Panerai Releases Submersible Luna Rossa Special Edition; RZE Just Made Their Best Watch To Date; Union Glashütte Takes Inspiration From The Coolest Of Wheels; New From Eberhart And Vacheron

In this issue:

• Panerai Releases Milan Design Week Special Edition Submersible Luna Rossa PAM01579

• RZE Is Ready To Launch Their New Urbanist Collection, An Incredibly Priced Small Titanium Solar Movement Watch

• Union Glashütte Noramis Date Deutschland Klassik 2024 Is Inspired By One Of The Most Legendary Wheels Of All Time

• Eberhart Co. Launches Two Flyback Chronographs in Their Chronographe 1887 Collection

• The New Vacheron Constantin Grand Lady Kalla Looks Like An Incredible Chandelier, Just For Your Wrist. Or Neck.

Today’s reading time: 8 minutes and 14 seconds

👂What’s new

1/

Panerai Releases Milan Design Week Special Edition Submersible Luna Rossa PAM01579

It was a decent year for Panerai at the 2024 Watches & Wonders. In a show that didn’t rock many boats, Panerai showed at least two watches that tickled my interest - the crazy Submersible Tourbillon GMT Luna Rossa Experience Edition PAM01405 and the exquisitely good looking 44mm wide Submersible QuarantaQuattro Luna Rossa Ti-Ceramitech with the pale blue-grey case made out of a titanium alloy that has undergone a titanium “ceramization” process through Electrolytic Plasma Oxidation, paired with a blue dial. The major issue with that watch was its extreme price of €16,900. Now, just days after Watches & Wonders has ended, Panerai is back with a new release. Kind of strange, but it does make sense. This new watch, the Submersible Luna Rossa PAM01579, is released to mark Milan Design Week, an event Panerai has been liked to for some time. And it’s very similar to that Ti-Ceramitech I liked so much, down to the overblown price.

The new PAM01579 is part of their Luna Rossa line, meaning it pays homage to the Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli sailing team which is preparing for America’s Cup 2024. The watch comes in the smaller Submersible case, especially small for a brand like Panerai, but it doesn’t mean it’s a small watch. It measures 42mm wide, 14.5mm thick and has a 51mm lug-to-lug. Like I said, large, but Panerai derives a lot of charm from their size. It comes in a brushed stainless steel finish and the case has a unidirectional rotating steel bezel with a matte black ceramic insert on top. Water resistance is 300 meters.

The watch sticks to the Luna Rossa team colors, meaning that the black bezel is contrasted by a matte white dial. White lumed dots surrounded in black act as hour markers, there’s a tiny date window at 3 o’clock and a 9 o’clock small seconds at 9 o’clock with a red hand. Speaking of hands, they are sword shaped and partially skeletonized, with the top of the hands being filled in with lume.

Inside is, perhaps, the most controversial part of the watch, the automatic P.900 movement. There’s nothing horribly wrong with this movement, it will tell you the time and do so for three days, but it is a movement based on an ancient ValFleurier movement. This is a five figure watch released in 2024 and the movement doesn’t have hacking seconds. That’s not really acceptable. It’s also not decorated at all, which is not as important as you get a closed caseback that’s engraved with a drawing of the new Luna Rossa sailing yacht. The watch comes on a black rubber and textile strap with a red Luna Rossa stripe.

The Submersible Luna Rossa PAM01579 is not a limited edition, but it will be an exclusive for Panerai’s boutiques in Italy through all of May. In June it goes worldwide. I love the look of this watch. But I’m not sure it can justify the €11,200 price tag Panerai is asking for. See more on the Panerai website.

2/

RZE Is Ready To Launch Their New Urbanist Collection, An Incredibly Priced Small Titanium Solar Movement Watch

It’s incredible when a watch brand is so closely associated with an activity. It means that the brand is exceptionally good not just at marketing, but also product development. Singaporean brand RZE is one such brand, as they have brought their affordable titanium watches ready for adventure to absolute perfection. With their new release, the RZE Urbanist which launches on Kickstarter in two days, they are making a slight twist to their genre with an everyday watch that looks to be incredibly made, even better priced and will likely be their biggest hit yet.

The folks over at RZE really do understand trends. And while most watch brands will tell you their smaller watches just aren’t selling as much as the larger ones, microbrands like RZE are a bit more free to experiment without huge financial hits. After all, the Urbanist is launching on Kickstarter, to better gauge customer response. Back to trends. The trend they are hopping on is the call for more smaller watches to fit a wider variety of wrists. And RZE answers this call.

