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  • Grand Seiko Releases Tree U.S. Exclusive New Mid-Size 44GS, Citizen's Latest Skyhawk Is Very Futuristic, Ochs Und Junior's Stunning Moonphase, New From Marloe And Armando Legin

Grand Seiko Releases Tree U.S. Exclusive New Mid-Size 44GS, Citizen's Latest Skyhawk Is Very Futuristic, Ochs Und Junior's Stunning Moonphase, New From Marloe And Armando Legin

Fantastic watches are all about complications and complexity. Ludwig Oechslin does the same with just a few parts. I love it!

Author

Vuk Radic
November 06, 2023 • Estimated Reading Time: 19 minutes

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. A day with new Grand Seikos and Citizen Skyhawks is a good day, but Ochs Und Junior will forever be my second favorite watchmaker, so enjoy their new Moonphase.

I you like this newsletter, you might consider supporting it directly through Patreon. If you were subscribed, you could have already read my lengthy piece on Only Watch and it potentially being the biggest scam of the watch world. Other subscriber-only articles include the Completely Sterile Secret Watches Of MACV-SOG and my choice of 11 vintage Heuer watches that would make the perfect basis for new TAG Heuer recreations, including a possible MoonSwatch type watch that could actually break the internet.

In this issue:

  • Three New Mid-Size Grand Seiko 44GS U.S. Exclusives Are, Of Course, Nature Inspired And Beautiful

  • Citizen’s Latest Promaster Skyhawk Collection Is Very Futuristic And Angular

  • Ochs Und Junior Releases Stunning Moonphase Styled After Oldest Map Of The Stars And Moon

  • Marloe Watch Company Launches Sailing Inspired, Compressor-Styled, Solent Timer

  • The Armando Legin Inveniō Gives You A Time Display Unlike Any Other

Today’s reading time: 9 minutes and 20 seconds

👂What’s new

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It’s become kind of a trope to poke fun at Grand Seiko and their inspiration with nature. Every single one of their releases sings praises to the natural beauty that surrounds the factory where the watches are made and draws deeply poetic comparisons between the rolling hills of snow with the slight curves of their cases. It’s all a bit silly and would be so incredibly easy to dismiss if it weren’t Grand Seiko. Yes, their marking hyperbole is funny, but then they go and back it up with stunning watches that actually do exactly what their marketing materials say. And most recently, they are doing it with a trio of U.S. exclusive references of the mid-size 44GS with, no surprise, spectacular dials.

The mid-size 44GS is a fairly new thing, only introduced in early 2022. It’s stainless steel case measures 36.5mm wide, 11.66mm thick and a nice 42.7mm lug-to-lug. It’s largely a slightly smaller version of the original 40mm version, with the super-short lugs and very curvy profile. It has, however, lost some things, like the screw-down crown, but Grand Seiko claims you can still get 100 meters of water resistance even without it.

There are three different references of the U.S. exclusives, and all of them are equipped with textured dials that are inspired by the landscape surrounding Mount Iwate during different points throughout the year. The pink-dialed SBGW313, while most striking, is one we have actually seen before in one form or another. It is, obviously, inspired by cherry blossoms and it’s been seen on the very first mid-size 44GS. This new one, called ‘Hanami’, has received a fine texture and a green seconds hand, so it is something new. The other two are a pale green/grey SBGW311 ‘Tsuyu’ inspired by the rainy season of summer, and the SBGW309 ‘Juhyo’ inspired by the ice-covered trees on the mountain in winter.

Inside the watches is the in-house manually wound 9S64 calibre. This is pretty much one of Grand Seiko’s entry level mechanical movements, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad at all. You get a beat rate of 4Hz, 72 hours of power reserve and from factory it’s accurate to +5/-3 seconds per day.

The new Grand Seiko SBGW311 and SBGW313 will be available to purchase starting November 2023 at Grand Seiko Boutiques, Grand Seiko Boutique Online, and Grand Seiko Authorised Retailers only in the U.S. The new SBGW309, however, will be exclusive to GS9 Club members at Grand Seiko Boutique Online and Grand Seiko GS9 Club events. All three are priced the same: $5,900. See more on the Grand Seiko Website.

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On December 17, 1903, Orville and Wilbur Wright made the first controlled, sustained flight of a powered, heavier-than-air aircraft. Less than a year later, flying was all the rage and famous Brazilian aviation pioneer Alberto Santos Dumont realized that flying necessitated a lot of timing to make navigating easier and it was impractical to take out your pocket watch every time you wanted to check the time. So he went on over to Cartier who built him a wristwatch for easier piloting. Five years later, Louis Blériot had Zenith make him a pilot’s watch which was much bigger and much more legible than the Cariter. Since then, we have seen a steady stream of watches made to make a pilots life easier. And as planes got more complicated and added on more instruments to aide in piloting, so did the watches the pilots wore. Among the most complicated is the Citizen Promaster Skyhawk range and now Citizen is introducing three brand new models in the range that take on a super-modern style for the pilot’s watch.

