Jaeger-LeCoultre Updates Reverso With A Mid-Size Option; Louis Erard Makes A Sports Watch; Maurice De Mauriac's Korea Open Tribute; Blancpain's Green Dial Air Commands; Richard Mille In Titanium

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. We don’t get updates to the Reverso that often so when we do, I’m always super happy. This mid-sized option might be something that will hit right with the community. But also, how about that Louis Erard, quite the strange watch.

In this issue:

• Jaeger-LeCoultre Introduces Three Reverso Tribute Variants, Including A Brand-New Mid-Size Variant

• Louis Erard Surprises Everyone With A Brand New Collection, The Titanium 2300 Chronograph Sport

• Maurice De Mauriac Releases Another Great Looking Tennis Watch, The Rallymaster Korea Open

• Blancpain Adds Green Dials To Their Pilot's Flyback Chrono, The Air Command 42mm and 36mm

• Richard Mille Switches From Ceramic To Titanium For Their RM 17-02 Tourbillon

Today’s reading time: 8 minutes and 5 seconds

👂What’s new

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Jaeger-LeCoultre Introduces Three Reverso Tribute Variants, Including A Brand-New Mid-Size Variant

Jager-LeCoultre lives according to their own calendar, with very little structure to their releases and I love them for that. It will be a random Thursday in September, and the company will casually unveil one of the best looking watches ever made, the Master Hybris Artistica Calibre 184. Then, just a week or so later, they update their most important collection, the Reverse. Most prominent of the three major updates is the creation of a new size for the Reverso Tribute Monoface, but the other two updates are nothing to scoff at - a new steel Reverso Tribute Duoface Tourbillon and a Reverso Tribute Duoface Small Seconds in 18K pink gold.

Let’s start off with the new Monoface, the most significant release. The Reversos come in a whole range of case sizes. While none of them would ever be called huge, they range from a diminutive 20mm width to more robust 30mm versions. This new Tribute Monoface throws in a new case size, one that JLC claims is the closes to the 1930s Reverso. The stainless steel case measures 24.4mm wide, just 7,56mm thick and has a length of 40.1mm. There are two dial options, an opaline silver and a sunray lacquered blue dial and both have a blank steel caseback that can be engraved. Inside the watch is the familiar manually wound caliber 822. There are six different colors of smooth calfskin and cross-hatch Saffiano calfskin straps to choose from. Price is set at €9,700. See more on the JLC website.

Next is the new Reverso Tribute Duoface Small Seconds in 18K pink gold that gets a new front dial in blue lacquer. The pink gold measures 28.3mm wide, 47mm long, and 9.6mm thick and being a Duoface means that you have to have a reverse side dial as well. That one comes in silver, with pink gold indexes, a recessed center and a 24-hour indicator. Powering the watch is the manually wound caliber 854A/2 and the watch comes on a blue leather strap. Priced at €27,900. See more here.

And most extravagant, there’s the Reverso Tribute Duoface Tourbillon. Previously available only in rose gold, it now comes in stainless steel, measuring 27.4mm wide, 9.15mm thick and 45.5mm long. The front dial is grey with a sunray pattern, while the back has an open-worked dial. The open work aspect is awesome because you get to see the caliber 847 which not only has a tourbillon while measuring just 3.9mm thick, it also uses one movement to display two time zones on the two sides of the dial. Price is on request. See the watch on the Jaeger LeCoultre website.

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Louis Erard Surprises Everyone With A Brand New Collection, The Titanium 2300 Chronograph Sport

I don’t hide my fandom of Louis Erard watches. Over the past several years they have managed to turn from a somewhat conventional watch brand into one of the most extravagant and imaginative brands in the industry, working with avant-garde watchmakers to collaborate on watches that should cost in the mid five figures but sell for just a few thousands. But while they were working on establishing this new chapter in which Louis Erard is the ultimate art-watch, they kind of forgot the rest of their collection. And so did we. Like the La Sportive collection of chrongoraphs. Well, no more. The collection has been renamed 2300 Sport and has turned into a wonderful retro-modern, colorful sports watch housed in titanium.

Ok, first the basics. You will balk at the size, I know, but knowing Louis Erard’s other watches, this one should wear smaller than paper suggests, especially thanks to its use of stain brushed grade 5 titanium. But there’s no getting around the fact that these watches measure 44mm across, 15mm thick and with a massive 52.4mm lug-to-lug. I really wonder how it wears. On top is a glass-box sapphire crystal, surrounded by a fixed bezel that has a black ceramic insert with a tachymeter scale. While I can get behind the size of the watch, I can’t really get behind the fact that a watch that carries Sport in its name has just 50 meters of water resistance.

