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- Grand Seiko Brings Legendary Snowflake Dial To Quartz Line, Hamilton Releases Elvis Themed Ventura Collection, Ace Jewelers Teams Up With Dutch Legend For New Watch, New From Schofield And Bovet
Grand Seiko Brings Legendary Snowflake Dial To Quartz Line, Hamilton Releases Elvis Themed Ventura Collection, Ace Jewelers Teams Up With Dutch Legend For New Watch, New From Schofield And Bovet
Blue Suede Shoes-themed watches sound corny, but these from Hamilton actually look amazing
Vuk Radic
February 07, 2024 • Estimated Reading Time: 19 minutes
Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. We have a quartz-heavy issue today and I’ll admit, I’m not mad about it. I know quartz gets looked down now, but I believe it is starting a comeback to be a legitimate alternative to mechanical watches in some applications.
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In this issue:
Grand Seiko Brings The Legendary Snowflake Dial To Their Increasingly Popular Quartz Line
Hamilton Fully Embraces Ventura Link With Elvis Presley With Six New Blue Suede Shoes Models
Dutch Watchmaker Christiaan van der Klaauw Teams Up With Dutch Retailer Ace Jewelers For Star-Inspired stAriadne
Schofield Breaks With Tradition With A New Case And Size For The Light GMT
Bovet Teams Up With Pininfarina For A Wild Looking Openworked Aperto 1
Today’s reading time: 8 minutes and 40 seconds
Number of dragon-themed watches this Year (so far, and including today): 19
👂What’s new
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It’s been a big week for Seiko. They brought back the fantastic Seiko Rally Divers and with Grand Seiko they are celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Spring Drive movement being sold worldwide and in automatic guise with a beautiful Pink Snowflake model and a Sport GMT variant. But Grand Seiko has more to offer than just the Spring Drive. Even more than the mechanical movements. They actually make some really great quartz movements. And GS is now releasing a new one, this nicknamed “Snowflake Quartz”, it’s pretty clear why, in both a gents and ladies option.
The new men’s Snowflake Quartz carries the reference number SBGX355 is part of the Grand Seiko Heritage Collection and comes in a 37mm wide, 10.6mm thick titanium case and has a 44.6mm lug-to-lug. On top is a curved sapphire crystal, the watch is water resistant to 100 meters and there’s not much to say about the case that hasn’t already been said.
What’s really attractive is the dial, which looks very much like the dial on the SBGA211, one of Grand Seiko’s most popular modern watches that carries the nickname Snowflake. The background is made to resemble a snowy texture, rendered in a beautiful white, with a black minute track, polished and applied indexes, and equally polished dauphine hands. It has a blued seconds hand and a date window at 3 o’clock.
Inside is the famed 9F62 quartz movement. The movement has nine jewels, can be regulated and has a rated +/- 10 seconds per year accuracy, which is pretty impressive. It also has a backlash auto-adjust mechanism which means that the ticking seconds hand won’t drift but will rather land exactly on the center of each marker.
GS is also releasing a ladies variant of this model, carrying the reference STGF385 and coming in a 28.9mm wide stainless steel model. It comes with the same textured dial, but with a new bezel that has 44 diamonds on it. Inside is not the coveted 9F62 but rather the slightly inferior 4J52 quartz movement.
The new Grand Seiko SBGX355 “Snowflake Quartz” is available now for €4,200, while the STGF385 sells for €6,000. Both will not be limited editions and are available worldwide. See more on the Grand Seiko website.
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No other watch brand, other than perhaps Rolex and Omega (and maybe Swatch a cozen years ago), is so deeply entrenched in popular culture as Hamilton is. They have an incredible ability to interject themselves in iconic movies that then birth entirely new watch models for them, just like Interstellar. But way before working with Christopher Nolan, Hamilton was very closely related to the King. The Hamilton Ventura, the world’s first electric watch released in 1957, was a personal favorite of Elvis Presley and he has a whole slew of these quirky triangular pieces. Now, Hamilton is releasing a brand new collection called the Hamilton Ventura “Blue Suede Shoes” in honor of Elvis.
Despite the title saying there are six new watches in the collection, it’s actually three distinct watches, each with a selection of two straps, bringing the number up to six. All three come in the same size, 32.3mm wide, 9.2mm thick and has a lug-to-lug of 50.3mm, with the same signature triangle shape with stylised lugs. It’s very futuristic, if the future were imagined in the 50s, but it still looks amazing. The three versions of the watch include a stainless steel time only edition, a yellow gold PVD time only and a stainless steel chronograph version.
