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  • Seiko Brings Back The Wild Recreation Of Their First Wrist Watch; Oris Has A White Dial Bronze Divers Sixty-Five; Finally, A New Lorca; A Stunning Kurono Tokyo; And A New Moser Retrograde Seconds

Seiko Brings Back The Wild Recreation Of Their First Wrist Watch; Oris Has A White Dial Bronze Divers Sixty-Five; Finally, A New Lorca; A Stunning Kurono Tokyo; And A New Moser Retrograde Seconds

Lorca is a good example why brands shouldn't rush new releases. Take your time and create great watches

Author

Vuk Radic
October 02, 2024 • Estimated Reading Time: 20 minutes

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. I know that that Kurono will cause a stampede of people trying to pre-order, but it’s worth it. Those people really do know how to put together a watch.

For now, It’s About Time is a fully reader supported publication. If you like this newsletter, want to continue getting it and want even more of my writing, I would love if you could hop on over to Patreon and subscribe. You give me $6 a month, I give you 5 additional longform posts per week which include an overview of interesting watches for sale, early access to reviews (it’s the Elka x Ace Jewelers D-Series Essence), a basic watch school, a look back at a forgotten watch, and a weekend read that looks at the history of horology.

In this issue:

  • Seiko Brings Back The Wild Recreation Of Their First Wrist Watch As A Perfect Medium For Collaborations

  • Oris Expands The Cotton Candy Line With A Divers Sixty-Five In Bronze With A White Dial

  • Lorca Applies Their Incredible Style And Vintage Aesthetic To The 37mm Model No.2 Chronograph

  • Kurono Tokyo Unveils Special Projects Réserve de Marche SENSU NOS

  • H. Moser & Cie. Brings An Exposed Retrograde Seconds Complication To The Sporty Pioneer

Today’s reading time: 8 minutes and 52 seconds

👂What’s new

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Almost a year ago, Seiko started celebrating two important milestones. First was the 110th anniversary of the Seiko company and the other was the 100th anniversary of the use of the Seiko name on watch dials. And to kick off the festivities, Seiko released the Seiko Presage Kintaro Hattori SPB441, named after the founder of the company and a recreation of the Laurel, their first watch. It was a wild thing — small, completely round and mimicking a pocket watch attached to a wristband. And it seemed to be a one-and-done thing, which would have been a shame for such a unique looking watch. Well, looks like it wasn’t a one-and-done. Seiko just teamed up with Porter Classic, a Japanese fashion brand, to release the new Presage Craftsmanship Series Porter Classic Limited Edition SPB449, based on that exact watch.

On the outside, it seems like nothing has changed from the SPB441. The watch is still a small hockey puck, measuring 35mm wide and 12.3mm thick, made out of fully polished stainless steel. It still looks like a converted pocket watch, with articulated wire lugs and an onion-shaped crown at 3 o’clock. On top is a box-shaped sapphire crystal, surrounded by a sloped bezel and out back is a solid steel caseback with an engraving of a picture of Katsuyuki Yoshida, Porter Classic’s founder. Kind of weird, but at least you’ll rarely see it.

The dial is what changed the most. It’s still made out of enamel, made by master enamel craftsman Mitsuru Yokosawa and his team, but instead of a white enamel, it’s now completely black. Onto that Seiko prints white Breguet numerals and adds a bunch of text to the dial. Two changes would have been amazing — they could have done without the Automatic 3 Days text and they still insist on using the 6 o’clock sub-dial for a 24 hour indicator instead of the much more sensible running seconds.

Inside, a much more modern movement than the look would suggest. It’s the calibre 6R5H. it beats at 3Hz and has a 72 hour power reserve. The watches come on spectacular straps — one black and one brown, both pull-through strap that look like the vintage bands that used to hold converted pocket watches.

The new Seiko Presage Craftsmanship Series Porter Classic SPB449 will go on sale in November and be limited to 500 pieces. Price is set at €2,400. I hope that Seiko will continue to develop this watch, as it looks like a spectacular for limited edition collaborations, despite my destain for LEs. See more on the Seiko website.