The new Urbanis comes in a 36mm wide and 11mm thick case, with a 42mm lug-to-lug, a refreshingly small size. The 18mm lug spacing, in a world where we have a lot of 20mm straps, might be the only gripe that will come up regarding its size. Overall it has a field-watch shape with an angular bezel on top that surrounds a sapphire crystal. The case is made out of Grade 2 titanium and comes in one of two coatings - either the brand’s proprietary UltraHex in cases that keep the natural titanium color, or Cerakote which gives you two colored cases - a sand one and a dark olive one. Water resistance is 100 meters.

The dials are simple, keeping with the overall field watch aesthetic. There seems to be a bit of texture to them, accentuated by the Arabic numerals which are made out of lume and have depth to them. The hands are sword shaped and lumed. There’s a number of colors for the dials. The titanium colored watches get either a black, navy or yellow dial, while the sand Cerakote gets a khaki dial and the dark olive watch gets an onyx black dial.

While RZE is mostly known for their use of mechanical watches, they have been known to use a lot of quartz as well. However, these were all traditional battery powered quartz movements. The Urbanist gets a Miyota solar powered quartz, which is always the best option when it comes to quartz movements. Also, the email from RZE suggests that these movements will have a lifetime warranty. All the watches come on black nylon pass-through straps with a black DLC-coated pin buckle.

RZE didn’t officially reveal the pricing of their watches, as the Kickstarter campaign starts on April 24th. However, Fratello already has a hands-on with the watch and has the pricing. The UltraHex models will have a pre-order price of $219 ($259 after the campaign), while the Cerakote pieces will sell for $279. That’s just a fantastic price. See more on the RZE website.

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Union Glashütte Noramis Date Deutschland Klassik 2024 Is Inspired By One Of The Most Legendary Wheels Of All Time 

Glashütte is an amazing place. The population of the german town is just under 6,700 people. And yet, there are 10 active watchmakers there at the moment. One of them is Union Glashütte. While not a powerhouse of the town, the Swatch Group brand makes some very nice looking retro-inspired watches. Last year, around this time, they put out an interesting watch in partnership with the ADAC Deutschland Klassik rally, inspired by the legendary Fuchs wheel that became synonymous with vintage Porsche. Now, they’re back with the ADAC Deutschland Klassik rally partnership, only this time with a possibly even more iconic wheel design - the BBS RS multi-part wheel. This is the Noramis Date Limited Edition Deutschland Klassik 2024.

The watch is based on the regular Noramis Date, meanign that it comes in a 40mm wide and 10.4mm thick polished and brushed steel case that has a 47.8 mm lug-to-lug. On top is a box sapphire crystal and you have a choice of either a sapphire caseback or a steel one with an engraving of the silhouette of Germany. Water resistance is 100 meters.

Things get really weird on the dial. Well, maybe not weird, but surely complex. While the Fuchs wheel from last year had five spokes which were easy to incorporate into the design, the BBS RS has 40 spokes that on the dial make up a white skeletonized dial with a black surface underneath. Being the Noramis Date, it has a date display very well integrated into one of the spoke holes.

Inside is the calibre UNG-07.S1, based on the ETA 2892. It beats at 2.5Hz and has a 60 hour power reserve. The watch comes on a black leather strap that has the spoke design embossed into it.

The Union Glashütte Noramis Date Deutschland Klassik 2024 is limited to 200 pieces and priced at €2,780. See more on the Union Glashütte website.

 4/

Eberhart Co. Launches Two Flyback Chronographs in Their Chronographe 1887 Collection

Brands like Eberhard & Co. are incredibly frustrating. It’s obvious from pictures that they make very nice looking watches. Actually, scratch that. They make a couple of nice watches, but also a couple that will leave you scratching your head. Regardless, the frustrating part is that they make decent watches that you can’t learn anything about. They don’t add novelties to their website. They don’t even have an online store for their watches. Which is a shame, as it seems that they have introduced two new watches at Watches and Wonders 2024, the Chronographe 1887 Édition Limitée and the Chronographe 1887 Automatique.

Based on the 1887 Collection, the watches come in the same 41,50 mm wide and 14,40 mm thick case made out of steel, with polished and satin finishes. The cases have sculpted lugs and a large crown that has a pusher inside it.

