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- Seiko Introduces Great Looking Seiko 5 Sports LE, Citizen Releases Godzilla Themed Ecozillas, Boldr Teams Up With W&W For Spectacular GMT, Junghans Takes More Bauhaus Inspiration For Max Bill
Seiko Introduces Great Looking Seiko 5 Sports LE, Citizen Releases Godzilla Themed Ecozillas, Boldr Teams Up With W&W For Spectacular GMT, Junghans Takes More Bauhaus Inspiration For Max Bill
Does the watch industry have an issue with limited editions?
Vuk Radic
November 09, 2023 • Estimated Reading Time: 16 minutes
Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. Out of the four new releases in today’s edition, all of them are limited or special editions. Out of the last 15 Seiko’s to come out, just one was part of the regular global lineup and not limited in numbers or geographic availability. Is this trend of limited edition watches getting out of hand?
I you like this newsletter, you might consider supporting it directly through Patreon. If you were subscribed, you could have already read my lengthy piece on Only Watch and it potentially being the biggest scam of the watch world. Other subscriber-only articles include the Completely Sterile Secret Watches Of MACV-SOG and my choice of 11 vintage Heuer watches that would make the perfect basis for new TAG Heuer recreations, including a possible MoonSwatch type watch that could actually break the internet.
In this issue:
Seiko Partners With First Ever Skateboarding Olympic Gold Medalist Yuto Horigome For 5 Sports Limited Edition SSK027
Citizen Releases Two New Ecozilla Watches, This Time Actually Inspired By Godzilla
Boldr Teams Up With Worn & Wound For Their Best Looking And Most Colorful GMT Yet
Junghans Goes Even More Bauhaus With The New Max Bill Automatic Bauhaus
Today’s reading time: 6 minutes and 6 seconds
👂What’s new
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Even 15 years ago if you said that skateboarding would be an olympic sport, you might have gotten a strange look or two. But in 2020, the sport did enter the Olympics and the first gold wats taken home by Yuto Horigome. Now, just before the upcoming 2024 Olympics in Paris, Horigome has teamed up with Seiko to release a limited edition Seiko 5 Sports Style GMT SSK027K1 with great colors and an always fantastic price.
Before I get into the watch, a word on the limited nature of this release. 2,700 pieces of this watch will be made and I’ll just say that’s a shame. Many manufacturers, but it seems Seiko in particular, are relying more and more on limited edition releases. And while that might make sense for smaller and certainly more exclusive manufacturers, is there a need for Seiko to rely so much on limited releases? I just went a few weeks back through my posts and out of 15 Seiko models I mentioned, one, just one, wasn’t a model that’s limited in either number or geographic location. That’s a shame.
On to the Horigome Seiko 5 Sports Style GMT. It comes in a 42.5mm wide and 13.6mm thick stainless steel case that has a black coating on the case and the bracelet. The bezel rotates in both directions and has a great looking metallic blue and violet insert with a 24-hour scale. The crown is, as expected, at the 4 o’clock position and on top is a Hardlex crystal.
The dial forgoes all color, letting the bezel do all the talking. It’s a black dial with large applied indices painted in white LumiBright. The same goes for the broad hour and minute hands and the red-lacquered GMT hand. There’s a date aperture at 3 o’clock with a cyclops on top and additional rehaut with another 24-hour scale.
Inside the watch is the 4R34, a caller style GMT (meaning that yoy independently adjust the GMT hand). It’s the same movement used in the regular 5 Sports Style GMT and it beats at 21,600vph while giving you 41 hours of power reserve. The watch comes on a black five-link steel bracelet with a folding clasp.
As mentioned, the Seiko 5 Sports GMT Yuto Horigome SSK027K1 Limited Edition will be made in 2,700 pieces and it retails for €570. See more on the Seiko website.
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Like we pointed out several times, watch nicknames are often a silly bunch. A good nickname, be it for a watch or your favorite football player, can never be self-appointed. It must be given to you by your peers or your fans. With watches, this is very often the case, as most nicknames are given by online communities, mostly on forums and then spread around to the general public. Such was the case with the Citizen Promaster Dive which earned the nickname Ecozilla, after Citizen’s Eco-Drive and Godzilla, the king of the kaiju monsters.
