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- Four New Models For 140 Years of Alpine, Roger Dubuis Creates Subtles Watch To Date, Texas-Based Indie Jack Mason Introduces Very Interesting Diver And The Delbana Recordmaster Is An Affordable Retro Treat
Four New Models For 140 Years of Alpine, Roger Dubuis Creates Subtles Watch To Date, Texas-Based Indie Jack Mason Introduces Very Interesting Diver And The Delbana Recordmaster Is An Affordable Retro Treat
You might be on the fence with Alpine, but that Regulator is very interesting
Vuk Radic
May 04, 2023 • Estimated Reading Time: 17 minutes
Hey friends, there are no major releases today, but you can always count on It’s About Time to bring you all the watch news you might have missed. So let’s get to it
In this issue:
Four new Alpina watches to celebrate 140 years
Roger Dubuis create their subtlest watch yet
Gauthier’s C is a new salmon entry to the luxury sports world
Texas-based indie Jack Mason announces dive watch
And… invite your friends to win a Seiko Alpinist
Today’s reading time: 7 minutes and 14 seconds
Everybody needs a green faced watch in their life. That’s why we have a new giveaway - it’s the Seiko SPB121J1, aka the Seiko Alpinist in a wonderful shade of green. In fact, we’re giving away two of them!
All you have to do is click the button below and have five of your friends subscribe. Both you and one of your friends will be eligible to win one of the watches
We only have two conditions when entering this giveaway - invite 5 of your friends to subscribe and live somewhere were you can buy the Alpinist, so we can get this for you and ship it to your address. That’s it!
👂What’s new
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I just don’t know what to do with Alpina. Back when I was a kid, before switching to snowboarding, Alpina made my favorite skis. And Alpina makes fantastic versions of BMWs. So, I can deal with Alpina making great skis. I can deal with them making great cars. Somehow, I just couldn’t deal with them making great watches.
But, alas, I was wrong. Alpina has been making watches for 140 years - and a steel sports water and shock resistant since 1938 - and they’re not half bad. In fact, they’re getting more interesting with every variant introduced. To celebrate their 140th anniversary, the brand unveiled four new Alpiner Extreme models, their version of a integrated bracelet steel sports watch, at Watches and Wonders a few weeks ago and are now going on sale.
Two of the models are Alpiner Extreme Automatic versions, a three-hander with date, with the only difference between the two being dial color. The steel cushion-shaped case has a presence, at 41mm diameter and 11.5mm thickness. The porthole-style bezel is fixed with Alpina-embossed rivets. The watch is 200m water-resistant and comes on a fantastic looking H-link bracelet. Unfortunately, there’s no micro adjustment. You can get it with a metallic grey or dark metallic blue dial. Inside is the AL-525, a simple three-handed movement based on the Sellita SW200, visible through an exhibition case back with 38 hours of power reserve. Both models sell for, from what I gather, just shy of EUR 2000 (I think the price is EUR 1995 without taxes, but the Alpine website is not really in the mood right now to show me the actual price).
Then there are the two Alpiner Extreme Regulator. A quick refresher - a regulator movement is a very cool complication that separates the components of time to display each on a different pinion. The size of the case is almost the same, just 0.5mm thicker, as are all the other specs. The regulator models come with either a dark metallic blue with grey dial (on the bracelet) or monochromatic metallic black dial (on a rubber strap). Minutes are located on the centre pinion with lumed silver five minute markers positioned around the main dial edge. The hours are positioned at 10 o’clock and minutes at 6, both sub dials with printed markings. The Regulator is powered by the AL-650 movement, which is based on an ETA movement. The blue/gray version with the bracelet will be available for €2,450, whereas the black-dial model on the rubber strap will be €2,150.
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Roger Dubuis, for lack of a better explanation, makes supremely over the top watches. They’re stuffed with tourbillons, jagged, rendered in bright colors and overall not an everyday wearable watch. While I’m sure Roger Dubius did not set out to do it, but their latest release, the Roger Dubuis Excalibur Monobalancier Titanium honours the shapes of the very first Excalibur Monobalancier, while giving off a more accessible vibe, largely because of the toned-down lightweight titanium case.
The grade 5 titanium case measures 42mm in diameter, with the long lugs, crown guards, and 24-tooth bezel adding imposing details. The matching titanium bracelet is not your standard fare and it’s middle almost look like a chain link. The edgy five-pointed star and offset hour and minute hands have become a signature of the Excalibur line. Along with the absence of a dial, all of the elements are rendered in similar tones, the only distinction coming from differently finished surfaces, a majority of which are brushed. The only exception to that rule is the gold-toned balance wheel between 8 and 9 o’clock and the purple synthetic sapphires used for the bearings.
As is to be expected from a high-end piece like this, the RD720SQ calibre is just as high-end, with the view from the caseback mostly obscured by intricately skeletonised bridges. Equipped with a micro-rotor that’s better viewed dialside than from the caseback, the movement is Poinçon de Genève-certified, with 72 hours of power reserve, consisting of 178 components, and beating at 28,800 vph.
While the official release says price is on request, it should hover around $72,000.
3/
Integrated bracelet luxury sports watches seem to be all the rage this year. Perhaps the only more popular genre are GMTs. Everyone has an integrated bracelet luxury sports watch, and indie watchmaker Romain Gauthier is no different. He introduced the asymetric C on an integrated titanium bracelet at the end of last year, and is now giving it a Lever de Soleil dial. Or salmon, for the rest of us.
While this new version is on most points identical to last year’s grey edition, with all the same features and characteristics, the new dial colour makes all the difference. The brand wants you to think “of the cool winter mornings of the Vallée de Joux, between the white of the snow and the orange of the sun, the slightly pink colour of the sky,” but let’s face it, it is salmon.
