Orient Star Adds Earth Tones To Contemporary Date; Casio's Eco Friendly Pro Trek; Fears Revives 1920s Heritage With Arnos; Angelus' Spectacular Chronographe Télémètre; And A Fantastic De Bethune

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. Today is the last day of regular newsletters for the next few days. I’m off to Geneva over the weekend for Watches & Wonders, so if you have any questions about how these big shows happen, let me know now and I’ll try to answer them next week. On Monday I’ll have some pretty big news for the newsletter and then Watches & Wonders starts on Tuesday. I have 30+ meetings with brands booked, so there might be some disruption in the timing of the newsletter because I’ll have to write around that, so I’m going to ask for a bit of patience from all of you. Oh, and you can’t believe how expensive Geneva is. If you’ve been on the fence about subscribing to the paid side, do so now…

In this issue:

• Orient Star Adds Earth Tones To The Contemporary Date Collection

• Casio Announces The Pro Trek PRG-340, Their Most Eco-Friendly Model To Date

• Fears Revives Its 1920s Heritage With The Elegant And Rectangular Arnos Pewter Blue

• Angelus Welcomes Watches & Wonders With The Spectacular Chronographe Télémètre

• De Bethune And Swizz Beatz Team Up For A Dark Take On The Kind of Two GMT

👂What’s new

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Orient Star Adds Earth Tones To The Contemporary Date Collection

When I started writing this newsletter it was sort of expected from me to know everything about watches. I’m exaggerating a bit, but you should see the number of questions I get on a daily basis that require knowledge of incredibly minute details in the watch world. So, part of my job now is to expand my watch knowledge on a daily basis. And I’ll say one of my favorite pieces of education over the past few years has been getting to know the Orient and Orient Star lineups. These two brands sell hundreds of thousands of watches per year, but I’m still not caught up on everything they do. So I always welcome their new releases, and you people seem to adore them! The latest release are four new watches in the Contemporary Date collection, with new earthy and shiny dial colors.

The Contemporary collection Orient Star’s traditional steel go anywhere, do anything watch. There’s nothing particularly out of the ordinary with this case, and that’s the point — the stainless steel case has a combination of brushed and polished surfaces, a simple fixed bezel and a round construction with short-ish lugs. The dimensions are also very pleasing. 38mm wide, 12.3mm thick and a 46.9mm lug-to-lug. You get a slightly domed sapphire crystal on top and a transparent caseback. Water resistance is 100 meters.

There are four new dial colors, all inspired by earthy motifs — green inspired by trees, copper by desert sand, ice blue by crystal-clear water and grey by the simple rock. They all seem to have a slightly brushed finish that plays well in the light, and the color is emphasized by a ring on the outer edge of the dial that comes in a darker shade and anchors the applied hour markers. You get Roman numerals at 12 and 6, a date aperture at 3 o’clock and a power reserve indicator on the top half of the dial. The hands are super sharp and lumed.

Inside, you’ll find the automatic in-house calibre F6N43 which beats at 21,600vph and has a decent 50 hour power reserve. Accuracy is not fantastic, but can be tolerated at this price point — +25 seconds to –15 seconds per day. The watches come on a three link steel bracelet.

The new Orient Star Contemporary Date models are available now, priced at €650. See more on the Orient Star website.

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Casio Announces The Pro Trek PRG-340, Their Most Eco-Friendly Model To Date

The Casio Pro Trek is certainly not a watch that appears often in watch media. It’s fully digital, rugged, built for the outdoors and with very few things that are super-interesting to hardcore enthusiasts. Which is a shame, because the Pro Trek is still one of the best outdoor watches you can get under $300. And their latest release, the PRG-340, is interesting to the rest of the industry, especially since the industry is putting a focus on sustainability. The PRG-340 is the most eco-friendly Pro Trek Casio has made.

Starting with a refresher of what the Pro Trek is all about. It comes in a 52mm wide rugged case made out of resin for a lot of impact resistance. There’s a reason for the size, as it allows for the installation of a huge duplex LCD display, which is then surrounded by a bi-directional rotating bezel that has a compass scale. There are four exposed screws on the case, and at the bottom of the case is a large button labeled LIGHT. Yeah, you know what that does.

