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  • Seiko Releases Animated Resident Evil Limited Edition Astron, Marathon Navigator Now Comes In Steel, Timex Releases Nostalgic IRONMAN and Rowing Blazers Does A Very Limited Tudor

Seiko Releases Animated Resident Evil Limited Edition Astron, Marathon Navigator Now Comes In Steel, Timex Releases Nostalgic IRONMAN and Rowing Blazers Does A Very Limited Tudor

This is the first time a watch brands makes an LE for animated characters to wear

Author

Vuk Radic
April 24, 2023 • Estimated Reading Time: 15 minutes

rHey friends, welcome to a new week of watches with It’s About Time. We’re back with another huge giveaway - not two, but three Seiko Alpinists. Two will be given away like the PRX, one to the person who invites five new subscribers and one to new subscribers who were invited. The third one will be given away to existing subscribers via a random draw!

In this issue:

  • Seiko makes first limited collab with animated movie

  • The Marathon Navigator now comes with a date and steel case

  • The Armin Strom Mirrored Force Resonance now comes in green

  • Huckberry teams up with Timex for nostalgic IRONMAN Flix Reissue

  • And… invite your friends to win a Seiko Alpinist

Today’s reading time: 7 minutes and 19 seconds

Everybody needs a green faced watch in their life. That’s why we have a new giveaway - it’s the Seiko SPB121J1, aka the Seiko Alpinist in a wonderful shade of green. In fact, we’re giving away three of them!
All you have to do is click the button below and have five of your friends subscribe. Both you and one of your friends will be eligible to win one of the watches
We only have two conditions when entering this giveaway - invite 5 of your friends to subscribe and live somewhere were you can buy the Alpinist, so we can get this for you and ship it to your address. That’s it!

👂What’s new

1/ 

Official and unofficial movie tie-ins with watches are nothing new. But, for all my research skills, I couldn’t find a watch brand that has officially collaborated with an animated movie to not just make a special edition (like TAG did with Super Mario, Romain Jerome with Pokemon and Seiko with Naruto) but also design a new watch that will be worn in the animated movie by the characters. This is what Seiko did with two new Seiko Astron GPS Solar Resident Evil: Death Island Collaboration Limited Edition watches.

Both of the new Resident Evil: Death Island Collaboration models are based upon the latest 5X Series of Seiko Astron GPS Solar watches, and they feature the same black-finished titanium case that measure 42.7mm in diameter by 12.2mm thick. The black-finished titanium cases are given the “Super Hard” coating for additional scratch resistance, and both models also feature screw-down casebacks with the movie’s logo and an engraving of each watch’s individual limited-edition number out of 600 pieces.

The difference for the Resident Evil comes in the dials, bezels and straps/bracelets the watches come on. The two models are named after two characters in the movie so the Leon S. Kennedy model comes with a gray dial paired with a bezel that includes city codes engraved upon its side and a black calfskin leather strap. The Chris Redfield version features an olive green dial, a bezel with engraved UTC offset times and a black titanium H-link style bracelet. Additionally, rather than being finished with Seiko’s standard green-glowing LumiBrite, the hands and markers on both of the new Astron GPS Solar Resident Evil: Death Island Collaboration watches feature LumiBrite that emits a blue glow.

The Leon S. Kennedy model (ref. SSH131) comes in at $2,800 USD, while the Chris Redfield edition (ref. SSH129) will cost $2,900 USD, and both models will be produced as limited editions of 600 examples.

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Since the mid 1980s, Canadian watchmaker Marathon has been producing the Navigator, a quartz pilot’s watch, largely sold through government contracts. Being a government contractor, Marathon has stuck with producing watches that fit within military standards and since the 1990s have been making the Navigator in a 41mm wide composite nylon case.

Now Marathon returns to it’s roots and announces the SSNAV-D, the Navigator Date made in steel. This is both the first time that a steel Navigator has been openly offered to the public and the first time that a steel Navigator has had a date function. Similar to the composite models, the SSNAV-D's 316L steel case is 41mm wide, 11mm thick, and 48mm lug-to-lug. Water resistance is 100 meters with a screw-down crown, the lugs are 20mm wide and have been drilled. The crystal is sapphire, the bi-directional bezel is steel with an engraved and painted 12-hour scale, and the date is located between 4 and 5 on the dial and uses a black-on-white date display.

Also common to the composite Navigator watches, the steel example has a matte black dial, and the markers, hands, and a bezel pip are set with tritium gas tubes. The tubes use a radioactive isotope of hydrogen that is not dangerous and provides a soft and continuous glowing effect. It lacks the initial brightness of conventional lume (which has to be exposed to a light source) but glows constantly and provides a very legible and functional low-light glow for reading the watch in even complete darkness.

Inside the entirely matte-finished steel case, Marathon has selected a high-performance quartz movement to manage timekeeping. The movement in question is the ETA F06.412, a battery-powered quartz movement that is accurate to ± 10 seconds per year. The watch comes on a single-pass nylon strap with a soft keeper or, for an additional $30, you can option their NATO-style DEFSTAN strap with steel hardware.

While it is a very cool thing to own a truly military-spec pilot’s watch, the price is really up there for a quartz - $800. Especially since the no-date composite watch is $450.