The Grade 5 titanium 41mm satin-finished case looks very contemporary. The bezel is first machined into a round shape, then six sides are cut, and the facets are polished to get this fantastic-looking timepiece. The new salmon dial with a special coating that protects it against UV has a familiar idiosyncratic time display. The hour and minute hands are off-centred slightly, with the hour markers of varying lengths highlighting this asymmetry. The small seconds subdial is at 7 o’clock, with 5-second intervals are marked by lines radiating from the centre.
As with the grey dial version earlier last year, this “Lever de Soleil” Salmon dial piece will be a non-limited production, with a retail price of CHF 42,000, taxes excluded.
4/
Much like we can’t get enough luxury sports watches with integrated bracelets, there will always be a demand for new divers. Jack Mason, the indie brand from Texas, knows this as well, which is why they introduced their take on the diving watch - the Hydrotimer.
If you don’t know Jack Mason, they are a small brand from the US that mainly uses affordable and readily available moments form Miyota and the like to produce affordable but stylish watches. They caused quite the stir in watch circles last year with their Strat-o-timer. Not only was it a great looking GMT, it was also one of the first indies to get the Miyota 9075 traveler’s GMT caliver. It also included a double-sapphire construction, a toolless micro-adjust clasp and 200m water resistance. All for around $1000.
The Hydrotimer borrows the Strat-o-timer 40mm case (13mm thick with crystal), which looks like a cross between a cushion and tonneau case, and bezel, but completely redesigned the dial. The hands and indices mark perhaps the biggest departure from the design language of its predecessor. The hour hand comes with a circular portion toward the tip that matches the width of the applied hour markers, while the long minute hand is rectangular and reaches the printed minute track at the edge of the dial. The seconds hand also has a round luminous dot on the long end, and it showcases the colors of the Texan flag on the short end.
You can get the watch in four color options - black dial/black bezel, white dial/black bezel, blue dial/white bezel (an absolute banger), and white dial/white bezel, and water resistance has been upped to 300m.
To keep the price under the pleasing $1,000 mark, Jack Mason put a regulated Miyota 9039 caliber inside. The 9039 is one of Miyota’s more premium movements with a 28,800vph (4Hz) beat frequency and a 42-hour power reserve. The bracelet has a rounded three-link construction and tapers from 20mm. Just like the Strat-o-timer, the clasp has an on-the-fly micro-adjustment system, and you can even get the Hydrotimer on the Strat-o-timer bracelet.
The Hydrotimer will retail starting at US$899 on a Tropic-style rubber strap or US$989 on the steel bracelet. Pre-orders have started on the 28th of April with an estimated shipping date of August/September 2023.
5/
In 2021, Delbana released the Recordmaster to celebrate their 90th anniversary and to pay homage to the universal love for music and vinyl. The accessible Recordmaster is named after, and inspired by a historic Delbana watch that honoured the vinyl record and is now introduced in a manual-wound version, the Recordmaster Mechanical.
The case of the Recordmaster Mechanical is fully polished steel coated in yellow gold PVD and measures 40mm in width. By switching out the movement for a mechanical one, Delbana reduced the thickness of the case from 11.3mm to 10.8mm.
The previous Recordmaster was only available with a silver dial, but the Recordmaster Mechanical adds champagne- and copper-coloured dials into the mix. All come with a guilloché-like pattern on the centre section and a contrasting grooved track inspired by the grooves in vinyl records. The syringe-style hour and minute hands are finished with Super-LumiNova and paired with a red-tipped central seconds hand.
Inside Delbana opted for the Sellita SW210-1 movement to replace the SW200 in the automatic version. This runs at a rate of 28,800vph and delivers a modest 42h of power reserve. You can get it on a brown or brown leather strap.
The watch will not be a limited edition and you can get the black and silver dials for EUR 875, the copper dials are priced at EUR 900 and the yellow gold PVD-coated models cost EUR 975.
🫳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
Military pieces are a special category in the world of watches. Always driven by functionality in the field of operations, they represent the opposite of the usual luxury ambitions. As a result, the modern reiterations of these classics are often a breath of fresh air in an industry full of luxury overload. A good example of honoring those great designs of the past is the American brand Praesidus. Now the brand releases the new A-5 UDT dive watch. This is another historically inspired classic with a remarkable story and a classic military design with some quirky, functional details.
⏲️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
Edward Snowden and Julian Assange practically sacrificed their lives when they leaked government secrets they believed everyone should know. They did it, they say, because of higher ideals. But today even leakers are different - kids are now leaking military materials to Discord to impress their friends.
I’ve always wondered why the western world is not implementing the latest craze from China - live video online shopping. Think of it like the Home Shopping Network, but online, with superstars and billions of dollars sold in a day. This piece from the NYT says there’s a darker story behind, so that’s why it might not have caught on.
Did you get a chance to check out the Netflix docu-series on Waco and David Koresh? The siege of the Branch Davidians compound remains one of the most controversial police actions in modern US history. And some believe that the fire started that day is still burning and galvanizing the far right.
👀Watch this
One video you have to watch today
Vice has fallen far from the 2010s peak of producing online video that is equally punk rock as it is informative and well produced. But every now and again they do something super interesting, like this short piece on 'Psychedelic wizard' Casey Hardison got sentenced to 20 years in prison for synthesising drugs on an industrial scale. All from a yellow school bus.
💵Pre-loved precision
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Everybody needs a green faced watch in their life. That’s why we have a new giveaway - it’s the Seiko SPB121J1, aka the Seiko Alpinist in a wonderful shade of green. In fact, we’re giving away two of them!
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