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- Nomos Adds Two Summery Colors To The Club Campus; Norqain Expands The Adventure Line; Braun And Hodinkee Team Up For A Duo Of Watches; Arnold & Son Redesigns The Ultrathin Tourbillon Skeleton
Nomos Adds Two Summery Colors To The Club Campus; Norqain Expands The Adventure Line; Braun And Hodinkee Team Up For A Duo Of Watches; Arnold & Son Redesigns The Ultrathin Tourbillon Skeleton
Dieter Rams would certainly be proud of the new watches Braun put out with Hodinkee
Vuk Radic
March 01, 2024 • Estimated Reading Time: 16 minutes
Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. As you might have noticed, there was no edition yesterday, there really wasn’t anything interesting going on. We are in a bit of a release slump, as watch brands are preparing for Watches and Wonders which are creeping up to us in mid-April (expect to see more skipped days). Today’s news is also not groundbreaking, and I had to keep something in the bank for Monday as well, but I always appreciate a new Nomos.
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In this issue:
Nomos Is Already Getting Ready For The Summer With Two Very Bright Versions Of The Club Campus
Norqain Releases Two New Adventure Sport Chrono Watches In Two Different Sizes
Braun And Hodinkee Team Up For Two Limited Edition Watches That Would Make Dieter Rams Proud
Arnold & Son Redesigns The Ultrathin Tourbillon Skeleton, One OF The Thinnest Skeletonised Manual Flying Tourbillons
Today’s reading time: 6 minutes and 52 seconds
👂What’s new
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The Tangente, the Metro, even the sporty Ahoi are the type of watches one thinks of when thinking about Nomos. Inspired by the minimalist Bauhaus architecture movement, they are simple, clean and very stylish. And I like them. But my favorite watch they make is undoubtedly the Club, and furthermore the Club Campus. I like the soft look, the amazing colors and yes, the California dial. Now, Nomos is traditionally adding new colors to the Club Campus in preparation for the summer, the time of year when these watches really pop. Now this year are the Nomos Club Campus Nonstop Red and Endless Blue.
Just like all the other Club Campus watches on sale, these ones come in a fully round, fully polished stainless steel case in either 36mm or 38.5mm. The smaller comes in at 8.2mm thick, while the larger is 8.5mm thick. And, just like all the other Club (in fact, the majority of Nomos watches), the long and curved lugs are once again here, giving you both a lug-to-lug measurement of 47.5mm and 48.9mm respectively, and an opportunity to complain about the long lug-to-lug measurement. On top is a sapphire crystal and a rounded bezel, while water resistance is rated at 100 meters.
The dials also keep the same setup as the other Club Campus watches, meaning you get a California-type dial, with Arabic numerals on the top half of the dial, Roman on the bottom, and both interspersed by baton hour indices. The hour and minute hands are rhodium-plated and filled in with Super-LumiNova inlays, just like all the numerals and indices, all of them glowing blue. At 6 o’clock is a small seconds dial with the signature orange seconds hand. This looks awesome on the Endless Blue dial, which has a very light shade (dare one say almost TIffany-like?), but gets a bit lost on the Nonstop Red, a very vibrant rendering of red which looks like a more intense shade of their great coral.
Inside all of the new Nomos Club Campus is the in-house-built Alpha hand-wound movement which beats at 21,600vph and has a 43 hour power reserve. Nomos gives you the option to have a closed caseback or pay €200 more for a sapphire one. Both have their advantages - the closed caseback gives you a free engraving option in four lines, while the sapphire gives you a view of the Glashütte ribbing and Nomos perlage on the movement, as well as blued screws. Both colorways come on a vegan velour velvet grey strap.
The new Club Campus Nonstop Red and Endless Blue are part of the regular Nomos collection and are priced at €1,300 for the 36mm version and €1,600 for the 38mm. See more on the Nomos website.
