Seiko Introduces Elegant Yet Rugged Presage Style 60 Duo; Hanhart Mashes Up All Flieger Details Into Prevenator9; G-Shock builds ultimate fitness watch: and Van Cleef & Arpels Goes All In On Nature

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. You might notice that today’s edition is pretty short. There are two main reasons for that. It’s Labour day in most (if not all) of Europe, so not a lot of new watch releases. And I’m out barbecuing as you’re reading this. That’s it, go enjoy your days!

In this issue:

• The New Seiko Presage Style 60s ‘Elegant Yet Rugged’ Duo Does Exactly What The Title Says

• The Preventor9 Is A New Limited Edition From Hanhart That Mashes Up All The Best Flieger Watch Qualities From Over The Years

• G-Shock Goes All In On Simple Fitness Tracking With The New Digital Basic GDB500 Series

• Van Cleef & Arpels Creates Horological Art Like You’ve Never Seen Before

Today’s reading time: 6 minutes and 44 seconds

👂What’s new

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The New Seiko Presage Style 60s ‘Elegant Yet Rugged’ Duo Does Exactly What The Title Says

You will not get the best watch possible from Seiko. You will not get the prettiest. Or the cheapest. Definetely not the most accurate. But what you will get are interesting mixes of all of these aspects. Take, for example, the Presage Style 60s line that is a retro watch that’s supposed to look a bit dressy, but take a beating without breaking the bank. And riding on that idea Seiko has named their lates Presage Style 60s collection ‘Elegant Yet Rugged’. Sure, a bit on the nose, but the SRPL07J1 and SRPL09J1 really are quite elegant. I’m not so sure how rugged they are, but sure, I’m willing to listen.

While the Presage line tends to pull off the elegant look quite easily, the Style 60s case takes on a much shaper look. Sure, the basic shape is still round, but the lugs protrude from the case sharply and with strong angles. The measurements are actually quite interesting - 39.5mm wide, a bit thick at 122 mm, but with a very comfortable 46.2mm lug-to-lug. On top is a box shaped Hardlex crystal, which will surely be criticized, and surrounding it is a fixed metal bezel with a very subtle mesh pattern and engraved with a 60 minute scale. Less rugged is the fact that the water resistance is an iffy 50 meters.

There are two dial colors available, a blue and a brown, with both getting a very dramatic sunburst pattern. The indices are baton shaped and applied, with just a tiny lume rectangle at the inner end. The hour and minute hands are dauphine shaped, faceted and filled with Lumibrite. Suprisingly, there’s a date window at 4:30. I say surprisingly because it’s so well hidden, with a circular aperture and color matched base, that I barely noticed it.

Inside is the Seiko 4R35 movement. It beats at 21,600vph and has a just-OK 40 hour power reserve. It’s also notorious for its broad range of accuracy that can range anywhere between +45/-35 seconds per day. In reality, the majority of these movements perform much better, but Seiko sides on the side fo caution. The watches come on a 5 link stainless steel bracelet with a brushed and polished finish.

The new Seiko Presage Style 60s ‘Elegant Yet Rugged’ is joining the regular Seiko lineup and is priced at $525. See more on the Seiko website.

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The Preventor9 Is A New Limited Edition From Hanhart That Mashes Up All The Best Flieger Watch Qualities From Over The Years

On wrists of many, if not the majority, of German pilots and naval officers for decades you could find Hanhart watches. Their pilot’s watches have always been known as incredible tool watches with some nifty features, like the recognizable red pusher that hopefully prevents pilots from accidentally zeroing the timing. Their latest release, the Hanhart Preventor9 S is a very interesting take on a pilots watch, at the same time incredibly retro - almost historic - and super modern.

In a world of plate sized pilot’s watches, the Preventor 9S comes in a much more comfortable stainless steel case that measures 40mm wide, 12,5mm thick and has a relatively long lug-to-lug of 49mm. The case takes on a very modern look, with a smooth bezel instead of rotating fluted bezel the brand is famous for, and the entire case gets a matte black PVD coat. On top is a convex sapphire crystal and water resistance is 100 meters.

While it doesn’t house a vintage movement, the watch is inspired by a historic Hanhart model from the 1950s powered by the chronograph calibre 42. The idea was to remove the chronograph function from that movement, leaving you with a running seconds sub-dial at 9 o’clock. And that’s exactly what they did. The rest of the dial is as black as the case. but while the case takes on a very modern pilot’s watch look with the black PVD, the dial gets a railroad minute track and large luminous Arabic numerals which look plucked right out of the 1940s and those legendary pilot’s watches. And finally, Hanhart takes a deep grab into the history books, with flamboyant cathedral hands that look very much like they belong in the era when fighter pilots first started flying planes.

Inside is the robust, well known and easily servicable Sellita SW200-1 Automatic. Interestingly, Hanhart had Dubois-Depraz modify the movement to be able to display the running seconds at 9 o’clock. I say this is interesting as Sellita already makes the SW290-1 from the same family that offers the small seconds at 9 o’clock, so I have no idea why they didn’t just use that one. The movement is familiar and beats at 28,800vph and has a 38 hour power reserve. The watch comes on a black calfskin strap with white contrast stitching and Alcantara lining.

This Hanhart Preventor9 S is is limited to 100 pieces and priced at €1,290. See more on the Hanhart website, they have an amazing section on the history of the brand.

3/

G-Shock Goes All In On Simple Fitness Tracking With The New Digital Basic GDB500 Series

When the Apple Watch first came out I quite excitedly got one. I was pretty sure it would be a perfect gadget. Turns out, I was wrong. I liked the form factor, the build and the software, but I deeply resented the idea of constant notifications on your wrist. It drove me crazy. But, one good thing came out of it. It got me moving. A lot. Apple just nailed its approach to tracking your fitness with the watch and I loved wearing it. Until I didn’t. I got sick of the entire Apple Watch experience, gave it to my wife after a few months and never looked back. But secretly, I yearned for a watch that could easily track fitness without being a smart watch. I’ve wanted to try a Sequent watch for a while and now Casio is joining the lineup of super-simple watches with movement tracking tech with the new G-Shock Digital Basic GDB500 series.