The three versions also have similar dials, with a blue fumé gradient and sunray brushing, as the ultimate homage to Elvis Presley who made the old rock and roll song world famous. The time only models have stud hour markers with long lines reaching in towards the centre of the dial, while the chronograph has an addition of a trio of subdials for small seconds, 30-minute timer and 12-hour timer. The chronograph has a more detailed scale between the hour markers to better track the central chronograph seconds hand, but I prefer the time only for the fantastic zig zag line in the center od the dial that suggests there’s a quartz movement inside.
Inside is the ETA Caliber F05.115 Swiss quartz movement, which features three jewels and includes an end-of-life indicator, where the seconds hand will jump multiple places at a time (while still maintaining accuracy) in order to give owners a heads up that they are almost due for a battery replacement. Pretty cool, but wouldn’t it be cooler if Hamilton brought back some sort of electronic movement? The watch comes on one of two strap options, with the first being another nod to blue suede as you can get them on blue Alcantara. The other option are great looking metal-matching stretch-link bracelets.
As far as pricing, the three-handed Hamilton Ventura “Blue Suede Shoes” watches with polished stainless steel cases cost $975, while the gold PVD versions are slightly more expensive at $995, and the chronograph models are the most expensive at $1,095. Interestingly, there is no price variants regarding the strap you choose. See more on the Hamilton website.
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Selling watches is a tough business to break into. Just look at all the countless places online and offline where you can get a piece you’re interested in. So, you really need to put in extra effort to stand out above others. And one of those retailers is Amsterdam-based Ace Jewelers which is owned and run by the Ben Joseph family. The Ben Josephs were among the first to start online retail, they are famed for not just their fair approach but also impeccable customer service and one of the Ben Joseph brothers - Alon - is co-host of one of the better watch podcasts out there - The Real Time Show. They are also creating some of the best limited edition collaborations you’ll see done by a retailer. And now they’re teaming up with Dutch watchmaker Christiaan van der Klaauw, famous for their astronomical timepieces, for the very cosmic Christiaan van der Klaauw stAriadne.
The stAriadne is based on the well known Ariadne model, meaning it comes in a 40mm wide polished stainless steel case, almost completely round, and with straight lugs. The crown is onion shaped and the chronograph pushers are double gadroon-shaped.
The cosmic theme of the Christiaan van der Klaauw stAriadne is no surprise, as van der Klaauw has dedicated almost entirely his career to astronomical watches which include the Planetarium which has the entire solar system miniaturised on the dial. With Ace Jewlers, van der Klaauw goes even further with the space theme with star-shaped hour markers, just like you could find on Stelline dials made famous by Rolex in the 1950s.
Being a full calendar chronograph, the dial is very busy but great looking. The dial has a grey frosted finish with the applied star markers, with black details on the periphery and subdials. There’s a date, day and month subdial at 12, moon phase indicator at 6 and 24h indicator at 9 o’clock. To make it perfectly symetrical, there’s an added subdial at 3 o’clock that doesn’t serve a puropse other than decoration, including the 12-claw sun Christiaan van der Klaauw logo, a fitting choice as Klaauw means claw. As a nice added bonus, you can have the month and day discs in either English or Dutch.
Inside is the calibre CVDK7758, based on the familiar Valjoux 7750 and nice decoration. It is an automatic cam-lever chronograph that beats at 28,800bph and a 48 hour power reserve. The screws are blued, you get circular graining and Geneva stripes, while the rotor is hand-engraved by Jochen Benzinger with a guilloché pattern and the sun logo.
The Christiaan van der Klaauw stAriadne is limited to 50 pieces and is available for preorder right now at Ace Jewelers. Production is expected to start in Q2 of 2024, with an average of 5 watches per month. Price is set at €9,450, including tax. See more on the Ace Jewelers website.
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While I deeply respected everything that the UK based Schofield Watch Company has done over the past decade or so of making watches, I could never really get into their watches. They always came in the same 44mm chunky case with prominent lugs and I couldn’t fall in love with them. But that doesn’t mean they weren’t great watches. Now, for 2024, they just announced a brand new case in a much more managable size and a new complication - this is the new Schofield Light.
The new case is made out of two parts, measures 40mm wide and has a media blasted finish. You can get it in two versions, The Light One comes in a silver case and The Dark One comes in with a gunmetal grey PVD coating. On top are box sapphire crystals and the glass caseback has a printing of a lighthouse.
As for the other differences, The Light One has a dial that features a cream outer ring with black printed numerals. The hour and minute hands are painted dark for contrast, with a light colored 24hr GMT lollipop that reaches to the edge of the internal dial and no markings for the 24h scale. This might be a bit of an issue… The Dark One, as the name would suggest has a darker gray center dial, with a black stepped ring and white numerals, with light gray hands and a dark grey lollipop.