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I’ve gone on record here that I’m not a particular fan of Norqain, the relatively new watch brand headed by a lot of people who were in charge of Breitling up until a few years ago (and it shows). But I am glad to see a new watch brand penetrate the market so fast and at such a high price range, almost circumventing all the pitfalls of what we might consider microbrands. It seems that 2024 might be a big year for them, as it started with a bang that echoed even outside the watch aficionado world - Mark Wahlberg wore a Norqain during his appearance on the Tonight Show, which was heavily covered by major outlets. I’m sure an endorsement from Wahlberg will push them further forward. And just in time, the brand is updating their Adventure collection with two limited pieces, one in 44mm and one in 41mm.
Starting off with the larger of the two, the Norqain Adventure Sport Chrono comes in a 44mm wide black DLC-coated stainless steel case that measures a chunky 16mm thick and has a 52mm lug-to-lug. This watch really does live up to the name Adventure Sport, as it doesn’t get chunkier than this. There’s a knurled unidirectional rotating black DLC bezel on top with no numeral markings and just notches at every 5 minutes. On the right side of the watch are the pushers and crown, while the left holds the signature Norqain plate found on all the brand’s watches that can be engraved.
Norqain insists that the dial is painted a cerulean blue, but I’m not really sure what they’re on about as this is obviously turquoise. The dial has a texture just like all the other Adventure watches and the three black sub-dials have a snailed finish. The indices are applied and faceted, the hands are diamond-cut, and both are filled with white X1 Super-LumiNova.
Inside this watch is the Norqain Caliber 19, which is a rebranded Stellita SW510 which beats at 28,800vph and has a 62 hour power reserve. The watch comes on a matching steel DLC-coated bracelet, a rubber strap or a cordura type material.
The other release is the Norqain Adventure Sport Chrono Day/Date. It has an untreated stainless steel case that measures 41mm wide, 15mm thick and has a 48.9mm lug-to-lug. On top is an 18k red gold bezel with a black aluminum ring marked with red gold graduations. The dial comes in a forest green with the same pattern, while the applied indices and hands are made out of red gold. The addition of the day/date indicator meant that instead of the 3-6-9 tricompax setup you get a 6-9-12 orientation with the day and date window at 3 o’clock.
Inside this watch is the Norqain Caliber N17 based on the Stellita SW500. This means it also beats at 28,800vph and has a 62 hour power reserve. The watch comes on either a steel bracelet or a rubber strap.
Both versions of the new Norqains are limited. The Adventure Sport Chrono 44mm will be made in only 300 pieces and is priced at €4,250 on the cordura strap and rubber or €4,800 on the matching steel bracelet. The Adventure Sport Chrono 41mm is limited to 100 pieces and it sells for €4,950 on the rubber strap and €5,280 on the steel bracelet. See more on the Norqain website.
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There is no way that you have lived long enough to read this newsletter and that you haven’t interacted with at least one Braun product. The legendary German company has been making home products - radios, shavers, clocks, coffee grinders and the like - since 1921, but the hight of not just their popularity but also impact on modern design came in the 1970s, when legendary designer Dieter Rams gave the brand it’s recognisable look of sleek lines, minimalistic industrial color palettes, and function-forward ideas. While Rams designed the iconic Braun clock, it was his successor Dietrich Lubs who made Braun’s first wristwatch - this was the AW10, a simple time-only piece with Braun's signature bright yellow seconds hand and typeface, followed by the numeral free AW50. And it’s these two pieces that Hodinkee and Braun have taken as inspiration to create the BN0279 Center Seconds and BN0279 Sub-Seconds Limited Editions For Hodinkee.
Both watches come in the same case that measures 40mm wide, made out of stainless steel, but with a very cool bead-blasted finish that gives it a very modernist look. The lugs are integrated into the circular case and the rubber straps insert into them.
Even the differences between the dials are minimal. Both watches get a grey dial that matches the matte grey steel case and are devoid of any numerals. There’s only a white minutes track around the perimeter of the dial. The hands are slim and lume filled, and at 12 o’clock there’s the Braun recognizable logo. You also get the signature Braun wristwatch red chevron by the date window at three o'clock. The only difference comes in the seconds hand - one has a black center seconds hand and yellow tip, and the other a yellow-handed sub-seconds register at 6 o'clock.
