Oris And Collective Pay Homage To 70s California With Beautiful Divers Seventy-Five, Timex Ends iykyk Collection, Swatch Starts Simpsons Collaboration And New Watches From Crafter Blue And Minase

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. The 70s are, quite likely, the coolest decade. So no wonder that every single watch inspired by the era looks as good as this new Oris.

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:

• Oris And Collective Horology Pay Homage To 1970s California With A Stunningly Beautiful Divers Seventy-Five

• Timex And seconde/seconde/ Release The Final Two Episodes Of The Limited Edition ‘iykyk’ Collection

• Swatch Starts Collaboration With The Simpsons With A Donut Themed Seconds of Sweetness

• Crafter Blue Is Back With A Sequel To The Hyperion Ocean Chronograph, Now In Arctic Blue

• Minase Introduces The Divido Shibo Urushi With An Incredible Dial And Even More Incredible Case

Today’s reading time: 7 minutes and 31 seconds

👂What’s new

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Oris And Collective Horology Pay Homage To 1970s California With A Stunningly Beautiful Divers Seventy-Five

Man, those folks over at Collective Horology really know what makes a good watch. Just in this past year they have had three stunning releases. A little under the radar was their collaboration with Formex to release a beautiful bronze dial for their diver. Then there was the heavily California-influenced Czapek and lastly, a gorgeous 1858 Minerva Monopusher Chronograph “Blue Arrow” P.05. But what is Collective? They are a California-based members-only collectors club and retailer that has brought independent brands with limited distribution to the US. And they’re all about California. Now, they’re taking inspiration from the best decade the state has seen, the 1970s, and are teaming up with Oris for a stunning Divers Seventy-Five.

What’s a Divers Seventy-Five, you might ask while scrolling the Oris website? A play on words, of course. In essence this is a Caliber 400 Oris Divers Sixty-Five, but morphed into the seventies. Hence, the Seventy-Five. The case measures 40mm wide and 12.8mm thick, just like the regular Sixty-Five, but this is where all similarities stop. The stainless steel case gets a bronze unidirectional dive bezel and a stainless steel bracelet with bronze center links, hinting at all the brown goodness of this watch.

The dial is the real showstopper of the watch. You get the incredible retro Arabic numerals at 12, 3, 6, and 9 o’clock, all on a warm brown-orange hour track. The central portion of the dial has a sandy color and all the lume plots on the dial are rendered in a light cream, almost yellow, color. I adore brown dials, something that is very controversial in the watch world, but I believe this will have to melt the hearts of even the staunchest lovers of blues and blacks. The entire watch just screams 1970s.

Inside the watch is the Caliber 400, the in-house movement from Oris that faced some widely reported issues in its first rendition, issues that included a jumping minute hand when setting and rotor blocks, but this has all been straightened out for the v2 of the movement. What you get now is a movement that beats at 4Hz and has a full 120 hours of power reserve.

The Oris Divers Seventy-Five Calibre 400 C.04 for Collective is limited to 250 pieces, so I assume all of them will be gone extremely quickly. The watch is priced at $4,500, but there’s a special pre-order price of $4,150. The full MSRP is about a $600 premium over the regular Calibre 400 Divers Sixty-Five, but with the discounted price, that’s only a $250 premium, easily worth it. Deliveries are expected in December. See more on the Collective website.

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Timex And seconde/seconde/ Release The Final Two Episodes Of The Limited Edition ‘iykyk’ Collection

It’s been a month of releases for Timex, who have teamed up with seconde/seconde/, a brand run by Romaric André, a former financial auditor who has in recent year profiled himself as one of the leading vintage watch customizers, on a series of watches called “iykyk” standing for “if you know, you know”. The entire collection is seconde/seconde/ taking a poke at ridiculous watch nicknames like the Kermit, Hulk, Starbucks, Coke, Batman AND Batgirl. After the first four episodes, the brands are now launching the season finale, episodes 5 and 6.

Episode 5 uses the Q as a base, meaning you get a 38mm barrel-shaped case with a domed acrylic crystal and a quartz movement. Keeping with the iykyk theme, seconde/seconde replaces the seconds hand with a pixelated image of a beer mug that spins around in the centre of the dial. Seeing as how the watch has a brown and gold 12 hour bezel, it’s an obvious homage to the Root Beer nickname for this colorway.

Episode 6 could be the exact opposite of 5. It’s the 40mm wide M79 model which comes powered by the automatic Miyota M79 movement with a 40-hour power reserve. It is an all white watch, an obvious homage to the Polar Explorer, but instead of a seconds hand you now get a stylised penguin, perhaps the best looking of these seconds hands replacements yet. At least for me.

