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- Grand Seiko Gives Us A Watch We Didn't Ask For, Patek Proves Why They Are The Best, Chopard Drives A Thousand Miles And Angelus Goes Green
Grand Seiko Gives Us A Watch We Didn't Ask For, Patek Proves Why They Are The Best, Chopard Drives A Thousand Miles And Angelus Goes Green
Looks like this issue is all about chronographs and enamel dials
Vuk Radic
March 30, 2023 • Estimated Reading Time: 12 minutes
Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time, your go-to watch newsletter. Things are winding down at Watches and Wonders, so it’s a relaxed issue. Enjoy:
In this issue:
An unwanted Grand Seiko
A welcomed Chopard
An Expensive Patek
A green chronograph
And… invite your friends to win a Tiffany PRX
Today’s reading time: 5 minutes and 21 seconds
We’re starting off with a bang! We’re giving away TWO of this year’s hottest watches, The Tiffany Tissot PRX Powermatic 80
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
👂What’s new
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Grand Seiko has a polarising year at Watches and Wonders 2023. First they showed off the wonderful hand-engraved SBGZ009, only to hear the collective groan of fans not being to ever afford an almost $80,000 Grand Seiko. Then, for a moment, they washed the sour taste out of everyones mouth with the Rose Gold Grand Seiko ‘Hana-ikada’. A stunning watch with a light pink dial, it is destined to be a huge hit. If GS didn’t decide to make only 100 of them. This got them more internet hate.
Now, on the fourth day of W&W, Grand Seiko introduces another model - a follow up to the SLGA015 "Black Stream" diver - the SLGA023 "Ushio" diver, the latest from the Evolution 9 collection. And the almost universal reaction seems to be: do we really need this watch? Can we please buy the Hana-ikada?
And this is no fault of the Ushio diver, which is a fine watch. Unlike the Black Stream, this has a blue bezel insert and a beautiful nice blue dial. It is huge, though - 43.8 mm wide, 13.8mm thick, and 51.5mm lug to lug, but made of titanium. Inside is the 9RA5 Spring Drive caliber, with a five days of power reserve and a monthly accuracy rating of +/- 10 seconds.
It’s beautiful, it’s built for nerds, but it also costs $11,600. While it will surely find many owners, I’m willing to bed many would prefer other Grand Seiko watches to be more accessible before we get a nerdy diver.
2/
Most people might know Chopard for their high-end timepieces and jewellery watches. But they also sponsor the legendary Mille Miglia race, and have done so since 1988. That’s why the brand has a Mille Miglia collection of modern sports watches with a slight vintage bend.
This year, the new Mille Miglia Race Edition goes smaller - from 42mm to 40.5mm in diameter and in a new metal Chopard calls Lucent Steel A223. There are four dial colours to choose from, inspired by race cars, and include Verde Chiaro (light green) and Rosso Amarena (cherry red) with a Zapon-varnished satin-brushed finish, Nero Corsa (racing black) with an engine-turned finish and Grigio-Blue (grey blue) on the bi-material model (18k rose gold and Lucent Steel A223) with a satin-brushed finish. Powering the new collection is a COSC-certified automatic chronograph with a 54-hour power reserve based on the ETA A322-11. You can get it on a black rubber strap or a vintage brown perforated calfskin leather strap. Price has not been confirmed.
While the Mille Miglia Race Edition combines a retro design with modern cues, the L.U.C 1963 Heritage Chronograph goes full vintage. This dial is much simpler than that of the Mille Miglia, with a sunburst brushing pattern in English green, very minimal Arabic numerals and rhodium-plated dauphine fusée hands. The movement is the hand wound L.U.C 03.07-L and it will be limited to just 25 pieces. All of this comes at quite a price - $32,300.
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Patek Philippe is slowly dripping out watches at WW23. They had some bangers, some duds, and now it’s time for the really big pieces. They’re introducing the 5531G Grand Complications with a beautiful and elaborate enamel dial that celebrates their Geneva heritage with a painting of Belle Époque steamships that have been traversing Lake Geneva from as early as 1904.
The rest of the watch is just as impressive - the case is 18K white gold and inside it’s just as intense. The single pusher at 2 o’clock adjusts the World Time display in one-hour increments, and the slider at 9 o’clock activates the minute repeater.
Price is on request.
Patek watches are notoriously understated, even in their sports lines. But recently the brand has fully embraced color. And they’re doing the same on the ladies’ Calatrava, the Patek Philippe 4997/200R Calatrava. The star of this 35mm watch is the dial, which is embossed in concentric circles and then painted with 50 layers of fuchsia colored laquer. Then there’s the 76 diamond-set bezel.
Price is, unsurprisingly, also on request.
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The Angelus Chronodate is a tribute to the brand’s 1942 model of the same name and now they are updating it with three new versions - a black dial in gold or titanium and a fern green dial in titanium. The Chronodate is a cool watch - a bi-compax chronograph featuring a central pointer date - which was previously available only in blue and silver, so this fern green dial really lifts it up.
While it looks cool, many will complain about it’s size: the case is 42.5mm with a height of 14.25mm. That probably works well in titanium, but must be a beast when had in gold. The watch is powered by the calibre A500 made with La Joux-Perret, a sister company of Angelus, which is an automatic movement based on the tried-and-tested 7750 architecture.
These new Angelus Chronodate models are not limited. Price is set at CHF 22,900 (incl. taxes) for the titanium version on a rubber strap, CHF 24,700 (incl. taxes) for the titanium version on a titanium bracelet, and CHF 42,900 (incl. taxes) for the red gold version.
5/
Nobody has ever accused Roger Dubuis of creating subtle watches. They make what they call “Hyper Horology”. The rest of us call them monstrosities. But at least they’re very fun monstrosities. Their new model, the Monovortex Split-Seconds Chronograph actually has some interesting horological twists and turns - an entirely new winding system, a 360-degree tourbillon, and a retrograde chronograph display, housed in an avant-garde case made from ultralight materials.
It actually might be worth it to click through the article and see what they have packed into the watch. If only it didn’t look like Iron Man crash landed onto earth. The brand did not release pricing, but keep in mind that their watches start at $41,000 and go all the way up to $815,000.
🫳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
Bovet always made an effort to make watch movements visible so that we could enjoy the beautiful mechanics. This year, surprisingly, for the first time since the House of Bovet was taken over and led by Pascal Raffy, the high-end manufacture presents a fully skeletonised timepiece, the Bovet 1822 Virtuoso XI.
⏲️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
Everyone at WW23 was talking about gold watches. And just in time, I catch this heartbreaking story of The Dystopian Underworld of South Africa’s Illegal Gold Mines
The other day I caught a short documentary on the Kentucky Derby, which sent me on a reading spree about the race
Tom Junod is one of the most talented magazines writes of our time. However, I haven’t come across his writing in some time. Years perhaps. So I went looking, and came across this heartbreakingly well written story about Penn State scandals before Jerry Sandusky that he wrote with Paula Lavigne.
👀Watch this
One video you have to watch today
There hasn’t been that much video content from Watches and Wonders this year, so enjoy this video of the new line of Black Bays.
💵Pre-loved precision
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