Longines Shrinks Down Spirit Zulu Time GMT To Perfect 39mm, New Mido Multifort TV Big Date is A Funky Shaped Watch With A Big Date And Baltic Introduces Two New LEs While Brining Back The MR01 Into Stock

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. The Swatch Group is on a roll - first the smaller PRX yesterday, now the smaller Longines… People will be happy.

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In this issue:

• Longines Shrinks Down The Spirit Zulu Time GMT To Perfect 39mm

• All-New Mido Multifort TV Big Date Marries Vintage Design With Modern Sports Watches

• Piaget’s Polo Gets Emerald Green Dial And Completely New Pattern

• Baltic Introduces Two New LEs And Brings Back The MR01 Into Stock

Today’s reading time: 6 minutes and 31 seconds

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👂What’s new

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Longines Unveils One Of This Year’s Hottest Releases With The New 39mm Spirit Zulu Time GMTs

A lot of brand make aviation-adjacent watches, be they true pilot’s watches or GMTs that are aimed at people who travel. But I dare you to find a brand with more pilot/travel heritage than Longines. When he crossed the Atlantic in 1927, Lindbergh’s time was timed by Longines. He later worked with the brand to create the the famous Hour Angle watch for pilots. Longines is associated with people like Amelia Earhart, Elinor Smith and Howard Hughes.

To bank on this heritage under the Swiss Watch Group, the brand launched the Spirit collection in 2020, a series of vintage inspired watches. It could be argued that the most successful watch of the collection was the Spirit Zulu Time, a genuine traveller’s GMT, launched only last year. While it was originally launched in 42mm, Longines saw the trends shifting in the past few years and saw how well smaller watches were working for other Swatch brands. Now we’re getting three updated Spirit Zulu Time 39mm watches with chronometer-certified movements.

The latest stainless steel Spirit Zulu Time 39mm models have a case thickness of 13.50mm and a water-resistance of 100 metres. Fitted with a ceramic bezel insert with an engraved 24-hour scale with lacquered numbers, you can get it in four colors - black, green, blue and a fantastic chocolate brown. An arrow-shaped hand linked to a 24-hour scale indicates the second time zone.

Legibility is a key function of a pilot’s watch, and the applied numerals, diamond-shaped hour markers and all the hands are treated with bright Super-LumiNova, and the chocolate and green bezel models use a warmer tone of luminescent material. The other references – one with a sunray-brushed blue dial and blue bezel and one with a matte black dial and glossy black ceramic bezel – highlight the arrow-tipped GMT hand in orange on the blue dial and blue on the black. Unfortunately, Longines continues to insist on including five stars on their dial as their representation of COSC chronometry certification.

Speaking of COSC, inside the watch is the automatic calibre L844.4, an exclusive and extensively modified version of the ETA calibre A31. The movement runs at 25,200 vibrations per hour, features an anti-magnetic silicon balance spring in compliance with the ISO 764 standard and delivers a 72-hour power reserve.

Available with interchangeable straps or bracelets, and even a brown NATO-style strap for the two-tone model, this watch comes in nine different dial, bezel and strap combinations.

The Longines Spirit Zulu Time 39mm in full steel retails for CHF 2,850 / EUR 3.200 on the leather strap or CHF 2,950 / EUR 3.350 on the steel bracelet. The steel & gold models range from CHF 3,950 / EUR 4.450 on the brown NATO-style strap or the leather strap and CHF 4,050 / EUR 4.600 on the bracelet.

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The All-New Mido Multifort TV Big Date Marries The Best Of Vintage Design And Modern Sports Watches In An Affordable Package

I’m a sucker for Mido. While a large part of their lineup are decent, stylish and mostly traditional looking watches, every now and again they come out with something fantastic. Take a look at this Bellaluna Royal Gent - it might not be revolutionary, but it’s a dirt cheap guilloché sunray stamped dial dress watch. Then there’s the Ocean Star GMT, a brilliant GMT. But it’s the Ocean Star Decompression Worldtimer, currently one of my favorite watches on sale, that takes the cake.

Mido’s latest model line is an addition to the Multifort colleciton called the Multifort TV Big Date. Look at it and it’s perfectly clear why it carries the name - it has a TV shaped case and a big date. It’s a cool sports watch that reaches back to the 70s for its design inspiration. It actually goes back to the 70s, as Mido made watches in the Multi Star and Ocean Star collections with the television shape first in 1973, then again in 1980 and also in the year 2000.