3/

Only a few months after Armin Strom showed off the Mirrored Force Resonance Manufacture Edition Blue, the indie watchmaker is back with a green version of the watch. It’s also their demonstration of the brand’s next generation of resonance timepieces.

Claude Greisler and Serge Michel, who bought Armin Strom from its founder in 2006, made it their mission to explore the extraordinary resonance phenomenon. Resonance, if you haven’t read the interview with Greisler from last week, has a stabilising effect, so better accuracy, and it reduces adverse effects on accuracy, like from a shock.

As in the previous editions, the new Mirrored Force Resonance Manufacture Edition Green employs the patented resonance clutch spring that links the two balance springs that oscillate in opposite directions, so energy flows between the two. The resonance at work is demonstrated by the twin-second indicators linked to the regulating organs, reset via the pusher at 2 o’clock. The watch achieves synchronisation of beats within minutes, which results in better stability and accuracy.

Mirrored Force Resonance models were refreshed last year with a slightly more compact stainless steel case, 43mm diameter and 11.55mm thick. Since the update, Mirrored Force Resonance models have been presented with black gold (sold out) and blue dials (still available). Now we get an almost turquoise green.

Armin Strom will produce only 50 pieces of the new Mirrored Force Resonance Manufacture Edition Green, on a grey Alcantara strap. The price for this watch is CHF 63,000 or EUR 70,000. Yeah, it’s extremely expensive. But it’s also perhaps the cheapest resonance watch you can get by a wide margin

4/

In a world of ubiquitous smart watches and fitness trackers, it’s nice to go back to simpler times. That’s why it’s nice to see a collaboration between Timex and Huckberry to bring back the Ironman Flix watch.

The Timex Ironman Flix gets the same Ironman labeling as the original, a nod to its pedigree in helping train triathletes thanks to it’s expansive 100 lap memory, and memo mode where you could store notations on your activities. Just like the Ironman of old, the new Flix relies on physical buttons instead of a touchscreen, making it easier to use when tired and sweaty. Dead center on the watch, just below the dial, are two huge buttons - Stop-Rest at the left, Start-Split at the right. Simple.

The Timex X Huckberry Ironman Flix reissue relies heavily on 90s nostalgia and style, so they will have no trouble selling out in record time. Especially with a price of only $109.

5/

Private-order Tudor watches with custom dials are rather rare. The brand has made watches for various law enforcement and military groups, but also special “friends and family” edition watches for a diverse assortment of other groups and entities, with notable examples including Undefeated, Air France, Google’s “Watches for Good” charity, the State of Qatar, and even Ed Sheeran’s “Divide” tour.

Now, they’re teaming up with the American clothing brand Rowing Blazers, who has previously collaborated with Seiko and Zodiac, creating very desirable, very limited, models. However, unlike previous Rowing Blazers collaboration watches, the new Tudor x Rowing Blazers Black Bay Fifty-Eight isn’t available for sale to the general public, and it is instead only being offered to friends and family of the brand.

Designed by Rowing Blazers’ founder Jack Carlson in collaboration with Eric Wind from Wind Vintage (the two have been friends since college and Eric helped design all of the previous Rowing Blazers watches), the new Tudor x Rowing Blazers Black Bay Fifty-Eight was produced as a limited-edition run of fewer than 100 examples. The Rowing Blazers version differs from the regular Fifty-Eight with a custom engraved caseback, along with a dial that showcases a bright pink “Neon Noir” Rowing Blazers logo in place of the usual chronometer-certification text and depth rating.

Since this watch will not be available to the public, it doesn’t really matter how many they make or what it will cost, right? Both of these facts have not been disclosed, but it’s expected that fewer than 100 will be made and that the price was in the general neighborhood of the $3,950 USD retail price.

🫳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

Horage is a bit of an oddity in the watch world. Most brands build for years and years to be able to produce even a simple three-hand movement, should they even choose to go that route, and they tend to demand a high price. Horage has been working on theirs since its inception and has maintained a goal of industrialization over high prices starting with the K1, which had a silicon escapement and a modular complication system back at launch.

⏲️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

Back in the start of the 2000s, when the internet was still young, BMW embraced this new technology to promote a couple of their cars and went all out with one of the best campaigns of all time - The Hire. Starring Clive Owen, The Hire was two seasons of short films directed by, I kid you not: John Frankenheimer, Ang Lee, Wong Kar-wai, Guy Ritchie, Alejandro González Iñárritu, John Woo, Joe Carnahan and Tony Scott. It was a huge hit to have branded content with such stars and now TAG Heuer seems to be attempting to reproduce this lightning in a bottle moment with The Chase featuring Ryan Gosling. It’s not nearly as epic, but still a fun watch.

💵Pre-loved precision

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Want to sell your watch to a community of passionate horologists? Reach out to us and we’ll put your ad up. $15 per listing without photos, $25 with photos. 10 available slots per day, discounts for multiple slots.

Everybody needs a green faced watch in their life. That’s why we have a new giveaway - it’s the Seiko SPB121J1, aka the Seiko Alpinist in a wonderful shade of green. In fact, we’re giving away two of them!
All you have to do is click the button below and have five of your friends subscribe. Both you and one of your friends will be eligible to win one of the watches
We only have two conditions when entering this giveaway - invite 5 of your friends to subscribe and live somewhere were you can buy the Alpinist, so we can get this for you and ship it to your address. That’s it!

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