The Promaster Skyhawks have always been huge watches and the new models are no different. The case measures 46mm wide, with an unspecified thickness. However, the size is somewhat offset with a series of facets on the case that make it look a bit smaller (or at least push the dial to the forefront) and give it a very futuristic look. The case is brushed with polished pushers and the entire thing is water resistant to 200 meters.

You can get the new Skyhawks in one of three dial options - black, blue and green, with a matching slide rule bezel insert and matching leather integrated straps. While the look of the watch has changed significantly, not much has changed about the layout and functions. Which is a good thing, because if I were a Skyhawk user, I would hate to have to relearn all the functions. I can only imagine how thick the user manual is.

Inside is the Citizen U680 movement which is solar powered and simply stuffed with functions. There’s the chronograph alarm, and countdown timer, along with a perpetual calendar, displays for alternate world time zones, digital time, the power reserve, and a 24-hour hand as an AM/PM indicator. It also syncs with radio transmitters in Japan, China, Europe or the USA to receive atomic time and adjust the time for accuracy.

If I’m not mistaken, the new Citizen Promaster Skyhawk collection was actually released a week ago and should be available in stores now for the retail price of $750. See more on the Citizen website.

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It is by no means a secret that I am deathly in love with Ochs und Junior watches. In fact, I adore everything that Ludwig Oechslin has done and believe him to be the true punk rocker of watchmaking. Sure, his watches might not look punk-rock at all, but he is the ultimate rebel in the industry that values complexity and complication as the pinnacles of art. It’s as if Oechslin said “hold my beer” to the entire industry and started creating complicated watches that use simple modules with only a few parts to do what others need hundreds of parts to accomplish. Now, Ochs und Junior is releasing the Selene Nebra, a tribute to the earliest known example of humanity recording astronomical phenomena.

The Ochs und Junior Selene Nebra is styled after the Nebra Sky Disc, a bronze disc that dates all the way back to c. 1800-1600 BCE – the Early Bronze Age – and which has golden depictions of stars, a lunar crescent and what is either a full moon or the sun. Ochs und Junior takes this inspiration to create a fully-fledged moonphase watch with only 5 additional parts added to the base mechanism.

The new Selen Nebra, just like so many Ochs und Junior watches, comes in two sizes - a 42mm version and a 39mm version, both made out of titanium and both the same circular case with extremely short lugs. The simple shape of the watch play great service to the dial which takes all the attention. It takes on the colors of the Sky Disc, a blue-green colors that looks amazingly like patinated bronze. The hour markers are coated in gold leaf, and the hour and minute hands are made out of 18k gold, while the rotating date indicator is made out of 24k gold. At the centre of the dial is a moonphase complication with a platinum disc representing the moon and a black disc representing the absence of the moon.

All of this is powered by, of all things, an ETA 2824-2, a fairly basic and mass-made movement. It’s a good movement, robust and easy to service, but surely nothing to write home about. Still, Ochs und Junior takes that movement and adds to it an epicycle moonphase. While it’s impressive is that this moonphase can go 3,478.27 years before it is off by one day, it’s even more impressive that it can do this with just 5 parts (seriously, click on over to their website to see how simple these parts are).

The Ochs und Junior Selene Nebra Moonphase has a limited order period from now until January 6th 2024 and pricing is set at CHF 8,100. I LOVE IT! See more on the Ochs und Junior website.

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The vast majority of watches out there are marine-themed. And by that, I clearly mean diving. There are a million and one diving themed watches some of which can actually be used for diving, while others are really good at cosplaying as dive watches. However, very few watches are dedicated to that other popular sports activity - sailing. Marloe Watch Company, the British watchmaker, claims to have made such a watch with their Solent Timer.

According to Marloe, the Solent is inspired by Alec Rose, a solo sailor ho raced across the Atlantic in 1964. I hate to be critical, but I promise this is the only criticism i really have of this watch - I don’t see it. What I do see is a compressor style watch, but no actual connections with sailing. Without the story from Marloe, it could just be another diver. But aside from that, it’s a great looking watch.

It comes in a stainless steel 42mm wide case that is 12mm thick. It has a fully polished case with a very thin brushed bezel, along with thin, straight lugs. There are two crowns on the right side, one screws down to adjust the time, while the other turns the internal bezel or chapter ring that has minute markers.

The watch comes in three very distinct colors. There’s the Cardinal, which has a matte black dial and a bright yellow chapter ring, the Rescue, which has a white dial with cream stripes and orange ring and the Oceanic, which has a deep blue striped dial and a light and dark blue ring surrounding it.

Inside the watch is the Miyota 9039, which is a fairly robust and well known movement. It beats at 28,800vph and has a 40 hour power reserve. Marloe points out that the accuracy is -10/+30 seconds per day which is to be expected from a movement like this. The watch technically comes on a matching colored silicon strap, but can also be had on a number of other options, including a metal bracelet and a leather strap.

