Rolex Buys Bucherer, Zenith Has A Full Rainbow Defy 21, Farer Gives Their Take On The Tonneau, Designer Matthew Williams Makes Best Looking AP Yet, New Watches From MeisterSinger, Peren And Paulin

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. Apologies in advance, as this is a big one. I just couldn’t whittle it down any more, you should see the watches I couldn’t fit in… guess you’ll have something to read over the weekend!

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In this issue:

• Rolex Buys Legendary Retailer Bucherer

• Zenith Gives The Full Rainbow To Two Colorful Defy 21 Chroma II Watches

• Farer Releases New Collection Inspired By European Cities With Their Own Take On The Tonneau Shape

• Audemars Piguet Teams Up With Fashion Designer Matthew Williams To Create What Might Be Four Of The Best Looking AP’s In A While

• MeisterSinger Introduces Two 38mm and 43mm Perigraphs In Blue And Yellow For The Late Summer

• Peren Unveils Their New Regia Automatic 39 Inspired By The Stonehenge of Transylvania, One Of The Most Precise Ancient Calendars

• Paulin Announce New Modul Watch Just as anOrdain Announces Acquisition Of The Scottish Brand

Today’s reading time: 12 minutes and 35 seconds

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1/

Rolex Buys Legendary Retailer Bucherer

The world’s largest watchmaker has a history of forming strong, decades-long, bonds with their partners, be they on the supply or retail side. Rolex has purchased numerous companies it has worked with for years and in a surprise announcement on Thursday, it looks like they are making what might be their most significant acquisition yet - they are buying Bucherer, one of the oldest and most respected watch and jewellery retailers in the world.

According to the press release, Bucherer operates more than 100 locations globally. Fifty-three of those locations retail Rolex and 48 retail Tudor. Bucherer also serves as an official after-sales service center for both brands. There are, of course, no indications how the relationship between Rolex and Bucherer, which also owns the retailer Tourneau, will develop in the future and what it will mean for Rolex’s relationship with other retailers. This integration is a clear indication that distribution and sales are key topics in today’s watchmaking business for Rolex. There is no mention how much Rolex is paying for the acquisition and the deal still has to be confirmed by completion authorities.

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Zenith Gives The Full Rainbow To Two Colorful Defy 21 Chroma II Watches

During LVMH Watch Week back in 2022, Zenith debuted its first Defy 21 Chroma limited-edition watch. It came in a white ceramic case with colorful rainbow accents. It was just the peak of Zenith showing off what they can do with their bold and highly technical Defy line. Now they’re introducing the successors to the Chroma watch, the Defy 21 Chroma II in black and white ceramic.

The Chroma II limited editions consist of an entirely new black ceramic Defy 21 with accents that replicate those on the white version from 2022, which is basically a catalog of primary colors, throughout the hour markers. The new white ceramic version is a little more complex to my eye, with a more narrowly focused color palette consisting of bright blues and pinks. Each case measures 44mm in diameter and is water resistant to 100 meters.

Despite still using the tones of the rainbow as a base, the new models are different. The black ceramic version brings forth a range of tones based on the primary colours with a yellow rubber insert on the crown, while the white ceramic version features brighter accents with an emphasis on blues and pinks with a blue rubber insert on the crown. This effect can be seen on the hour makers, the hands and through the open dial that reveals the bridges of the movement. Each is finished in a different metallic colour, again following the gradient of the dial’s markers.

The star of the show, as always with the Defy 21, is the movement. The dial is open, so visible bridges abound below the raised chronograph totalizers. Those bridges have been finished in colors to match the markers they appear closest to, adding a great deal of coherence to the overall design. The El Primero 9004 caliber, in addition to timing to the hundredth of a second, has another unique quirk in that the chronograph has its own escapement, and is actually wound separately from the caliber’s mainspring.

The watch comes on color-matched rubber straps with cordura-effect inlays and (of course) rainbow-coloured stitching and is limited to 500 pieces each. The Defy 21 Chroma II retails at $15,600 and the white ceramic variant will be available via Zenith’s boutiques as well as select retailers, while the black version will be available via all Zenith’s authorized points of sale. See more on the Zenith website.

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Farer Releases New Collection Inspired By European Cities With Their Own Take On The Tonneau Shape

My love for Farer is very well known around these parts. And that appreciation is based on one very important thing - their very clear and recognisable design language. Whether it is a GMT, a super compressor, a racing chrono or a field watch, it’s obvious that it’s a Farer from afar. It’s all about the color - Farer has been creating their own look with incredible color combinations that are so distinctly unique they can only belong to one brand. And now they are applying their design language to one of the most traditional shapes out there, the tonneau, with the Farer Tonneau Collection.