2/

The Divers Sixy-Five in 38mm with pastel dials, part of the Cotton Candy collection, have been some of the most popular offerings that Oris has had in years. So it only makes sense that they would continue to put out new models in this line. This is exactly what we have here, only there’s no pastel summery dial. Instead, we get a stark white rendition that’s looking forward to a snowy winter. This is the new Oris Divers Sixty-Five Cotton Candy “White Star”. Oh, and you know what a bronze watch from Oris with a new dial color means — look out for it showing up on the stainless steel version very soon.

But first, the bronze version. As the name says, it’s 38mm wide and made out of bronze, which means that it will develop a patina the more you wear it. On top is an ultra-domed sapphire crystal, surrounded by a bronze bezel that has a polished 60 minute scale. On the back is a stainless steel case-back to prevent reactions with the sckin and it, like the crown, screws down. You get 100 meters of water resistance.

The white dial looks like it’s a fantastic contrast to the warm bronze and will likely only look better as the case ages. You get bronze-rimmed applied indices filled with beige Super-LumiNova, and the same lume shows up on the hour and minute hands. Hey, look, it’s beige Lume that makes perfect sense! There’s a date window at 6 o’clock with a matching white date wheel, while all the text has been printed in a bronze color for a tonal match.

Inside you won’t find their in-house calibre 400. Instead, it’s the 733 calibre, which is essentially a slightly modified Sellita SW 200. It beats at 4Hz and has a 41 hour power reserve. The watch comes on a bronze 3-link bracelet.

The new Oris Divers Sixty-Five Cotton Candy “White Star” goes on sale very soon and will be part of the regular collection. Price is set at €2,850 and you can see more on the Oris website.

3/

Just the other day, I was thinking about Lorca watches, what’s going on with them and wondering why they haven’t released a watch in ages. Which just shows you how jaded the industry has become, when we expect brands — actually, micro brands — to crank out multiple releases per year. It just shouldn’t work like that. Lorca is only two years old, so it’s good to let them breathe. They made a name — or even a cult following — for themselves with an incredible (and well sized at 37mm) vintage-inspired GMT in the Model No.1 and the followup comes in the form of the Model No.2, a chronograph. What we get here is more great sizing, more vintage inspiration and a chronograph that is very unique in a crowded market.

It’s best to cover the size of the watch, as it’s a pretty unique offering, with most modern chronographs sitting at 40 and above. The Lorca Model No.2, made out of stainless steel, measures 37mm wide, 14.1mm thick and has a 46mm lug-to-lug. The thickness sounds massive, I know, but keep in mind that this is the overall thickness, including the double domed sapphire crystal, while the thickness of the case sits at a pretty nifty 11.6mm. Looking at the Model No.2, it most certainly doesn’t look like a sports or tool watch. Instead, what you get is an almost dress watch chrono, as paradoxical as that sounds, with an incredible bezel that has an Art Deco-inspired sunray pattern grooved bezel on top, interrupted by protruding polished hour numerals. The bezel rotates, so you can use that as a second time zone tracker if you want. 100 meters of water resistance is appreciated.

There are three dials to choose from: black, silver, and a panda variant with a grey base and silver subdials that looks delightfully worn in and… patina…d? The silver has a sunray brushed patter, while the other two have satin finshes, but all three have pretty spectacular polished and faceted hour markers and dauphine hour and minute hands, all lume filled. It’s a tri-compax setup with a 30 minute counter, 12 hour counter and a running seconds sub-dial.

Inside is the very well known Sellita SW510 movement, manually wound to keep thickness on the low side. The movement beats at 4Hz and has a 63 hour power reserve. The watches come on a beads-of-rice style bracelet that just looks delightfully retro, despite offering a push-button micro-adjust.

The pre-orders for the Lorca Model No.2 are now open, but deliveries aren’t expected until May of 2025. Sure, that’s quite a wait, but Lorca is also just a couple of folks making rad vintage-looking watches out of New York, so I can cut them a break. Price is set at €2,430. Significantly more than the GMT version, but I can see why. See more on the Lorca website.

4/

Some people in the online watch community will attempt to tell you that the fervour that watch fans felt for the Japanese independent brand Kurono Tokyo has died down. That they can now release watches without everyone having a complete meltdown and crashing their site. True, the site will indeed not crash, but not because interest in Kurono has waned, it’s because Kurono owner Hajime Asaoka is getting better at supplying watch fans with fantastic watches at great prices. This simple brand has become the face of indie Japanese watchmaking, representing everything we love about it - high quality minimalist pieces that would have looked good 50 years ago, look good now and will look good in 50 years. But to put a twist on that once more, Kurono Tokyo is releasing a very limited watch, the new Special Projects Réserve de Marche SENSU NOS. But the limitation is not just Asaoka’s whim, it comes from the NOS in the name, standing for New Old Stock. So you know the movement will be something rad.