The vintage-TV shape gives the stainless steel case a measurement of 39.2mm x 40mm with a thickness of 11.5mm and it has a vertically brushed bezel, a screw-down crown, and a sapphire caseback. Positioned right at 12 o’clock is the large date display, while the horizontally brushed dial and rectangular Super-LumiNova-treated indices at 3, 6, and 9 o’clock contribute to the vintage appeal. The minute track is printed on the outer flange, and the baton-shaped hour and minute hands complete the stylish aesthetic.

Mido is a Swatch Group watch, so it comes as no surprise that inside it is essentially the Powermatic 80, which is called the Calibre 80 in a Mido. The watch comes in a number of colors and strap/bracelet combinations. There are five references in total, including blue and grey dials paired with blue or orange rubber straps, respectively, as well as stainless steel bracelet editions featuring blue, grey, and green dials.

The rubber strap version is priced at CHF 1,070, while the bracelet edition is available for CHF 1,100.

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Piaget’s Sporty Retro Polo Watch Gets A Fantastic Emerald Green Dial And A Completely New Pattern

Speaking of watches with odd shaped cases, Piaget is updating it’s Polo, their entry into the luxury sport watch world. The Polo was first made as a quartz powered model in 1979 and came as a response to watches like the Patek Nautilus and AP Royal Oak, and Piaget remade it in 2016 with mechanical steel models initially positioned as entry-level candidates. Since then the line has gotten a slew of models ranging from time-and-date all the way up to ultra-thin perpetual calendars and complex skeletonised models. And now the entry level, the Polo Date, is getting a new version - a green dial with a completely new design.

The case of the Polo Date is a medley of shapes; the bezel is round, but the interior part of the bezel is an octagon giving it a cushion shape. To emphasise the geometry, the 42mm stainless steel case is decorated with brushed and polished finishes. Another trait of the Polo Date is its slim case height of 9.4mm, bit it still has an open caseback and water-resistance of 100 metres.

Like former editions of the Polo time-and-date with a green dial and green dial with rose gold accents, the signature guilloché grooves running horizontally across the dial have become as emblematic as the Tapisserie pattern of the Royal Oak. The novelty here is the different pattern on the dial. Although the gadroons are still present, they are thicker and feature shorter incisions to replicate the texture of the interchangeable rubber strap. The shorter incisions inside the wide gadroons are arranged around the dial’s periphery, further underscoring the cushion-shaped minutes track and bezel.

The sapphire crystal on the caseback reveals the slim 1110P calibre, created by Piaget specifically for this collection. It is an automatic movement with a height of just 4mm that ticks at 4Hz for 50 hours. The movement is decorated with circular Côtes de Genève both on the bridges and slate grey rotor and has bevelled bridges and circular graining on the mainplate.

The Piaget Polo Field is limited in production to 400 pieces per year and retails for USD 13,570.

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The New Moritz Grossmann Benu Heritage Power Reserve Has Stunning Blue Hands And A Salmon Dial

The brand Moritz Grossmann has been around since 1854. Today, Moritz Grossmann is known for their clean lines, refined dials, and balanced proportions and for being one of the few companies keeping watchmaking alive in Glashütte, along with A. Lange & Söhne, Glashütte Original, Nomos and a couple of others. Now they’re introducing a new watch - the Benu Heritage Power Reserve Salmon.

The three-part stainless steel case measures 41mm in diameter and 11.65mm high. It features a delicate filigree bezel and a solid silver, salmon-coloured dial with the recessed small seconds subdial at 6 o’clock and a narrow aperture for the linear power reserve indicator above the centre. The Arabic numerals are blue, just like the power indicator, as well as the minute track and the subdial markings while the manually crafted steel hands are heat blued.

Speaking of the crown. It is used to wind the watch and set the time, and there’s also a pusher below the crown to start the watch – and this has to be explained as this is a feature common to other models across the MG collections. Moritz Grossmann invented the time-setting mechanism to prevent dust from getting inside the case when the crown is pulled and to avoid accidental hand adjustment when the crown is pushed back. Operation is easy. For the time setting, the crown is pulled, and the watch stops, but once the job is finished, there’s no need to push the crown back. The movement is restarted by the pusher, and the crown returns to the winding mode.

Mortiz Gorssmann watches are not cheap. They are rare and sough after by collectors. So it’s expected that the Benu Heritage Power Reserve Salmon is limited to 50 pieces and priced at EUR 29,300 (taxes excluded).