The tonneau, also known as barrel shape, is a legendary shape not often seen today other than in high-end pieces like Franck Muller and Richard Mille and many of their copycats. It’s equally curved as it is rectangular, with a clear dressy and vintage vibe. Farer’s take on this shape takes a departure from this traditional understanding of the shape. The stainless steel case measures 35mm across with a 45mm lug-to-lug. The tonneau shape always looks a bit chunky, but this is only 10.6mm thick, so it should fit on any wrist.

Farer loves to launch their collection in threes, and this one is no exception, and all three are named after European cities. First up is the Milan, with an emerald green, lacquered dial that has a concentric square texture on it and creating a fumé experience. The silver numeral and indexes are applied and the hands are a super simple silver affair.

The London, however, is very much a Farer watch. It uses the Union Flag colour scheme of red, white and blue, with the same concentric square textured dial but in white, different sized red numerals and a blue railroad track. The final watch is Paris. It forgoes the concentric square texture for a flat royal blue color. It also gets Roman numerals, very reminiscent of Franck Muller tonneaus.

Inside all three watches is the Sellita SW300-1, and upgrade to the often seen SW200 and it gets a 56-hour power reserve and a 4hz frequency. Farer has also modified the rotors on the watches, with each being vapour coated to perfectly match the dial. All three watches come on gorgeous St. Venere leather straps – blue for the London, brown for the Milan and grey for the Paris.

These will be numbered limited editions. 150 pieces each will be made of the Milan and London versions, while only 100 will be made of the Paris. Like all the other Farer’s we have come to known, these won’t bankrupt you like a Richard Mille would. All three share the same price - €1,295. You can get the watches now on Farer’s website and they are expected to ship at the end of September.

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Audemars Piguet Teams Up With Fashion Designer Matthew Williams To Create What Might Be Four Of The Best Looking AP’s In A While

People love to make fun of Audemars Piguet for being, in essence, the Royal Oak company. They have made some significant strides in diversifying their lineup in recent years, but that attempt was also met with ridicule. So what’s AP to do but go all in with the Royal Oak? Their most recent creation is incredible - they have joined up with American designer Matthew Williams, the founder of 1017 ALYX 9SM and Givenchy’s Creative Director, to create four new Royal Oak and Royal Oak Offshore references, alongside an exclusive Royal Oak unique piece.

I’ve seen the comments online, so let me preempt you - no, you’re wrong, these watches don’t look like MVMT watches. They’re perhaps the best expression of what AP can do with a watch icon and supremely cool. Just look at them! Williams used a diverse lineup of watches, spanning from 37 to 42 mm.

The two Royal Oaks in the collection push minimalism on AP which is something you did not know the watch needed. The Royal Oak is meticulously handcrafted in 18K yellow gold, where the first of the pair is a smaller size at 37mm, and runs on the self-winding Calibre 5909. The dial is incredibly minimalist, with simple “Audemars Piguet” and “1017 ALYX 9SM” signatures, the former in a gold appliqué and the latter elegantly transferred. This is also a time only model with simple luminescent yellow-gold hands. The other Royal Oak is a 41mm self-winding chronograph with an incredibly obvious but new way of dealing with a chronograph dial - Williams simply ignored any dial markings. Instead the hands at 3, 6 and 9 o’clock just spin on the gold surface, without you being able to precisely tell what they are showing.

The two Royal Oak Offshore models make a striking statement by departing from convention and featuring only the essential elements on the dial. The characteristic date aperture sits resolutely at 3 o’clock, accompanied by the emblematic AP monogram. The signature of 1017 ALYX 9SM is at 6 o’clock. An extraordinary departure for a chronograph, the counters at 6, 9, and 12 o’clock have been omitted, leaving the spotlight solely on the hands. Sized at 42mm, the watches are fit with the self-winding Calibre 4404, and are available in a choice of 18K white or yellow gold, striking a balance between subtlety and opulence.

There’s also a piece unique Royal Oak Self-winding Chronograph. This 41mm timepiece boasts a two-tone case and bracelet, artfully marrying 18K yellow gold and stainless steel. The striking contrast extends to the black PVD-coated gold dial, adorned with vertical satin-finishing. Notably, the dial proudly bears the signatures of both collaborating brands, accompanied by chronograph hands in yellow gold for a vivid visual impact. This piece sold at auction for charity.