The watches come with three different dials, named Sport Rainbow, Sport Blue, and Sport Khaki. The basic layout is the same, with a 30-minute counter at 12 and a 12-hour chronograph counter at 6 o’clock, silver on all three watches. There’s a running seconds indicator at 9 o’clock which is just a hand that points to lines on a subdial that’s the same color as the dial. At 3 o’clock is the day and date indicator. Same on all three are the bevelled rhodium-plated baton-style indices, as well as rhodium-plated and lume-filled central hour and minute hands. On the periphery of the dial is a wide minutes’ track that has a piano key design. On the Sport Rainbow, the track showcases vibrant rainbow colours; the Sport Blue alternates between blue and white accents, while the Sport Khaki pairs lighter khaki green with orange.The chronograph hands also differ by model: matte yellow on the Blue, orange and red on the Khaki, and a combination of rhodium-plated and black on the Rainbow.

Inside the models is the very familiar ETA 7750 movement in its elaboré-grade. The movement beats at 4Hz, has 48 hours of power reserve and a skeletonized rotor featuring the brand’s logo. The watches come on rubber straps that match the color of the logo and close with a titanium folding buckle.

Two things are kind of weird with these Louis Erard 2300 Sport Chronograph models. First, they’re limited. Only 99 pieces of each will be made. And second, the bizarrely high price. They sell for CHF 3,333. And that’s without tax. So, by the time I get it with my unreasonably high VAT, I’m looking at almost €4,500. Hamilton will sell me a Titanium Frogman with the same movement for less than a third of that price. See more on the Louis Erard website.

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Maurice De Mauriac Releases Another Great Looking Tennis Watch, The Rallymaster Korea Open

While I still don’t really understand Maurice de Mauriac and their position in the market, I have to say I’m smitten with their collaboration with the spectacular tennis-themed coffee-table magazine Racquet. They’ve put out three tennis themed watches so far, and now they are releasing their fourth to pay homage to the Korea Open, the tennis tournament held in Seoul. This is the Maurice de Mauriac x Racquet Rallymaster Korea Open Limited Edition.

On the outside, there are a lot of similarities with the previous collaborations. It comes in the same stainless steel case that measures 39mm wide and 12mm thick. On top is a sapphire crystal with a magnified date window, as well as a stepped unmarked and fixed bezel. The watch gets a brushed finish with polished details like the bezel, while the crown gets an imprint of a tennis ball in it. Water resistance is 100 meters.

New for the Seoul is the dial and its colorway, which pays homage to the famously blue hardcourt the tournament is played on. The all blue colorway is interrupted with a white printed tennis net pattern through the center of the dial, along with white dot hour indices. At 3 o’clock is the date aperture while at 9 o’clock you’ll find the running seconds indicator, graduated in 20 second increments, to match the tennis serve time, in red, white and blue.

Inside the watch is the Swiss automatic Landeron 24 calibre, originally designed as an alternative to the workhorse ETA 2824. It is a reliable performer with 40 hours of power reserve and a 4Hz beat rate. You can get a glimpse of it through the transparent caseback which has a printing of tennis racket on it. The watch comes with both a blue two-piece stretchy elastic strap and a steel mesh bracelet.

The Maurice de Mauriac x Racquet Rallymaster Korea Open is limited to 100 pieces and available for order now at a price of CHF 2,400. See more on the Maurice de Mauriac website.

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Blancpain Adds Green Dials To Their Pilot's Flyback Chrono, The Air Command 42mm and 36mm

The pilot’s chronograph collection Air Command from Blancpain seems to have been around for decades, right? And it’s clear why it seems so, as the collection is inspired by vintage Blancpain chronographs from the 1950s. But the collection has only been around since 2019. Since then it hasn’t expanded much. All of the models feature blue dial, you can get them in two sizes, in either titanium or red gold. Now, finally, Blancpain has added a new green dial in two sizes.

Both watches are made out of grade 23 titanium, which is just grade 5 titanium but with reduced levels of oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, and iron, increasing biocompatibility, ductility, and fracture toughness. The smaller one measures 36.2mm wide and 11.5mm thick, while the larger comes in at 42.5mm wide and 13.7mm thick. Both feature box-shaped sapphire crystals. They are, for all practical purposes, identical on the outside to the blue-dialed versions (except for the black insert in the bezel), down to the mediocre 30 meter water resistance.

What’s obviously new are the dials on both versions. The dials feature a matte green dial they call “Camouflage Green” with khaki printing and vintage tan-colored Super-LumiNova. You get a bi-compax layout and blocky Arabic numerals that are rendered in tan lume. Around the perimeter you get the same tachymeter scale in tan as the blue versions.

Inside the larger watch is the F388B which beats at 5Hz and has 50 hours of powre reserve, while the smaller gets the caliber F188B which beats at 3Hz and has a 40 hour power reserve. Both are column wheel chronographs with a flyback functionality. The watches come on olive green two-piece calfskin leather straps with matching titanium folding clasps.

And while the blue versions of the Air Command are regular production models, these (perhaps better looking) green versions are for some unexplainable reason limited editions. The smaller watch is limited to 100 pieces and priced at $20,500, while the larger will be made in 200 pieces and sells for $21,800. For some reason, the watches are still not on the Blancpain website, but I assume they will show up soon. In the meantime, check out the website.