Timex claims that the season is now over, these will be the six watches released, and looking at them all together, it’s a fantastic looking collection. Unfortunately, both Episodes 5 and 6 are sold out already and seem to have gone within minutes. No surprise there as they are limited to just 500 pieces each and offer a great price point to get a seconde/seconde/ watch. The Root Beer retails for $199 while the Polar Explorer went for $299. See more about the watches on the Timex website.

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Swatch Starts Collaboration With The Simpsons With A Donut Themed Seconds of Sweetness 

If there’s one thing the Swiss watch mass manufacturer is good at, than it’s fantastic tie-ins with other pop-culture brands. Well, that and making really fun, really cheap and overall great watches. I still remember the fascination I felt when I first saw that Swatch has teamed up with the James Bond franchise to create a watch for every single Bond movie. We got some six or seven of them as great mementos and they’re still ticking away in a drawer somewhere. Now, Swatch is setting their eyes on a new collaboration, one with The Simpsons for a watch called “Seconds of Sweetness”.

This special edition watch screams Simpsons so much that even people who have never seen the cartoon will instantly recognize what the pink-frosted donut represents. It’s all about the dial here, with the donut taking up almost the entire dial and, of course, with a wild colorway - the dial is a bright yellow affair, just like the skin tone of the Simpsons. The donut is pink, with a huge bite taken out of it and sprinkled with sprinkles. There’s a Simpsons logo on the keeper on the dial.

Swatch has come a long way since the times of making watches I used to wear in primary school. A decent amount of their models have interesting tech inside them, and this one is no different. Depending on the market, the watch might come with SwatchPAY! technology built into it, meaning that you can use your watch to pay for stuff.

The watch is available now via Swatch’s official site for a retail price of $110 and according to reports, this is just the first in a line of Swatch and Simpsons collaborations to come. That sounds like fun. See more on the Swatch website.

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Crafter Blue Is Back With A Sequel To The Hyperion Ocean Chronograph, Now In Arctic Blue

The summer sure is behind us, despite the weather, in most places, staying quite similar to what we are used in August. With approaching winter, most of us ditch the steel bracelets of sports watches for something more cozy, something more leather and something warmer. But while there are still a few rays of warm sunshine, I’ll insist on wearing great summer watches. Such is the new Hyperion Ocean Chronograph in Arctic Blue from Crafter Blue, the Hong-Kong-based maker of rubber straps turned watch brand.

OK, I’ll admit that new might be a bit of a reach, as the watch came out in October and I’ve had it on the list of watches to write about, but only now did I get to it. But it was worth the wait. The new Arctic Blue version uses the same stainless steel case as the original Hyperion Ocean Chronograph from last year and measures 42mm wide and a chunky 16.9mm thick. It’s a huge watch, but aren’t chronographs supposed to be? There’s a 120-click bezel on top and ti has a ceramic fully graduated bezel and is lumed.

What’s new are the colors of this watch. Instead of a flat white finish, the dial has a deep blue sunburst finish with orange accents on the 12 o’clock marker, central chronograph hand, bezel pip, and regatta-timer sub-dial. The ning seconds sub-dial at 3 o’clock, as well as the hour markers, are all painted white. There’s more color on the screw-down pushers which have orange and blue anodized rings. And that seems to be the biggest issue of the watch, the screw-down pushers. This means that you can’t use the chronograph function under water, making it not a real diving chronograph.

Inside is the Seiko SII NE86A, same as the previous version, and the movement is basically the same as the Seiko caliber 8R46. This means that you get a column wheel chronograph that beats at 28,800 bph and has a power reserve of about 45 hours. The watch comes on a great looking steel bracelet.

The Hyperion Ocean Chronograph Arctic Blue is not a limited edition and can be purchase now for $1,19. However, it seems to be on permanent discount (at least it is every time I checked the website) and you can get it for $960. See more on the Hyperion website.

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Minase Introduces The Divido Shibo Urushi With An Incredible Dial And Even More Incredible Case

You’ve read my writing on Minase before. The Japanese micro brand has become renowned for three things - their precision metalwork, their incredible dials, and highly complex cases like the one on the Minase 7 Windows, a rectangular watch with seven sapphire glass apertures flooding the dial with light. Now, for their latest release, they are teaming up the incredible case architecture with beautiful dials for the Minase Divido Urushi edition, with lacquered dials that feature paint and egg white to create a unique swirling pattern.