Now, Citizen is helping actual Godzilla celebrate it’s 70th birthday with a limited edition duo of watches actually inspired by Godzilla. Yes, another limited edition, but just look at it. It’s incredible. It comes in the familiar Ecozilla rugged case that measures a mind-boggling 48.2mm in width.
The case comes in a black color but with a special camouflage pattern inspired by the kaiju’s scaly skin. Look at the camouflage even closer and you’ll see an actual miniature Godzilla in there somewhere. It comes with two different dials, one all black, reminiscent of monochrome Godzilla and a dark red dial representing an angry Godzilla. The back cover is engraved with Godzilla's footprints, adding a special touch to this unique collaboration.
Being an extremely capable dive watch, it can go down to 300 meters and it’s powered by the B873 movement. It can run up to 6 months on a single charge, has solar charging and accuracy of +/- 15 seconds per month. Both versions of the watch are paired with environmentally friendly Polyurethane straps, which are partly made with biomass-derived materials.
The black version will be limited to 2,500 pieces, while the red to 3,000 pieces, and the watches will be available worldwide in early 2024. Price is expected to be $900 and so far the only website that has the watches up is the Japanese one. So either make do with Google translate or wait a bit until they show up on other sites as well.
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We are currently living in the second, maybe even the third generation of microbrand watches. Following in the footsteps of pioneers, brands like Boldr are craving out some interesting niches. Boldr Supply Company is a company out of Singapore that has made a name for themselves making stylish and rugged watches and knives that are perfect for weekend getaways. I liked their watches but despite them having some interesting colorways, I always believed they could benefit from a bit more color, a bit more whimsy.
Enter the folks from Worn & Wound the retailer/blog that has made quite a splash lately with some of their fantastic collaborations. They’re teaming up with Boldr to release a limited edition (again) of 100 pieces of each of two colorways of the new 3xT GMT watch with great colors, a clever internal rotating bezel and the new Miyota flyer GMT at what might be the lowest price yet for that movement.
The watches measure 41mm wide, but at the bezel and without the flared case at 3 and 9 o’clock. It’s 13.9mm thick and has a lug-to-lug of 47.8mm. A chamfered sapphire crystal on top seals the 200m-water-resistant case. The entire case has a combination of bead-blasted and polished surfaces. Seeing the two crowns likely gives away that there is an internal rotating bezel, although it might not be clear right away. The very cool thing about that bezel is that it has both 12 hour markings and 5 minute intervas, meaning you can use it as either a timing bezel or for tracking a third time zone with the local hour hand.
The dials are arranged in concentric circles. The innermost circle features the 24-hour scale for home time. Next, you get a wide track with big, legible, lumed block markers for the local time. Next, there is a minute track, which is followed by the rotating inner bezel. The watches come in two spectacular colors. The first has a petrol green base with accents in yellow, light blue and red and the watch comes on a red nylon strap. The second is a grey dial with teal and yellow highlights. That one comes on a black nylon strap.
Inside is Bold and Worn & Wound’s greatest pride, the relatively new Miyota caliber 9075. In fact, the two companies say they drew inspiration for the watches from this exact movement (the name 3xT comes from the ability to track three time zones). The 9075 is Miyota’s flyer GMT which is affordable enough for microbrands to install into their watches. It runs at 28,800 vph and has a power reserve of about 42 hours. And being a flyer, it means you independently adjust the hour hand when traveling.
Only 100 pieces of each colorway will be made and at a price of just $699, it’s actually puzzling that they aren’t already all sold out. So hop on over to Worn & Wound to get yours if you would like one. Delivery will commence in December.