Inside is the automatic ETA 2892A2 caliber which has a 42 hour power reserve and is the second time that modern Braun watches get a Swiss-made movement.
Both the BN0279 Center Seconds and the BN0279 Sub-Seconds Limited Editions For Hodinkee are limited to 100 pieces each and retail for $950. And despite these watches releasing yesterday and the more affordable Hodinkee collaborations usually selling out very quickly, both of these are still available for purchase. See more on Hodinkee.
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Imagine making one of the world’s thinnest flying tourbillon movements, where do you go from there? Well, you can’t really go that far. From there, it’s a game of minor tweaks and adjustments to make the watch even better. This is the situation Arnold & Son finds themselves in with the Ultrathin Tourbillon Skeleton which gets slight design tweaks and a new tourbillon carriage, made in 28 pieces in rose gold and 28 pieces in platinum.
The Ultrathin Tourbillon Skeleton is the result of Arnold and Son’s race with Bulgari to create the thinnest tourbillon movement, the crown for which changed hands several times, but with Bulgari coming in victorious with their 2018 Octo Finissimo Tourbillon Automatic over the 2016-released Arnold & Son UTTE Skeleton. It’s still a very impressive watch. Arnold & Son has shrunk down the diameter from 42mm to 41.5mm, but the 8.40mm thickness with the domed sapphire crystal remains the same. Like I said, it comes in either rose gold or platinum.
The dial is completely skeletonised and shows of the complex ultra-thin 3.3mm tourbillon movement, which is suspended on both sides by a series of sweeping arched rose gold-plated bridges and a mainplate decorated with radiating Geneva stripes. There are two round focus points on the face fo the watch, the time-telling dial made out of white opal at 12 o’clock and the flying tourbillon at 6 o’clock.
The flying tourbillon is assembled with a variable inertia balance for enhanced calibration stability. The changes to the tourbillon carriage and regulating organ have also benefitted the power reserve of the A&S8320 manual-winding calibre. It now has a reserve of 100 hours and it beats at 21,600vph. The red gold version comes on a blue alligator strap, while the platinum gets a brown alligator strap.
The Arnold & Son Ultrathin Tourbillon Skeleton in red gold is limited to 28 pieces and is priced at CHF 74,400, while the platinum version, also limited to 28, retails for CHF 86,200. See more on the Arnold & Son website.
🫳On hand
Our selection of the best reviews we stumble upon
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⚙️Real Time Reviews
A new segment in which we feature reviews from real users reviewing their personal watches
A long time ago, for my 20th birthday, my uncle gifted me this Heuer Carrera, model 1553. I remember that special moment very clearly, as I had been eyeing his watch with longing since my teenage years. By talking about it and showing interest, he introduced me to the world of horology, laying the foundations for this consuming passion.
I had no knowledge of Heuer until I came across this model, and I knew nothing about watchmaking in general, to be honest. This watch became my first vintage piece, which led to others, but paradoxically, it remains the only vintage chronograph in my collection.
⏲️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
Two anthropologists looking to reshape the world via consciousness expansion. Dosing dolphins at a research institute in the US Virgin Islands. Lab visits from a not-yet-famous 29-year-old Carl Sagan. A psychedelic subculture among crews of TV shows in the ’60s, including Flipper. This excerpt from Benjamin Breen’s book—Tripping on Utopia: Margaret Mead, the Cold War, and the Troubled Birth of Psychedelic Science—recounts an interesting period in the history of psychedelics and leaves you wanting to read more.
As they set out on the Ottowa River, two canoeists learn a painful lesson: In unfamiliar waters, caution trumps bravado. This is how they survived a canoe trip gone wrong
We avoid politics here, but this is more economics, and very interesting. The West tried to crush Russia’s economy. Why hasn’t it worked?
👀Watch this
One video you have to watch today
I love the YouTube algorithm because it always seems to be trying to surprise me. And what a wonderful surprise this Steve Martin Tiny Desk concert was. Just a wonderful thing to listen to before the weekend starts.
💵Pre-loved precision
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-Vuk
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