Starting off with the stainless steel case, which measures 40.6mm wide and 11mm thick. It’s made out of eight parts and features Minase’s well known case-in-case construction. Just look at the pictures a little bit closer and you’ll see an external cage in which the dial seems to be floating. That’s because the dial is the top part of the internal case, held down by the hour index ring. It looks absolutely incredible, which is only helped with Sallaz polishing and vertical brushing.

Then there’s the dial, which is finished in Urushi lacquer, a uniquely Japanese effort. The dial starts off as a brass plate that is then hand covered by Junichi Hakose, the acclaimed Japanese lacquer artist with a mix of Urushi lacquer with colour and egg whites to produce Shibo Urushi, a viscous substance with flecks of colour. The dial comes in four different colors: Sky of Shell (flecks of green, blue and purple), Scarlet Illusion (mottled red), Metallic Haze (swirling silver) and Golden Flux (swirling gold).

Inside the watch is the ETA 2892/A2 ébauche with substantial customisation like the hand-finished surfaces with perlage, black ‘or’ bridges and mainplate with diamond-polished bevels, blued screws and a customised Minase rotor. The movement beats at 4Hz and has a power reserve of 50 hours. While you might want to scoff at an ETA movement, keep in mind that it is customized and it allows Minase to keep the price relatively low, considering the substantial work that has gone into the case and dial. The watch comes on a matching steel bracelet with invisible screws on the underside of each link with Zaratsu polishing and vertical brushing or on a black textured rubber strap.

The watches are availalbe for sale now and I believe they are not limited in numbers. The steel bracelet version will set you back CHF 8,410, while the rubber strap sells for CHF 7,200. See more on the Minase website.

🫳On hand

Our selection of the best reviews we stumble upon

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Hands on with the Parmigiani Fleurier Tonda PF Split-Seconds Chronograph in Rose Gold

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A review of the Panerai Navy SEALs Submersible Flyback Chronograph PAM1402

⚙️Watch Worthy

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

The Duke Clarity Tourbillon is a really expensive salute to Genta watchmaking

Designed by Alessio Muller, one half of the father-and-son team that founded Duke, the Clarity Tourbillon’s 44mm octagonal case demonstrably owes much to the legendary designs of Gérald Genta – yet it’s by no means derivative. Its case features a novel sandwiched construction, with a bezel, backplate and lugs crafted from grade 5 titanium plus a middle section crafted from titanium-infused carbon fibre.

The dial of the Duke Clarity Tourbillon is the main event, though. Crafted from tinted shot-blasted sapphire with a large 100-degree opening at 6 o’clock to highlight the tourbillon, it’s completely featureless, save for the Duke logo at 12 o’clock. The tourbillon is undeniably the star of the show. Read more on Time + Tide.

⏲️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

• He may not be the best writer to have ever lived, but he just might be the most entertaining. I love Stephen King deeply, not just for his amazing novels, but also the joy he brings me several times a year when he says he has a new book out. The man is 76 years old and only started writing at 27, with Carrie being his first book. Talk about a debut. In those 49 years he has written 77 book, or about 1.8 books a year, which is just ridiculous. Add to that some 200 short stories he sprinkles around the books. He is a machine. It’s always nice to get a glimpse into his life, and Washington Post has a great interactive feature on the books King keeps on his shelves.

• I’ve been hearing from quite a few sources that there’s no chance Trump is winning a second term. Which is funny, because that’s exactly what was said the first time. If you’ve ever wondered what such a term would look like, the BBC speculates.

• In the grand tradition of H. G. Wells and Jules Verne, Stanisław Lem’s “The Invincible” tells the story of a space cruiser sent to an obscure planet to determine the fate of a sister spaceship whose communication with Earth has abruptly ceased. Landing on the planet Regis III, navigator Rohan and his crew discover a form of life that has apparently evolved from autonomous, self-replicating machines — perhaps the survivors of a robot war. Rohan and his men are forced to confront the classic quandary: What course of action can humanity take once it has reached the limits of its knowledge? Once again, Lem teaches us in 1964 how to deal with the present.

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

I do some of my writing in the evening, after spending the whole day with my daughter. When her mom gets home they tend to play and I do some work. But if you have a kid, you will know how loud a three year old can be while playing. In fact, the only thing I’ve found to be louder are New York hardcore bands, blasting through noise canceling Airpods. I guess that’s why I’m losing my hearing.

Anyways, my recent playlists reminded me of this pretty old short documentary from Vice about the NY hardcore scene. Worth a watch, even if you’re not a fan of the genre.

💵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 

• NEW WATCH FOR SALE: 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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