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There’s a disproportionate number of watches that take inspiration from the Bauhaus design movement. Try to find any other art movement that has had as much influence on modern design, especially watch design. But you can’t really blame watch designers, as following the tenets Bauhaus will lead you to an aesthetically pleasing, minimalist and great looking watch. Perhaps the most influenced by Bauhaus watch brand must be Junghans, especially their fully minimalist Max Bill line. Now, the brand is going all in on their influence and releasing the Max Bill Automatic Bauhaus, which not only has Bauhaus in its name, but also the caseback features a depiction of the actual Bauhaus.
The watch follows all the basic concepts of Bauhaus - it uses the concept that form, function and style are the same thing and that shape and colour are the core building blocks of design. It comes in a 38mm wide black PVD steel case, with no excess to the shape, only following it’s function as a watch. The hour and minute markers are simple lines because you don’t need them to be anything else. The colours are some of the most foundational in the entire spectrum, black, white and the primary colour red. The use of red also happens to be a reference to the red door of the Bauhaus school.
And to remind you what the Bauhaus school looks like, just take a peek at the caseback, where you see a steel caseback with a partially openworked design protected by a transparent glass cover. Printed onto the steel are the iconic lines and cubic shapes of the school. The building’s signature wall of windows is represented here by the open portion of the back, revealing the calibre beneath, acting as windows to the movement. It is incredibly cool.
Inside, you’ll see the automatic J800.1 movement, which is based on the ETA 2824-2 that beats at 28,800 vph with 38-hour power reserve. The watch comes on a black leather strap with black a PVD coated stainless steel buckle. The watch goes on sale some time in November and retails for €1,455. See more on the Junghans website.
🫳On hand
Our selection of the best reviews we stumble upon
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⚙️Watch Worthy
A look at an off beat, less known watch you might actually like
With a 39mm diameter and a 47mm lug-to-lug length, the Mabry is right-sized for a broad range of wrists. There is nothing detracting you from reading the hour at a glance. Five layers of anti-reflective coating on the sapphire crystal provide an uninterrupted view, even with the sun directly on the dial. In true field watch fashion, its textured dial has a center 24-hour track with larger 12-hour markers, but with the added twist of a vintage diver’s California layout, an attractive and appropriate military configuration that is unexpected in this context. Read the whole piece 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
In the ’70s, Texas declared the alligator snapper—a large species of freshwater turtle found primarily in the southeastern U.S.—as threatened. It became illegal to capture them, as well as traffic them out of the state. But that didn’t stop the Dietzes, a Louisiana family of prolific turtle hunters. In this engrossing true-crime feature, Sonia Smith recounts how a wildlife inspector infiltrated the family’s decades-long turtle poaching operation. On a side note, Texas Monthly is perhaps the best long from publication out there.
Africa has the youngest and fastest-growing population on the planet: the median age is 19. From Kenya to Nigeria to Senegal to Morocco to Ivory Coast to South Africa, young people across the continent are hungry for economic and creative opportunities. But African countries face immense challenges, including chronic unemployment, violence and political unrest, and poor infrastructure and a failure to industrialize. This is a sprawling feature by Declan Walsh on the continent’s baby boom—some call it a “youthquake”—with gorgeous photographs and it reminds you of why the New York Times is one of the best at what they do.
This is a very nerdy one. Publicbooks.org takes on an incredible task - to take data of 35 years of the National Book Award, both nominees and judges, and analyzes it to see if there is a way to predict who will win. I won’t give it away, it’s not a very long piece so it’s worth the read.
👀Watch this
One video you have to watch today
The two Jack Reacher movies with Tom Cruise as the titular character were really not that bad. Fine action flicks. Until, that is, you see the Amazon produced Reacher series.
While many criticised the casting of Cruise, a 5 ft 7 in actor, in the role of a character described as 6 ft 5 in and 250 pounds, I never thought of it a huge problem. Oh boy, was I wrong. Reacher is supposed to be an unstoppable force, and while Cruise did a fine job in the movies, there is only so much one can believe. Alan Ritchson, on the other hand, really looks like an unstoppable force in the series. Here’s a trailer for Season 2 that premiers in December. Can’t wait and if you haven’t seen the first season, go watch it now.
💵Pre-loved precision
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