The LCD and five rugged buttons of the side of the case work together to opreate one of the many, many functions. I really mean many. The Tough Solar movement, which charges by light, features regular stuff like 5 daily alarms and world time functionality with 48 cities, a countdown timer and a stopwatch, but also unusual stuff like an altimeter/barometer, digital compass, and thermometer, as well as sunrise/sunset data.

But we’ve seen stuff like this before. Where Casio is moving things forward with this latest model is on the sustainability front. The resin used for the case is now bio-based and the cloth strap is made CASTLON, a rather novel material manufactured using 100% plant-derived Nylon 11 fiber produced with the oil of castor plants.

There are two different variants of the PRG-340, one with an Olive Green case and CASTLON band (PRG340B-3) and the other with a Coyote Brown case and faux leather band (PRG340L-5). They are available now and priced at a pretty incredible $250 for the brown and $260 for the green. See more on the Casio website.

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Fears Revives Its 1920s Heritage With The Elegant And Rectangular Arnos Pewter Blue

You likely know Fears Watch Company as a modern watch brand headed by Nicholas Bowman-Scargill. What you might have missed from the Fears story is the fact that he is the great-great-great grandson of the man who founded Fears in 1846 and that this is a continuation of a brand that’s almost two centuries old, that went under in 1976. Fears was a big brand in the 1920s and 1930s, when they produced rectangular dress watches. Well, Bowman-Scargill is bringing that style back, with the new Arnos Pewter Blue.

The very slightly curved (to better fit your wrist) stainless steel case measures 22.6mm wide, just 8.4mm thick and 40mm from lug tip to lug tip. On top is a slightly proud rectangular sapphire crystal and the finishing looks like a very nice combination of linear brushing on the sides and highly polished surfaces on top. On the side is a pull out crown, which only gives you 30 meters of water resistance. Not that you would need more with such a dressy watch, but the rubber strap it comes with is asking for a dip.

While vintage Fears watches mostly came with rectangular dials, this one does a circle within a rectangle setup. The outer part of the rectangle has a CNC-machined hobnail pattern coated in rhodium, while the inside dial comes in blue with two finishes — a central grained surface and an outside brushed ring that holds Roman numerals for the hours and a railway track minute. The watch uses signature Fears pipette hands that are mirror polished and rhodium plated.

Inside, you’ll find everyone’s favorite tiny movement, the Top Grade Sellita SW1000-1b automatic. It beats at 4Hz and has a 46 hour power reserve. Even though you can’t see it, the rotor is customized with the flower of Bristol motif. Despite its tiny size, the watch has 20mm lugs, which is great news. From Fears, the watch comes with two straps, both made by Delugs — a taupe Barenia leather strap with a steel pin buckle and a dark blue FKM rubber strap that tapers to 16mm with a curved butterfly clasp and micro-adjustments.

The new Fears Arnos Pewter Blue is available now and priced at £3,625, without taxes. See more on the Fears website.

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Angelus Welcomes Watches & Wonders With The Spectacular Chronographe Télémètre

It might not be a household name today, but Angelus has been making watches since 1891 and were particularly known for their chronographs. The company went way for a while and came back in 2015. Anglus today makes contemporary, well-made sports watches but from time to time they dip back into their rich history for inspiration. And while I was a bit skeptical about the brand to start off, I can now comfortably say that they still haven’t made a bad watch. And continuing their streak of spectacular releases, this is the incredible Chronographe Télémètre, a heavily retro inspired monopusher chronograph that comes a the perfect size.

The new Chronographe Télémètre at first seems like it shares a case with its larger monopusher watches, but this doesn’t seem to stand up to scrutiny. The new case seems to have a simiar shape, but it’s much more sculptural, with sweeping lugs. The case has a brushed finish, with a few dramatically polished sections, like the ones that extend all the way down those lugs. Since the case is new, so are the dimensions. It measures 37mm wide and 9.25mm thick and you can have it in either stainless steel or 18k yellow gold. On top is a box-shaped sapphire crystal. Water resistance is not great at 30 meters.

The dials are where Angelus nails its retro influence. While I only put two pictures up there, there are in fact three dial versions to choose from. The gold watch comes with a white nickel colored dial, while the silver case gets an either bronze rose dial or a titanium grey one. All three are domed, with a bi-compax setup that has two snailed sub-dials: 30-minute elapsed timer at 3 and a small seconds at 9. You get applied indices, Arabic numerals at 12 and 6 with a 3N gold or black rhodium finish, and matching syringe-style hour and minute hands. There are two textures on all the dials — the center is finely grained, while the periphery which holds the telemeter scale is satin brushed.

