was developed by retired French Air Force colonel, Jean René Parmentier and sold in Spirotechnique dive shops as part of professional divers gear. The Triton Spirotechnique went on to be used by American and French navy divers, but the company didn’t survive the quartz crisis and shuttered. It was revived in 2015 and now they are remaking the Spirotechnique.
The new Triton Spirotechnique takes a lot from the original, most notably the 12 o’clock position of the crown that uses an articulating lug to serve as a guard. This, of course, then means that the lug-to-lug is quite long at 53.75mm, but the 39mm diameter and 12.25mm thickness should make it wearable. The double domed sapphire crystal is surrounded by a unidirectional rotating bezel with a black sapphire insert that has a lumed 60 minute scale that has an interesting font. Water resistance is the same as the original — 200 meters.
There are two dials to chose from, but they are incredibly similar. Both have a black lacquer finish, with the Classic Black getting applied indices that have green tinted Super-LumiNova C3, and the Sport Black getting indices painted with Old Radium Super-LumiNova for a fauxtina look. The same lumes show up on the hands, as well as the lollipop tip of the seconds hand. There’s a date window at 3 o’clcok which has odd numbers in red and evens in black.
Inside is the La Joux-Perret’s G100 automatic which is becoming increasingly popular as an alternative to the ETA 2824 clones. It does have the same beat rate of 4Hz but a significantly better power reserve of 68 hours. But in my experience, it also has a really loud rotor. The watch comes on a black rubber strap.
Now, for the kicker… The price of the new Triton Spirotechnique is a whopping €5,200. Now, I’m no stranger to loving very expensive divers. I just published a review of one today. But that Sherpa has a justification for its high price — it’s completely made in Europe and it features a genuine compressor case construction that’s difficult to replicated. Without knowing more about the Triton, it seems to be an Asian-sourced, (possibly) European-assembled, Swiss-powered diver that are plentiful in the €600-€1,500 range, some even with more heritage. What accounts for the extra €4,000, I’m not sure. See more on the Triton website.
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The Glashütte based and Swatch Group-owned Union Glashütte is today perhaps best known for their sports watches, all of which come in quite large and extravagant cases. Nothing bad, I like them a lot, it’s just that their latest releases have accustomed me to expect sports watches from them. So, it’s nice to see them working on their more dressy watches. And despite these two recent releases looking very similar at first glance, the 1893 Johannes Dürrstein Edition Moon Phase and the Belisar Chronograph Moon Phase are two very different watches.
Let’s start with the 1893 Johannes Dürrstein Edition Moon Phase in 18k rose gold, which is part of their 1893 collection that uses only hand wound movements. Housed in a large solid 18k rose gold, 41mm wide and 12.23mm thick case with a 50.05mm lug-to-lug, this is quite the watch. On top is a domed sapphire crystal and the case is brushed with polished details on the bezel and crown.
The dial is a significant departure from the steel versions of the watch. It has a white enamel finish, large Roman numerals and a new minute track, as well as a peripheral date ring that only shows odd dates. There’s a small seconds subdial at 9 o’clock with a 24-hour indicator. The moon phase sits at 6 o’clock as just a half-circle cutout, and at 12 you’ll find the day and month apertures. The hour and minute hands are blued, while the date hand is rose gold.
Inside is the manually wound UNG-58.S1 movement which runs at 4Hz, has a 65 hour power reserve and displays the signature Glashütte three-quarter plate with decorative stripes. The movement features gold engravings, polished ratchet and transmission wheels, and blued screws. The watch comes on a brown calfskin strap, and it’s limited to 131 pieces. Price is set at €13,900. See more of it here.
Then, there’s the Belisar Chronograph Moon Phase, which gets a two-tone rose gold and steel case. Its 42mm wide and 14.8mm thick case might sound large, but it’s actually shrunk down from its predecessors. But it’s also not that large when you considered this is a chronograph with a moonphase and a calendar display. The majority of the case is steel, with a polished rose gold bezel and rose gold screwed flanks.
The dial is a lot to take in at once. Again, a white base gets a date display on the periphery, pointed to by a blued hand, while rose gold hands indicate the time and serve as a central chrono hand. Instead of Roman numerals, this one has applied Arabic numerals at 12, 3, 6 and 9 o’clock and rose gold indices on the other positions. The three snailed sub-dials serve as calendar, moonphase and chrono indicators. At 12 is the 30-minute for the chronograph with apertures for the day of the week and month, at 6 is the 12 hour totalizer with the moonphase and at 9 o’clock is the running seconds and 24-hour display. At 3 o’clock you’ll find the Union Glashütte website.
Inside is the automatic calibre UNG-25.S1, based on the ETA 7751 and with a power reserve of 65 hours. The watch comes on a brown calfskin strap embossed with a crocodile pattern and is not limited. Price is set at €7,500. See more on the Union Glashütte website.
🫳On hand
Our selection of the best reviews we stumble upon
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⚙️I Review A Watch
Exactly what it says on the label — I get a watch, wear it and then review it
You are instantly struck with one thought — this is incredibly comfortable. No, really. I don’t think I have ever worn such a comfortable watch. It just melts to your wrist. Let me illustrate it how comfortable it is. I, like (I assume) most people, take my watches off when I go to sleep and when I hop into the shower. I forgot every single time with this watch.
⏲️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
Feel free to go ahead and call me a conspiracy theorist, but the sinking of a luxury yacht (in a freak storm that didn’t touch any other yachts parked nearby) owned by a guy who just got off of a weird criminal charge, just a day after his business partner was killed while out running some 2,000 miles away was always a bit suspect. Now, the NYT has a pretty great looking analysis of what happened in which they try to explain how the supposedly unsinkable yacht sank. And their explanation makes it sound so much worse. To sink, the 12 passengers and 10 very experienced crew members had to leave the two huge glass cabin doors open in a hurricane-grade storm, they had to forget to refit storm protection to the air vents — which had no reason to be removed in the first place — and they had to ignore warnings that they had to redeploy the retractable keel. Yeah…
In this thoughtful essay for Broadway, Emily Raboteau writes about Tibbetts Brook, an underground stream whose historic pathway lies beneath her Bronx home.
At one time in my weird career I tried convincing my local airline company, Croatia Airlines, one staffed only by completely useless party apparatchiks that they should update their in-flight magazine because it was disgracefully bad and that I could help them with that. They seemed to be OK with keeping the status quo, which was keeping Wikipedia-level articles about destinations they don’t even fly to, while most likely siphoning money from the company to the CEOs bank account. But now, in-flight magazines will become a relic only available in its worst form in Croatia Airlines flights, while everyone else innovates. Is it a good thing? Probably not, especially if you ask the Columbia Journalism Review.
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One video you have to watch today
New Watches of Espionage videos are slowly becoming a very solid weekend tradition. And they’re getting better with each video they put out.
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