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Baltic Introduces Two New Limited Editions For Limited Markets And Brings Back The MR01 Into Stock

This is a sort of good news, bad news, good news sandwich type of story. First, the good news: Baltic is introducing a limited edition of it’s very popular MR01 and is bring it back into stock after being old out for a while. Then, the bad news: the limited editions will only be available in Singapore, New Zealand and Malaysia. And the final layer of the sandwich, a piece of good news: the regular models brought back into stock will be available to everyone.

In just seven short years Etienne Malec’s French micro-brand went from an interesting project to a full blown and respected watch brand. They make all kinds of watches - from tricompax chronographs to absolutely stunning bronze divers. Then there’s the MR01 collection. Introduced in 2022, it’s 36mm case size, and haselite crystal gave the watch a very vintage vibe and resemblance to the watches of the 1920s-30s, particularly the original Patek Philippe Calatrava Ref. 96.

Baltic is now working with Watches of Switzerland, a prestige watch retailer that was established in Singapore since 1964 to create a two special editions of the MR01, available in champagne and ice blue, and are limited editions of 300 in each dial colour.

Other than the dials, pretty much everything else remains the same - the steel case still measures 36mm and is 9.9mm thick. The two dials, champagne and ice blue, get a textured, grained finish and a guilloché sub-dial for the small seconds. Numerals are Breguet styled Arabic for the applied hour markers. A railway track marks the minutes around the periphery. The movement, quite surprisingly, is Chinese sourced and not much information is available on it. However, it’s worth noting that a micro-rotor movement is rather rare, especially at this price point.

The new Baltic MR01 Watches of Switzerland Edition will retail at around EUR 690 (including taxes in Singapore), which a premium over the regular price of EUR 650 (including tax). The edition will be available from 8 June 2023 at Watches of Switzerland boutiques in Singapore, New Zealand, and Malaysia.

The regular edition of the Baltic MR01, available in silver, blue and salmon, can be bought directly from Baltic right now for EUR 650.

🫳On hand

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Hands on with the The Hermès H08 Colours

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The Grand Seiko SLGC001 Tentagraph puts the evolution in Evolution 9

⚙️Watch Worthy

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

The Circula ProTrail proves that design by committee can sometimes work

Lovely as the case may be, it pales in comparison to the dial. Circula offers the watch in Umber, Black, a limited edition Black/Radium Explorer-style dial, and the Sand I sampled for this review. The ProTrail’s Sand is a complex color that ranges from pale gold to a rich buttery yellow, depending on the light. Its two-level surface is wonderfully smooth. You might mistake it for high-quality enamel, but that outer upper level is all Old Radium SuperLuminova. I’ve reviewed many full-lume dials on these pages, and I can confidently say this is the best application I have ever seen.

⏲️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

• Cormac McCarthy died. You either loved or hated his work. There was no in between. I was in the former group. Here’s a couple of good reads about the man. This is a great profile of him from way back in 1992; this is a review of the movie based on his book The Road written by the great Tom Chiarrela; this is a piece on Knoxville, the city McCarthy’s grew up in and how it shaped him.

• The other day I watched a documentary on filmmaker Howard Brookner. It wasn’t a particularly impressive documentary on its own, but the footage of 80s New York was fascinating. One of the main places featured in the film was the Chelsea Hotel, a mythical place in the city. Just so happens Amanda Chemeche just shared her memories of when the Chelsea Hotel was “a home to artists and outsiders alike who lived, tried, and beautifully failed.” Her reminisces are almost dreamlike, yet capture the essence of a special time in this hotel’s history.

• In his own words, Hashim Mohammed, 26, tells the story of his escape from the Uyghur region of China via a Thai detention center. His goal was to navigate “the smugglers’ way” through Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, and Malaysia, to be able to fly to freedom in Turkey. In China, Uyghur faithful have been persecuted for displays of devotion to Islam, which the Chinese government considers a threat.

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

Tomorrow we get a new episode of the Grand Tour. The original GT show, when they tried recreating Top Gear, were not particularly great, the one off episodes that came after were just fantastic. Here’s the trailer for the episode releasing tomorrow and while it looks kinda strange, I can’t wait.

💵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: 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

• FOR SALE: Longines Heritage Skin Diver, box and papers. €1400. Reach out to us and we’ll put you in touch

Hamilton Khaki Field giveaway/

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