Oris Replaces Divers Sixty-Five With Divers Date; Laco Revamps Scorpion In Black; Nivada Has A Very Red F77; MDM Releases A Black Sheep; H. Moser & Cie. Teams Up With Massena LAB For A Chronograph

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. Hope you had a good weekend. I was THIS close to burning down my apartment because I couldn’t find my tiny screwdriver set to resize a bracelet. I think I still might do it, despite finding a solution (more on that later)

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I need your help…

We’re at a crossroads and I need your help to decide what to do. I really want to keep this newsletter ad-free with the generous support of you, the readers. However…

I have some great news and some not so great news. The great news is that this newsletter is growing so fast and so large that I couldn’t have imagined this in my wildest dreams. The bad news is that these large numbers mean more cost for the email service I’m using. While email is free, sending thousands of them per day gets very expensive very fast. We’re looking at $2,000+ per year this year and more in the coming years.

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In this issue:

• Oris Drops The Divers Sixty-Five Name, Replaces It With The Upgraded Oris Divers Date

• Laco Revamps The Very Sporty Scorpion In A Black DLC Case With Splashes of Bright Color

• Nivada Grenchen And Paris Retailer Ocarat Team Up On A Very Red Version Of The F77

• Maurice de Mauriac Releases Watch Styled After Sweater Made Famous By Princess Diana

• H. Moser & Cie. Teams Up With Massena LAB For The First Chronograph In The Endeavour Collection

Today’s reading time: 7 minutes and 44 minutes

👂What’s new

1/

Oris Drops The Divers Sixty-Five Name, Replaces It With The Upgraded Oris Divers Date

It’s safe to say that the Divers Sixty-Five is the most popular model line that Oris has in its lineup. And one would easily guess that they have been working on it for decades. Well, it will surprise you that the Divers Sixty-Five has been around only since 2015. And it makes sense. The mid-2010s was seeing the boom of 1960s inspired watches, and the Divers Sixty-Five was exactly that, as it was based on a 1965 Oris design. Well, it seems that Oris is moving on a bit. Not much is changing — the design still remains firmly vintage-inspired, but gone is the name. The Divers Sixty-Five is now becoming the Oris Diver Date, and the name change brings with it a slight, but welcomed, update.

The Divers Sixty-Five came in two case sizes, 38mm and 40mm and the new Diver Date cuts that down the middle. The stainless steel case comes in at 39mm wide, 12.1mm thick and with a very comfortable 46mm lug-to-lug. A lot of that thickness comes from the vintage-like double-domed sapphire crystal. That’s surrounded by an unidirectional bezel that has deeper serrated teeth and the new models get ceramic instead of an aluminium bezel. A major change comes in water resistance as well, bumping it up from 100 meters to 200 meters.

There are three dials available for the new Divers Date — black, beige and a dark blue-teal. New are the applied indexes that are now beveled, as well as the font change for the model name. The general shape of the indexes, along with the hands remains largely unchanged, as well as the shape of the hands, with all of them being heavily lumed with white lume. And like the name suggests, it has a date indication, again positioned at 6 o’clock.

Inside, there are no changes. It’s the Oris 733 movement, which is just a Sellita SW200-1 with a red Oris rotor. So you know all the details of the movement — 4Hz beat rate and a 41 hour power reserve. I’m 100% sure that a more expensive version with their in-house Calibre 400 is coming soon. The watches come on updated bracelets with polished rivets, brushed links and quick-release spring bars. You also get the watch with an additional black rubber Tropic-style strap.

The new Oris Divers Date is available now and priced at CHF 2,450. See more on the Oris website.

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Laco Revamps The Very Sporty Scorpion In A Black DLC Case With Splashes of Bright Color

The name Laco will instantly, in most minds, trigger an image of a classic flieger. That’s because Laco is best known for making B-Uhren for the German Luftwaffe in the 1940s, something that they continued to make after the war as well. Today, while they still make some of the best flieger variants, Laco also makes some pretty cools sports watches. One of them is their Scorpion line which now gets a black DLC-coated case, available in two sizes and a bunch of really effective colors.