G-Shock really embraced the Digital Basic approach with this model. While most of their watches feature large and rugged cases, this one comes in at a rather small dimension for the brand. 41.5mm wide, just 11mm thick and with a lug-to-lug of 46.3mm. The case is made out of fiber-reinforced resin and has an octagonal shape and an overall sleek look. The colors are either subdued or shouty, depending on what you want and the first release can be had in either black, white, grey or a very intense neon green.

The watch includes an accelerometer for step count monitoring, a 200-record lap memory, 20 bar water resistance, a Bluetooth smartphone link, dual city times and G-Shock’s signature resistance.

The new Digital Basic GDB500 series is available for purchase now at a price range of $120-130. See more on the G-Shock website.

 4/

Van Cleef & Arpels Creates Horological Art Like You’ve Never Seen Before

Explaining where her name came from, Tiffany Case - played by the stunning Jill st. John - tells James Bond that she was born at Tiffany & Co. as a pre-term baby, hence the name. Sean Connery As James Bond dryly responds that she should be fortunate her name is not Van Cleef & Arpels. This has nothing to do with the watches, it was just a funny Van Cleef & Arpels story that stuck in my mind. What we do have, is a trio of new watches for the Poetic Complications collection. As you can see, these are way more than just watches, there are jewellery made into art.

Starting off with the Lady Arpels Brise D’Été, it’s the legendary brands homage to summer and nature. The watch comes in a 38mm wide 18 carat white gold case that’s absolutely covered in diamonds. Van Cleef & Arpels doesn’t specify which movement is inside, other than it being an automatic that’s attached to a bespoke module that turns the watch into a moving diorama. The dial is made out of mother-of-pearl, set with diamonds and decorated with champlevé enamel flowers and butterflies. Press a button and the dial comes to life, with the butterflies telling the time. The watch comes on a beautiful green alligator strap.

Then we have the Lady Arpels Jour Nuit, which has quite the unique 24-hour function. The watch comes in two sizes - a 38mm 18-carat white gold case, set with brilliant-cut diamonds; and a 33mm case made out of the same material and also filled with diamonds. The Jour Nuit really has a special approach to telling the time. Sure, both versions have a central minute and hour hand, but also the entire dial moves to help tell you what time it is. On the 38mm version half the dial is covered in a sculpted mother-of-pearl and blue mother-of-pearl on the 33mm version, wile the other half is made out of a rotating aventurine glass disc, decorated with a with diamonds and white gold for the moon and night sky and yellow gold with yellow sapphires for the daytime sky. The ring turns once every 24 hours and shows you where we are in the day. Both the big and small versions come with an interchangeable blue alligator leather strap or a fully diamond-set 18-carat white gold bracelet.

You already know that pricing on these watches is going to be wild. The 33mm version is priced at £85,500 on strap and £172,000 on the diamond bracelet. The 38mm version is priced at £112,000 on the strap and £200,000 on the bracelet. And, of course, the Lady Arpels Brise D’Été, as the most complicated of the three, doesn’t get an official price. You’ll have to contact them and see if they are willing to disclose the price to you. See more on the Van Cleef & Arpels website.

🫳On hand

Our selection of the best reviews we stumble upon

1/

A review of the Christopher Ward C1 Moonphase

2/

Hands on with the double-denim Patek Philippe Duo World Time Date 5330G and Nautilus Self-Winding Chronograph 5980/60G

3/

A review of the Vulcain Chronograph Green 

⚙️Watch Worthy

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

Is the Hitori Habuka as good as a Grand Seiko at a fraction of the price? Probably not, but it’s still cool.

The Hitori Habuka comes in a variety of colors inspired by nature. Snow White and Graphite Black are the more conservative options, but there are blues and greens in there, as well. For once, I actually prefer the more understated color schemes, particularly the Graphite Black, though the light blue Lake Aoki and lime green Hakone are quite attractive, as well. The Snow White loaner features a stark white, textured dial that evokes a field of windblown snow, surrounded by an ice-blue sloped rehaut and minute track.

Read the whole review on The Time Bum

⏲️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

• Fifty years ago, Rose Dugdale stole 19 paintings worth an estimated £8 million, including works by Vermeer, Velázquez and Rubens, from a British aristocrat’s estate. This is the wild story of the English heiress who masterminded a multimillion-dollar art heist and built bombs for the IRA.

• The last time the public saw Shelley Duvall, she appeared on Dr. Phil’s loathsome TV show, in 2016. The star of “The Shining” “went on to utter a slew of bizarre statements, such as claiming to be receiving messages from a ‘shapeshifting’ Robin Williams, who had died two years before, and talking about malevolent forces who were out to do her harm.” Outside Austin, Texas, Saskia Solomon spends quality time with Duvall, now 76 and wheelchair-bound. This spring, Duvall is making a comeback by acting in her first film in more than two decades.

• Has there ever been a more voracious consumer of news among America’s 46 Presidents than Donald J. Trump? Unlikely. Any President who has cared so much about how journalists cover him? Definitely not. Meridith McGraw unspools how Trump’s media consumption habits have evolved, from 2016 to now.

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

Piers Morgan is an insufferable weasel. A truly horrible person whose incessant whining just drives me crazy. But, as one of the top comments on this video said: I’ll sit through an hour of Piers Morgan just to hear Werner Herzog talk. I’ll never tire of this man.

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-Vuk