Inside, you’ll find an incredible movement. Made by La Joux-Perret, it’s the in-house A5000 integrated manual-winding monopusher chronograph. It features a column wheel and a horizontal clutch, beats at 3Hz and has a 42 hour power reserve. It’s beautiful to look at, as it has golden finishes on the mainplate and bridges and palladium for the chronograph components. The watches come on a blue, grey or sage calfskin strap, depending on the material of the case and color of the dial.

Of course, the new Angelus Chronographe Télémètre is very limited. The gold version will be made in only 15 pieces, priced at CHF 32,300, while the steel versions are limited to 25 pieces each and priced at CHF 17,900. All the prices are without VAT. See more on the Angelus website.

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De Bethune And Swizz Beatz Team Up For A Dark Take On The Kind of Two GMT

There’s only one reason why I know who Kasseem Daoud Dean, aka Swizz Beatz, is. And that’s because he and his wife, Alicia Keyes, have one of the most beautiful houses in the world filled with an impeccable art collection. I also know he’s a rapper and producer, but it’s the house that is jaw dropping. But Mr. Beatz has now turned up in the watch world, with a collaboration with De Bethune for a dark take on the Kind of Two GMT, a watch known for its radical take on displaying two time zones and jumping seconds.

OK, to be fair, Swizz Beatz isn’t just popping up out of nowhere. This is his third collaboration with De Bethune, and this one might be my favorite. The watch comes in a case made out of zirconium and satin-finished grade 5 titanium, measuring 43.3mm wide and 11.4mm thick. It’s one of those cool De Bethune cases that has floating lugs made out of matte black zirconium and attached at the middle of the case, allowing them to flex to the shape of the wearer’s wrist, depending on which side of the watch is facing up. Oh yeah, this watch has two faces on either side of the case. The two watches you see pictured above are actually one watch with dials on both sides.

De Bethune calls these cases the contemporary dial and the classical GMT dial. The contemporary dial has a black openworked delta-shaped bridge, underneath which you see parts of the movement. It’s almost an all black dial, save for the gold Arabic numerals and a polished blued steel pointer hand with a satin-brushed steel insert. The minutes are displayed on the periphery and indicated by a blued steel hand that orbits the dial on a black circumferential gear ring.

Flip the watch over, and you’ll see the much more traditional dial with a black base, with silver Arabic numerals on the peripheral track for the minutes. Hours are found on a matte black chapter ring, again in silver, while the center of the disc has De Bethune’s random hand-guilloché pattern with a two-tone black and blue colour scheme. Time is indicated with blued titanium Breguet-style hands.

All of this is powered by the hand-wound DB2517 which is capable of showing you two time zones, while keeping tings super simple for the user, as time on both dials is adjusted with the same crown, but in different positions. The movement also has a deadbeat seconds complication, as if the two zones wasn’t complicated enough. Oh, and to add to the advancement, it beats at 5Hz and has a 4-day power reserve. That’s incredible. It comes on a nubuck Velcro strap with a zirconium and matte black titanium pin buckle.

The DB Kind of Two GMT x Swizz Beatz is a limited edition of 10 pieces. Price is somewhere in the €220.000 range. See more on the De Bethune website.

⏲️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

• For Slate, Luke Winkie profiles Matt Morrow, aka “Vegas Matt,” a man who bankrolls his gambling by broadcasting his every bet on YouTube—win or lose—for over 1 million followers. Is this harmless fun or an ongoing waste of money for the sake of views? You be the judge.

• The Great 21st-Century Treasure Hunt: A decade-long, sometimes maddening, occasionally deadly, brainscrambling search for gold in the American West.

• As more and more people invest time in learning how to use AI, will agents come to feel familiar? Will we develop relationships with them? If we come to trust AI with increased use, is it only a matter of time before an AI relationship becomes romantic? For The New Yorker, computer scientist Jaron Lanier explores whether future AI agents might possibly achieve what social media has failed to do: help people fight loneliness and find connection.

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

Sure, we live in a time in which 800HP is standard, but we can no longer make stunning machines like this one.

Thanks for reading,
Vuk