AP says all four models will be released as limited editions, but did not confirm the numbers they plan on making. The pricing is as you would expect for what might go down as the best Royal Oak version ever. The 37mm Royal Oak sells for $73,500, the larger Royal Oak for $90,400, while the two RO Offshores are priced the same at $111,500. See more on the AP website.

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MeisterSinger Introduces Two 38mm and 43mm Perigraphs In Blue And Yellow For The Late Summer

Find the one thing your really good at and put your all into that one thing. I think that’s how the proverb goes. MeisterSinger also heard that proverb and since 2001 they have been honing into making just one type of watch - watches that use a single hand to tell the time. With time they added complications to their lineups and one such watch is the Perigraph, which has a date display in addition to the one hand time display. Now, following the launch this spring of a more compact 38mm version, the Perigraph collection gets the addition of two new limited editions with a fres blue and yellow paintjob.

Available either in 38mm or 43mm, these new versions are mechanically identical to the classic models from the permanent collection. Both are 11.5mm thick, have domed sapphire crystals up front and a mineral crystal on the back, with a water resistance of 50 meters. But the case is less important, as all the focus is on the dial. Instead of having a date window at 3, 6 or even the dreaded 4.30 o’clock, MeisterSinger integrates the date display as a visible disc in the center of the dial and the current date is shown at 12 o’clock thanks to a small pointer.

The base color of the dial is a sunray-brushed medium blue, with yellow markers for the hours. This bright colour is also found on the date indicator at 12 o’clock and on the leather strap closed by a deployant buckle. Hoever, if the colored strap is too much for you, you can also get it on a steel mesh bracelet or other leather straps. Inside the case is the Sellita SW300 which runs at a 4Hz frequency and stores up to 42 hours of power reserve.

This will be a limited edition of 100 pieces in each size and is available immediately, priced at €2,190. See more on the MeisterSinger website.

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Peren Unveils Their New Regia Automatic 39 Inspired By The Stonehenge of Transylvania, One Of The Most Precise Ancient Calendars

There are several Swiss brands that pay homage or draw roots from other countries and embrace this heritage, or love for a different country, very strongly. One such example is Cuervo Y Sobrinos, a Swiss brand with clear Cuban roots which are evident today in their design language and philosophy. Another such brand is Peren, but they draw their inspiration from Transylvania, as the entire brand has been created as a tribute to one of the first Transylvanian watchmakers, Eugen Hintz, and watches have been designed with one of this region’s most important locations in mind.

Following the introduction of the Peren Hintz and Peren Nera Rogue collections, Peren is now introducing a new diver called the Peren Regia Automatic 39. It’s inspired by the Sarmizegetusa Regia, one of the most precise ancient calendars, known as the Stonehenge of Transylvania.

This is a 39mm wide, stanless steel cased, diver with a lug-to-lug of 45.3mm and a thickness of 12.8mm. All of these dimensions sound like it will be a very wearable sporty diver. It gets a uni-directional conical steel bezel, featuring two different finishings on the sides. The same conical shape can be found on the screw-down crown which, with the screw down back, gives you 200 meters of water resistance.

There are two editions of this new Peren, the Regia and the Regia X. The first one gets a two-tone aluminium bezel with a streamlined 60-minute scale. The other, the X, features a twin scale with 60-minute and 12-hour markers. The dial is a matte black and very simple, with interesting hour markers made with 3d Super-LumiNova. This clean display is reinforced by a laser-engraved scale on the periphery of the dial and simple, highly legible white luminous hands. The date window is at 12 o’clock, a position I tend to like more and more.

Inside is a movement you would expect from a microbrand - the Sellita SW200 with a 4Hz movement and 38 hours power reserve. The watch comes on a FKM vulcanized rubber strap and options for a steel bracelet or a textile strap are also available.

You can pre order the watches now and each version is limited to 300 pieces. The watches are priced at retail at CHF 963 which is a decent and expected price for such a watch from a new(ish) microbrand. However, during the pre order period you can get it for CHF 693 and for that price it’s an great deal. See the watch for yourself on the brand’s website.