There are four versions of the Scorpion, all of which come in either 39mmx13mm or 42mmx13.4mm cases. Like I said, they are made out of stainless steel with an all black DLC coat. On top is a double domed sapphire crystal surrounded by a unidirectional rotating bezel with a black ceramic insert with the first 15-minute area of the diving scale and the inverted triangle highlighted with Super-LumiNova in orange, blue, green or white, depending on the model. This is a very capable sports watch and as such it is water resistant to 300 meters.

So, the colors. All of the dials come in matte black, but are highlighted with the same neon colors as the bezel. Each color has its own name, too: Himalaya white, Mojave orange, Atlantik blue and Amazonas green. The printed numerals are rendered in white lume, while the bezel colors are matched witht he minutes hand, the seconds hand and the indices at 12 and 6 o’clock. There’s a date window at 3 o’clock with a matching black date disc.

Inside, is the automatic Laco 200 movement. It’s not an in-house creation, but rather the super familiar, super robust and easily servicable Sellita SW200 in its elaboré grade. It beats at 4Hz and has a 38 hour power reserve. You can get the watch on either a black DLC-coated stainless steel bracelet, a black rubber strap or a NATO-style rubber strap matching the lume color.

The Laco Scorpion are priced at €990 for the rubber straps or €1,090 on the stainless steel bracelet, regardless of the size. You can register to pre order now, with availability expected around November. See more on the Laco website.

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Nivada Grenchen And Paris Retailer Ocarat Team Up On A Very Red Version Of The F77

Despite being founded in 1926, and being one of the legendary Swiss watch manufacturers, Nivada Grenchen has had a tough time during the quartz crisis and went under. However, in recent years, watch entrepreneur Guillaume Laidet has brought the brand back and is churning out hit after hit. Today’s Nivada Grenchen is doing something pretty smart - they are going through their incredibly rich back catalogue and recreating them with modern sensibilities and materials. One of these watches is the F77, a recreation of an integrated bracelets steel sports watch first released in 1977. But now that the F77 has been around for a while, Nivada is branching out with some really nice collaborations. Their latest happens to be with the Parisian retailer Ocarat, with a wonderful red dial.

On the outside, pretty much everything remains the same. That means the case is made out of steel, measures 37mm wide, 11.65mm thick and with a 45mm lug-to-lug. The case has a great vertically brushed finish with polished facets and polished sides. On top is a domed sapphire crystal with a Genta-esque octagonal bezel with exposed (and aligned) screws (well, bolts, but you know what I mean). The case has a brushed finish with polished details, a screw down crown and 100 meters of water resistance.

All of the change comes on the dial side, where the watch keeps the instantly recognisable basket weave and gives it an incredible deep red gradient dial that fades to black on the edges. The indexes are applied and polished, while the hands have the same finish with tiny strips of lume in it.

Just like all the other F77 watches, this one gets the Soprod P024 automatic movement. This is Soprod’s version of the legendary ETA 2824, which means it beats at 28,800 vph and has a 38 hour power reserve. It also comes on the integrated stainless steel bracelet that the entire collection is known for.

This is not a watch that will be easy to come by. Only 50 examples of the Ocarat x Nivada Grenchen F77 will be made, priced at €1,390. See more on the Ocarat website.

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Maurice de Mauriac Releases Watch Styled After Sweater Made Famous By Princess Diana

I’ve said for some time that I don’t really understand Maurice de Mauriac (MDM) watches, but the more I see them, the more I like them. I still don’t really understand them. But I am starting to like them. Their collaboration with Racquet magazine on tennis themed watches has been pretty cool, and now we have this. On it’s own, it’s a fun and quirky watch. But niche it even more down and you’ll see that the motif is taken from a Warm & Wonderful sweater that was made infamous by Princess Diana. She was facing huge media interest in 1981 as the British public was expecting her to become engaged to then Prince, now King, Charles. So her showing up in a sweater that features a black sheep showed how she was going to handle this whole thing. Now MDM is teaming up with Warm & Wonderful to celebrate the 45th anniversary of the knitwear brand.