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Richard Mille Switches From Ceramic To Titanium For Their RM 17-02 Tourbillon

Love them or hate them, there’s no denying that Richard Mille watches are packed to the gills with technology. But that tech can sometimes come as a detriment. The RM17-02 came out earlier this year in White Quartz TPT, which is one of Richard Mille's highest-end offering case materials, which was limited to 30 pieces. But now, RM is going back to its roots and giving the RM17-02 a titanium case.

Made out of exposed titanium, the case retains the tonneau shape and measures 40.10mm x 48.15mm x 13.08mm with a fully brushed finish. You still get the exposed screws on top and the somewhat structural sides that hint at the internal structure of the watch.

The dial is also very classical RM, with a skeletonised display and great colors. Details on the dial are made out of rose gold while with select bridges coated in blue PVD. The Arabic numerals with their distinctive typeface are bright yellow. The tourbillon, with a variable-inertia balance wheel and fast-rotating barrel, is machined from grade-5 titanium with a black PVD treatment which you can se at 6 o’clock. At 4 o’clock is a function selector and a power reserve indicator between 1 and 2 o’clock.

Inside is the caliber RM17-02 which is manually wound and features a 70-hour power reserve. It also has a fast-rotating barrel, meaning the barrel completes a rotation once every 6 hours as opposed to 7.5, which improves the ratio between power reserve and performance. The watch comes with a black and blue fabric strap.

The new titanium RM17-02 is available now, at an unknown price. But you know it will be extreme. See more on the Richard Mille website.

🫳On hand

Our selection of the best reviews we stumble upon

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A review of the AVI-8 Spitfire Lock Chronograph Bethlem

2/

Hands-On with the d.m.h. Three-Hander in Bronze

3/

A review of the Girard-Perregaux Laureato 42mm In 18K Pink Gold

⚙️Watch Worthy

A look at an off beat, less known watch you might actually like

The new Casio Pro Trek PRJB001B-2 aims to be an watch designed for hiking, camping, and outdoor weekend adventures

Additionally, the octagonal bezel features a rotating design to serve as a guard for the buttons that reside along the side of the case, and it rotates an eighth of a turn in either direction to expose or cover the top of the buttons, with a satisfying click locking it in place. Even when the bezel is in the guarded position, you can still access the buttons from the side; however, rotating the bezel also allows you to offset the orientation of the two octagon-shaped case components, which changes the watch’s overall profile and appearance.

Read the whole review on A Blog To 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

• John Semley argues that highbrow horror cinema has won respectability but sold the genre’s soul. Case in point: Longlegs, which stormed through theaters this summer on the heels of a wildly successful viral marketing campaign.

• I like Dave Eggers for a number of things, the least of which are his books. First, I love his bookstore in San Francisco. What I love even more is the McSweeney’s publishing empire he has built. The Believer is one of the best magazines out. He also reports from time to time. And his piece on the Jet Propulsion Laboratory is just spectacular.

• An eyeball. A human tongue. A bald head filled with brains. These are a few of the unconventional dishes served up at Alchemist, the restaurant of innovative Danish chef Rasmus Munk. Eating at this Copenhagen spot, which starts at $800 a person, is a peculiar sensory experience that feels “more like Buñuel than like Bobby Flay,” writes Rebecca Mead, where people dine under a planetarium-like dome that screens visuals commenting on social issues like factory farming and ocean pollution. Mead describes Munk’s incredibly creative vision for Alchemist (and his other projects, like Spora, a lab and research center focused on solutions to global food-system challenges). But are fine-dining patrons ready to be challenged, lectured, or even disgusted by their meals? Mead provides an entertaining, eye-opening look inside Munk’s world.

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

The oldest piece of clothing I own is a Barbour jacket that my dad gave me. He bought it some time in 1984-5, but he got it used so it’s likely over 40 years old. And it’s pretty much as good as new. Sure, there are a few rips and thin spots, but it’s all stuff that can be fixed and will be. Here’s a great tour of their factory where they make these amazing jackets.

💵Pre-loved precision

Buy and sell your watches. Think of this section like old school classifieds - i don’t guarantee anything except that a bunch of people will see your ad and I’ll put the buyer and seller in touch. Want to advertise your watch? Contact us

• LOOKING TO BUY: Here’s a crazy request. One of you is looking to buy the Lotēc No. 7.5. Sure, it’s a big ask, but if any of you have one and want to sell, reach out to and I’ll put you in touch

• SOLD: Well, not really new. It’s a great looking mid-90s Tudor Submariner 75090, offered for sale by a member of the It’s About Time reader crew. I love the way it looks and seems to be in great condition. Check it out over on Chrono24.

• LOOKING TO BUY: One of our readers is looking to purchase three very specific watches: an Islander ISL-133 Mother of Pearl, a Sinn 556 Mother of Pearl or a Zelos 300m GMT Mosaic Mother of Pearl. If you’re selling any of these, reach out to us and we’ll put you in touch

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-Vuk