The approach to the two dials is very different. They both have a bi-compax setup with a 30 minute totalizer at 3 o’clock and a running seconds at 9 o’clock. But the Chronographe 1887 Automatique comes with a blue dial that has a pattern of tiny squares on it, along with a tachymeter scale on the outside of the dial. The Chronographe 1887 Édition Limitée, on the other hand, has a black dial with a white tachymeter scale on the outside and a dark blue snaled telemeter scale at the center of the dial.

Inside, and visible through the transparent caseback, is the the hand wound caliber EB 280 in the limited edition and the automatic EB 380 in the regular edition, both based on the Sellita AMT5100. Both are equipped with a column wheel for the precise chronograph operation and offer a flyback function. Thanks to a special lever the chronograph reset button is integrated into the crown. The watches come on a blue or black alligator strap, matching the color of the dial.

The Chronographe 1887 Automatique is regular production, while the Chronographe 1887 Édition Limitée is limited to 250 pieces. No idea what the price is, as Eberhart doesn’t tell you this. You can visit the Eberhart website, but you won’t learn much there.

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The New Vacheron Constantin Grand Lady Kalla Looks Like An Incredible Chandelier, Just For Your Wrist. Or Neck.

It’s easily forgotten that watches are equally about telling the time as they are about jewellery. The more robust and tool watches, especially those quartz powered, like the G-Shock, will easily slip towards the time-telling end of the spectrum. But then, there’s stuff like the Vacheron Constantin Grand Lady Kalla, an incredible piece of jewellery that just happens to tell the time.

The case is made from 18k white gold and is 19.4mm wide, set with 57 incredibly clear and beautiful emerald-cut white diamonds. There are some reports that say that this watch contains 46 carats of diamonds. The most interesting part of the watch is not the fact that you can wear it as a bracelet or as a pendant on a necklace, it’s the fact that you can remove the watch all together. The watch case, set with 12 diamonds, can be taken out by the owner and replaced by a slightly slimmer jewel element that features a central emerald-cut diamond weighing at least 2 carats.

The bracelet is set with 105 emerald-cut diamonds with claw settings in white gold, and you also get a necklace with 112 Akoya saltwater pearls and 50 black beads made out of polished onyx. Powering the watch is an unknown and tiny quartz movement, but it’s clear that time telling is not the focus here.

The Vacheron Constantin Grand Lady Kalla will only be available through Vacheron Constantin boutiques. And price is, of course, on request. But keep in mind that just the 2 carat diamond in the middle of the jewel element is estimated at $30,000. Extrapolate from that the rest of the price. See more on the Vacheron Constantin website.

🫳On hand

Our selection of the best reviews we stumble upon

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A review of the Grand Seiko SLGH021

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Hands on with the Gorilla 39mm-wide Fastback Touring Aurelia

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A review of the Riviera Squelette

⚙️Watch Worthy

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

The Nomadic Maraí 401 Crimson Dawn, A Dive Watch With Roots In The Belfastian Harbor

The combination of colors and vintage-inspired details does indeed give off Black Bay vibes. But let’s put that aside for a minute and focus on some details that stand out. Overall, the visual balance of the different elements feels very nice. The width and size of the bezel are spot on, and the flat sapphire crystal keeps the watch nice and slim at 11.5mm thick. I was less impressed by the design of the hands. The minute hand is a long pencil-style one, while the hour hand is a short baton-style hand that feels cut off.

Read the whole review on Fratello

⏲️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

• The saga of Clarence Hiskey, a chemist employed by the Manhattan Project, and Arthur Adams, a spy-runner, has largely fallen down a memory hole. This is the untold story of the first U.S.-based nuclear spy, and how he got away with it.

• Rex Reed is one of a dying breed—the pugnacious, no-holds-barred movie critic beholden to neither publicist nor star. This is an old school article about an old school movie critic in a new school version of an old school publication. If that makes sense.

• John Seo used his scientific knowledge to develop a winning formula for trading catastrophe bonds — a market that’s booming thanks to climate change and inflation. This is how a physics whiz made a fortune betting on nature’s catastrophes

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

I think the last Rockedpowerdmohawk video I posted didn’t make it 12 hours live on YouTube before it was removed. Sure, RPM takes huge risks with his humor, often crossing the line with people who aren’t his fans, but that’s what makes him perhaps the funniest person on YouTube, even if you don’t follow Formula 1. His latest video has been around for a few hours, but to the uninitiated, it will seem to be the most racist thing they see today. Trust the process, it’s extremely funny. But proceed with caution.