It’s not a surprise I like this watch as it was designed by LA-based designer Carlton DeWoody who worked on the Racquet collaboration. It’s also based on the same watch, the Rallymaster. Made out of stainless steel, the case 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. The crown gets a black DLC coat and water resistance is 100 meters.

The dial is what it’s all about. It features the same graphic as the famous sweater, with an all red base with white sheep printed in luminous material all over it. Of course, there’s one sheep that’s black and not lumed, except for its one eye. The only other thing you get its a trio of black hands, with lume on the hour and minute ones.

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. The watch comes on a white two-piece stretchable textile flex strap with a red stripe down the middle, in a special box that contains a specially made black sheep and a ‘Black Sheep’ patch.

The Maurice de Mauriac x Warm & Wonderful Black Sheep is limited to just 45 pieces and can be bought through both Maurice de Mauriac and Warm & Wonderful. Price is set at CHF 1,950. See more on the MDM website.

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H. Moser & Cie. Teams Up With Massena LAB For The First Chronograph In The Endeavour Collection

The Endeavour is perhaps the most elegant line of watches that H. Moser & Cie make. There’s the way more sporty Streamliner and the more casual Pioneer, but it’s the Endeavour that will see stuff like that vantablack painted dial. So, it makes complete sense that there are no chronograph complications in the elegant Endeavour collection. And yet.. Here we are. Moser has tamed up with Massena LAB, the design studio created by William Massena, specialised in collaboration watches with some of the greatest brands, and the two have dug up a stunning classic Moser chronograph from the 1940s from which to draw inspiration for the Endeavour Chronograph Compax.

This is vintage watch through and through, with very significant modernity brought into it in a spectacular manner. The case is made out of stainless steel and measures 41mm wide and 13.3mm thick. The case looks incredibly shiny polished, with a few vertically brushed accents and recessed flanks and concave bezel that connect it to the Endeavour collection. On the side are new mushroom style pushers and a familiar conical crown.

The dial is instantly recognised as something from the middle of the 20th century. It has a blue fumé base topped with printing that has a classic bi-compax layout. On the right you’ll find the small seconds and on the left the 45-minute counter. Surrounding the dial is a very prominent double tachymeter scale, capable of calculating average speeds on a two-minute base. All of the printing is done in cream, including the Arabic numerals and the 1947 version of the H. Moser & Cie. logo they are using.

Inside is Moser’s in-house HMC 220 combined with a Dubois Dépraz chronograph module. The movement beats at 3Hz and has a 72 hour power reserve. The watch comes on a brown kudu leather strap with white stitching.

The H. Moser & Cie. X Massena LAB Endeavour Chronograph Compax is limited to 100 pieces and priced at CHF 25,000, with tax. See more on the Moser website.

⚙️I Review A Watch

Exactly what it says on the label — I get a watch, wear it and then review it

The Circula ProFlight Is Exactly What A Modern Pilot's Watch Should Be

Any reminders of that sad day just flew out the window the second I opened up the box that holds the Circula ProFlight in blue. Way before I got my hands on one I was pretty sure that this watch would make its way onto my top 10 list of watches this year. It was just a super cool package. So yeah, I was growing more and more fond of the watch. And the red flags were piling up higher and higher. The worst one of all was the fact that the ProFlight was a modern take on a classic, the pilot’s watch. Just like The Phantom Menace. But sometimes, you should meet your heroes.

Read the whole review here

⏲️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 43 years, police were stumped about what happened by priceless works by Pissarro, Renoir, and Avercamp that vanished. At least they did until the dashing, enigmatic Clifford Schorer III went searching for clues online. Here’s how an amateur art sleuth cracked the case.

• I can’t really describe this article any better than to say it’s a journey to meet the king (or con artist?) leading an island independence movement.

• You all remember the well covered lawsuits agains Napster. But it’s the legal battle over Grokster’s music piracy case that changed the course of the internet forever.

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

I was never really good at photography, even worse at skateboarding. And yet, for years, I bought every single issue of Transworld Skateboarding. Mostly because of Atiba’s incredible photography. And this incredible short doc tells his story perfectly (despite there being one key person missing from it).

💵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

-Vuk