The new Special Projects Réserve de Marche comes in a bit bigger than most Kurono Tokyo watches, but don’t worry, it’s still sensible. IT measures 38mm wide, 11.2mm thick and has a 45.6mm lug-to-lug. On top is a box-shaped sapphire crystal and you get 50 meters of water resistance. But this watch is not about the case. It’s all about the dial.

This is the first time that Asaoka is bringing guilloché to the Kurono brand. It’s not a turned guilloché dial, Asaoka charges more for those. Instead, it’s a stamped dial, but no less impressive. In the centre of the dial is a disc that has a Clous de Paris pattern stamped into it, interrupted at the 10 o’clock position by the power reserve and at 6 o’clock by the 24-hour dial. The 24-hour dial keeps the same Clous de Paris pattern, while the power reserve gets a pattern that mimics a folding Japanese fan. You can get the dials in two colors — a cream that’s paired with blued dauphine steel hands and classic Arabic numerals on the chapter ring; and a blue with polished dauphine steel hands and Kanji numerals.

As for the movement, Kurono is using the Premium Automatic Calibre 9134 from Citizen. While not particularly special, these are movements that have been discontinues and Kurono purchased the entire new old stock when production stopped. Kurono modifies the movements to remove the date mechanism and improve accuracy. The movement beats at 4Hz and has a 40 hour power reserve. The watches come on black textured calf leather straps that taper from 20mm to 16mm.

No details were given on exactly how many will be made, but speculations say that it will be low hundreds per dial, so do expect these to go extremely fast. Pre-orders will start on Thursday, 10 October 2024, at 10PM Japan time, 3PM Central Europen Time or 9AM New York time. Price is set at $2,150 excluding VAT. See more on the Kurono website.

5/

Moser has been on a bit of a kick with their Streamliner model, doing all sorts of modifications to what just might be their best looking model. So, it’s good to see them pay a bit of attention to their other models. And I’m really glad to see them focus that attention to the Pioneer. Sure, it’s their entry-level model — still outside of most budgets — but it’s also their sportiest model. Now, they’re releasing the Pioneer Retrograde Seconds which features a pretty spectacular retrograde display module developed by Agenhor.

This watch comes in the familiar Pioneer case that measures 42.8mm wide and 10.6mm thick (14.2 if you measure it with the domed sapphire crystal). The case has alternating polished and brushed surfaces and it has slight indentations in the sides of the case that have a ribbed surface. The crown screws down and it will get you 120 meters of water resistance.

The dial has a Midnight Blue fumé color with faceted hour markers. Above the markers, you get dots of lume and more lume can be found on the semi-skeletonised leaf-shaped hands. But best of all with Moser watches is their attention to detail. Like the fact that they write out their logo in transparent lacquer making it barely visible. However, the most prominent part of the watch has to be that 6 o’clock 30-second retrograde counter. The hand advances along the counter and then jumps back to its starting position. You can see the complication in action with its double snail cam, releasing all the energy at the end of the cycle.

The movement powering all of this is the Moser HMC 250 automatic, which beats at 3Hz and has a 72 hour power reserve. It’s decorated in anthracite, Moser’s signature double stripes and skeletonised bridges and rotor. The watch can be had on a steel bracelet, an alligator leather strap, a rubber strap or a textile strap.

Price for the H. Moser & Cie. Pioneer Retrograde Seconds is set at CHF 19,900 and you can see more on the Moser website.

🫳On hand

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⚙️Watch Worthy

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

The case and bracelet have a brushed satin finish and feature a scratch-resistant UltraHex coating. This coating has a hardness of 1,200 Vickers, which is eight times harder than 316L stainless steel. That means you don’t have to worry about wearing this watch anywhere because it can take a beating. It is a shame if you like your watches to age nicely over time, though. The RZE Fortitude GMT-S will simply stay young forever. The angled knurling on the bezel is a nice nod to the engines on an airplane, and they perfectly match the original design of the bracelet links.

⏲️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

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

I like a well filmed watch video. And that Timex really is a fantastic release.

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-Vuk

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