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Paulin Announce New Modul Watch Just as anOrdain Announces Acquisition Of The Scottish Brand

Two pretty big pieces of news from the same Scottish brand - Paulin. First of all, they are launching a new watch called the Modul. Second, they have announced that they are being acquired by fellow Glaswegians and occasional collaborators, the legendary anOrdain. The company will, in essence, reboot it’s line of quirky and modern watches, under the leadership of Imogen Ayers, a founding member of the anOrdain team, and Paulin’s Creative Director. So not much has changed, other than Paulin will probably be able to crank out more watches, which is great news for anybody that has tried to buy an anOrdain watch.

Back to the Modul. It comes in a cushion shaped case that measures a comfortably small 35mm wide and a svelte 8.2mm thick. The motivation behind the modular hint in the name comes from the fact that Paulin has sourced a variety of unused vintage movements and wasn’t sure what types of calibers they’d have access to in the future. That’s why they wanted to create a watch that could accommodate those different movements. Not something you see every day, but the result is fantastic.

Right now, you can get the watch with two movements. One is the new to market La Joux Perret D1000, which is a slightly modified version of the stalwart Peseux 7001 hand wound caliber. The other is a vintage ETA 955.112, a quartz caliber in new-old-stock condition. Both are visible through an exhibition caseback, a rare thing for quartz movements, but highly appreciated.

Each version of the Modul is available in a trio of colorways - yellow, pink, and maroon options, each incorporating Paulin’s distinctive style of marking the hours with a combination of Arabic numerals and indices. There’s a well thought out symmetry in how the dials are presented, and legibility is a great thanks to strong complementary colors. Paulin is also big on transparency, so they reveal that for the Modul all movements are Swiss made, assembly, regulation, and servicing are completed in Glasgow, dials and straps originate in Germany, cases are made in Asia, the hands are made in India, and the packaging is made in Portugal and the UK.

A core tenet at Paulin has always been transparency in where and how their watches are made, and like their parent company, much of the assembly work and production will be done in Scotland, and Paulin now has a new ability to access anOrdain’s manufacturing expertise. Paulin notes that they’re committed to supplying supplier lists for all models under $1,000, which includes both of the new Modul watches. To that end, Paulin states that for the Modul, all movements are Swiss made, assembly, regulation, and servicing are completed in Glasgow, dials and straps originate in Germany, cases are made in Asia, the hands are made in India, and the packaging is made in Portugal and the UK.

You can buy the watches right now, with the quartz priced at €455,95 and the mechanical at €1.000,95. See more on the Paulin website.

🫳On hand

Our selection of the best reviews we stumble upon

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Hands-On with the new Yema Sous Marine Collection

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A review of the Oris Hank Aaron Limited Edition

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An In-Depth Look At The Bravur Grand Tour III Chronographs

⚙️Watch Worthy

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

Traser P99 Q Tactical takes the existing tool watch DNA and makes it more hardcore

Finding a balance between size, weight, and durability for a wristwatch almost always comes down to materials. Often, titanium is the metal of choice, but it isn’t the only functional one. Traser has opted for a hybrid case construction on the P99Q Tactical to bridge this gap between size and weight. The outer shell of the case is constructed of carbon fiber-reinforced polymer. Portions of the mid-case and lugs have been hollowed out to give the exterior a dynamic appearance in combination with the fine-grained effect of the carbon reinforcement. The interior of the case is a steel container that houses the movement and dial. The two-part construction results in a large overall package coming in at 46mm in diameter, 53mm from lug-to-lug, and 13.7mm thick. Featuring an 8mm screw-down crown, solid steel caseback, and sapphire crystal, the case is water resistant to 200 meters.

⏲️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

• Recently, Gwyneth Paltrow announced she will be putting her house on AirBnB. Actually, it’s her guest house. So writer Jodi Walker looks at the ridiculous offer and strips this down to the publicity stunt it is and has a great time analyzing how she can make the stay hers.

• This is a compelling story about an inheritance case that could unravel an art dynasty. Or, how a widow’s legal fight against the Wildenstein family of France has threatened their storied collection — and revealed the underbelly of the global art market.

• The best science journalism doesn’t read like science journalism at all; it reads like a mystery. And Amit Katwala’s latest Wired feature, which chronicles how a Taiwanese eye surgeon set out to solve his country’s decades-long slide into severe nearsightedness (and ends on one of the more charming kickers I can remember), knows no good solution comes without sleuthin’.

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

I’m not a fan of the vlog format, so excuse me for posting something like it. However, this is it. This is the dream. A small house in Malaysia and a yard full of Porsches. What more does a person need?

💵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: 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

• FOR SALE: Longines Heritage Skin Diver, box and papers. €1400. Reach out to us and we’ll put you in touch

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