Inside the watch is the relatively new Seiko NH34 GMT. This is the same movement that Seiko uses in their Seiko 5 Sports GMT line. It’s not a great movement but it works - it beats at 21,600vph, has a power reserve of 41 hours and a rated accuracy of -20~+40 seconds per day. Both Light colours come with the same two straps, an India Rubber strap and a new grey leather lined with bright red calf.
The price, however, might be an issue for a watch powered by the Seiko NH34 GMT - both retail for £2,190 and both are limited to 150 pieces. See more on the Schofield Watch Company website.
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Pininfarina used to be one of the most premier automotive design houses in the world. Famous for cars like the Ferrari 250 Europa, the Alfa Romeo Giulia Spyder, the Lancia 037 and the Ferrari Testarossa, they fell on hard times and were bought by Mahindra. The new owners turned Pininfarina to became a carmaker themselves and they released the Battista electric hypercar, which was just a Pininfarina designed body placed on the mechanics of the Rimac Nevera which is built on the other side of the town I’m writing this in now. But Pininfarina is also still very good at design, and they have been working with high-horology watchmaker Bovet for some time. Now they’re introducing their new collaboration, the Aperto 1.
The Aperto 1 comes in a 42mm wide and 10.95mm thick sandblasted grade 5 titanium case, very appropriate for a collaboration with a car brand. There are sapphire crystals on the front and back, which makes sense because this watch is all about what’s inside. Well, not all about the internals, as the case has a mostly rounded look with a flat top where a black rubber-clad crown is situated. The sides of the case are scalloped and the lugs are very different. The top one straddles the crown with the strap attaching to the outsides of the lug, while at the bottom you’ll find a single lug that cuts into the strap.
The watch has no dial, all you see are the internals. On top is a pair of blued hands with Super-LumiNova inserts, joined by a suspended blue hour track on the outer perimeter, a small seconds subdial at the bottom with a triple-sided hand, and a power reserve indicator on the left-hand side.
Inside, and very visible, is an all-new movement, the Calibre 15BMPF09-OW. It has 38 jewels and beats at 21,600bph, with a power reserve of an incredible 168 hours. Or 7 days. It has been constructed as an open movement from the ground up and it shows as every single element of the watch has its own place. The Bovet x Pininfarina Aperto 1 comes with two separate rubber straps, both fitted to a sandblasted titanium pin buckle.
The Bovet x Pininfarina Aperto 1 is not limited in number, but don’t expect production numbers to be high. Price is set at CHF 48,400. See more on the Bovet 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 likewatches
What was first recognizable when I received the set of watches was just how, well, pretty they are. If you’re a watch fan, you’ll know that designs are often recycled over the years and there’s only so much of the same thing one can take. Haim, instead, offers three distinct color varieties that each have their own personality while blending together in a cohesive collection. The three colorways are called: Dark Cobalt, Burgundy Tux, and Stargazer. These names each evoke a sophistication that feels appropriate for their $1350+ price tag.
⏲️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
This scorched-earth essay describes how Silicon Valley ate San Francisco that ventures in a multitude of surprising, fascinating directions, including, as Rebecca Solnit puts it, “the affliction that is tech billionaires and their inexhaustible hubris.”
Two courageous co-founders of The Mountain Eagle, a tiny newspaper in eastern Kentucky’s coal country, spoke truth to power in print, David vs. Goliath-style across seven decades, no matter the consequences (including arson of its newspaper building in 1974). At a time when nearly daily site shutdowns and sweeping layoffs are shrinking the journalism biz, Alex Hannaford’s story about The Eagle’s enduring principles—“tell the news, inform the community, play it straight”—reminds us of the still-essential pursuit of “truth-telling, no matter the cost,” and damn the torpedoes.
This profile—of a product (Apple Vision Pro) and a person (Tim Cook)—will go down in history, either as a prescient prediction of the next technological leap for Apple and one small step for mankind, or as an overblown hype piece for the latest virtual reality flop. Either way, we enjoyed the story in the present, even the bit about Tim Cook saying that the $3,500 headset helped him achieve a new level of meditation.
👀Watch this
One video you have to watch today
I’m not a camping type. I don’t really enjoy sleeping outside and I was never sure what to do when spending extended amounts of time in the same place. However, I do understand the principle of camping, whether you hike out to a place or drive to it and set up a tent. But in Japan, people have a different idea when it comes to car camping. I’ve seen this Fish13 guy several times on YouTube and his setup is getting just crazier and crazier. Again, I have no interest in camping. I have no interest in camping gear. Much like many of you. But you have to see this guy… he brings his entire freaking house with him!
💵Pre-loved precision
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-Vuk
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