Marloe will make 250 pieces of each watch and I’m assuming they will all sell out pretty soon, considering the price - just £399 or €495 if you buy it from an EU country with an unreasonably high VAT, like the one I live in. See more on the Marloe website.

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Starting a new watch brand can be difficult. You are entering a saturated market with pretty much every niche filled to the brim. However, every now and again someone comes along and applies a creative approach to the telling of passage of time. Look at brands like MB&F and Urwerk and you will see what I mean. Some of these attempts can be a bit silly, but there’s no denying that challenging norms can be fun. This seems to be something that Armando Legin from Slovenia would agree with. He is launching a new watch brand called, you guessed it, Armando Legin and his first model, the Inveniō, is showing off a completely new way of displaying time.

Seeing as how the Inveniō is displaying time in a truly modern way, it’s only fitting that the case is as modern. It measures 42mm wide, 13.6mm thick and has a lug-to-lug of 53mm. But it’s unlike anything you have seen before. It’s very angular, with facets cut into the lugs which are skeletonised. The watch is finished by hand with straight brushing with a few choice polished parts.

Now, on to the display of time. It’s incredibly hard to explain, so I suggest you click through to the brand’s website, they have a bunch of videos that show how everything works. The core of the watch is Legin’s patent-pending construction called the transversal indicator, where everything but the minute track moves. The minute track is printed in white on a black-finished brass base dial. Everything else moves around that brass plate. There’s a double-length seconds hand with a white tip in the centre as well as the mentioned transversal indicator. it uses a single hand to show the hours and minutes. It rotates at the speed a central minute hand would and partially obscures the hour numerals underneath. The hour indices are printed on a sapphire disc that also rotates, albeit 1/12th slower than the transversal indicator.

Like I said, impossible to explain, so it’s best to watch the video. Having to adjust to the actual hour and minute markers moving all the time must be a trip, but why not? This movement is powered by a base movement by Vaucher that has a an in-house developed module mounted on top. The base movement runs at a rate of 28,800vph and delivers a power reserve of 50 hours and finishing includes rhodium-plating and hand-applied bevelled edges. The watch comes on a black calfskin leather strap.

Only two to three pieces of the Armando Legin Inveniō will be made per month, with a total of 25 pieces. The price is set at USD 17,900 which is, a price… There are obviously watches from high-end brands that fetch far more of a premium, but also those that will give you a unique display of time for far less. The finishing on the Legin does appear to justify the price, I’ll have to reach out to them to see if I could make a trip to their HQ and see the watch in person. See more on the brand’s 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 like

The watch occupies shockingly little space on your wrist, making it suitable for even my 6.75″ paw. It also ensures that the Möels can be a true unisex watch as the proportions blur the lines between traditionally gendered timepieces. It has more than sufficient presence to be a statement piece for either sex, yet it is a comfortable fit on even the smallest wrists. You’ll have no problem wearing it under a buttoned shirt cuff, either. It is only 11mm thick, and the long case and offset dial make it easy to sneak a peek at the time. Read more on the Time Bum.

⏲️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

  • The electricians of the 18th century dumbfounded their audiences. They were taken to be part miracle workers, part magicians. For me, they are magicians to this day. I truly don’t understand how it works.

  • Tom Wolfe is one of the greatest journalists of all time. His work transcended journalism - in fact, he is one of the pioneers of New Journalism, a genre that turns journalism into something as riveting as good fiction - and now a new documentary looks back on his life and work. Here’s a good quote of his: “If you worry about people’s feelings, he said, “you’re no longer writing, you’re involved in public relations”.

  • Forty-two years ago, a young E. Jean Carroll entered the magazine world with this absolute barn-burner of a feature chronicling the annual Miss Rodeo America contest. A fitting debut for a legendary career.

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

If you’ve ever driven an electric car or been a passenger in one, you know what the incredible advantages of these vehicles are. The instant and linear torque gives you an incredible sense of acceleration and it’s pretty easy to extract 1000+hp from these motors, making them missiles on the road. As in, actual missiles. Do we all think it’s a good idea to give casual drivers 2 ton cars capable of getting to 60 in under 2 seconds?

The downsides of electric cars are equally as impressive as the upsides, and I’m not talking about the issues that stem from infrastructure - that’s not the car’s fault. First of all, the sub-2 second acceleration in a straight line is a great gimmick, but it gets very uncomfortable very quickly. And second, every single one of these cars weighs as much as a house, making it a horrible driving experience.

So here comes Caterham, the crazy brits known exclusively for their completely stripped down 7. Their first car with a roof is not yet real, but it is a prototype that could go intro production tomorrow. It’s an electric car with just 285 horspower, normal acceleration times, a decent battery range and, get this, a weight of slightly over 1100 kg. That’s something like 30-40 kg over a Miata. I can only imagine how amazingly cool this car will be.

💵Pre-loved precision

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