Seiko’s New Presage Duo Takes Inspiration From Japanese Zen Gardens; Hanhart Brings Back The 415 ES Chronograph; Studio Underd0g Has Egg-Themed Watches; J.S. Elliot Is Back; And A Cool Armin Strom

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. Don’t skip the J.S. Elliot watch. It has some very unique qualities to it, something that you would expect from a much more mature watchmaker. Not someone who is 18 years old.

Like This Newsletter? Want More Of It? I Have You Covered!

If you ever liked an issue of this newsletter and you wanted to help me keep publishing it, you do so by subscribing to the paid version of the newsletter or, you can get the same paid content over at the Patreon. For $6 per month or $60 per year you get about 260 additional posts per year, including exclusive watch overviews, early reviews, watch history insights, and more.

Thank you for being here. Your support means everything!

In this issue:

• Seiko’s Latest Presage Duo Takes Inspiration From Japanese Zen Gardens

• Hanhart Brings Back The 415 ES Chronograph, Their Very Attractive Chrono From The 1960s

• Studio Underd0g Adds Another Food-Themed Collection, This One All About Eggs, And Its Sold Out

• J.S. Elliot Is Back With The Deeply Grooved And Very Blue Theory Two

• Armin Strom And Horomariobro Team Up For The Tribute² Copper Edition

👂What’s new

1/

Seiko’s Latest Presage Duo Takes Inspiration From Japanese Zen Gardens

With its many ups and downs in recent years, and wildly varying price ranges, there’s one collection that Seiko makes that’s been pretty consistently good. It’s the Presage series, especially the Cocktail Time watches, which make spectacular dials affordable to everyone. While the Cocktail Times rarely miss, the rest of the Presage line has its lovers and haters. You decide which side of the fence you fall on with these new Presage ‘Japanese Zen Garden’ Fern Green and gold-tone Sand editions.

Like most other Presage watches, these two new watches come in stainless steel cases that measure 41.8mm wide and 12.5mm thick. Large, for sure, but it seems to me they actually wear smaller in real life. These are simple cases with short lugs and a round look. The Fern Green features a stainless steel thin bezel on top, while the Sand features a gold-colored bezel, both of which surround a double-domed sapphire crystal — a welcome improvement from Seiko’s use of hardlex crystals.

Zen gardens are most often characterized by lush greenery and sand pits that are often raked in pleasing patterns. And these are the themes that show up on the dials of the two watches, with a plain brushed surface on the left third of the dial and an intricate pattern — almost like the patterns on sand in Zen gardens — stamped into the right two thirds. The Fern Green edition has a verdant forest green dial, while the Sand has, you guessed it, a sand-gold colorway. Both feature an open-heart at 9 o’clock and an overlapping 24-hour indicator at 11 o’clock.

The movement you see through the dial is the 4R72. It beats at 3Hz and has a 42-hour power reserve. And like most Seiko movements, it’s mediocre in its accuracy, with a rating at +45/-35 seconds/day. To be fair, most are much more accurate when you get one on the wrist. The watches come on five-link stainless steel bracelets, with the Sand version having the small middle-links done up with a gold treatment as well.

Open heart watches are often controversial, so I’m leaving my judgments aside on the Presage ‘Japanese Zen Garden’ watches. The price on the Fern Green is €580, while the Sand is priced at €630. See more on the Seiko website.

2/

Hanhart Brings Back The 415 ES Chronograph, Their Very Attractive Chrono From The 1960s

The German watch brand Hanhart has a super long history with the German Military. They started their business in 1902 as a producer of stopwatches, but have since then found their place on many wrists of German pilots and naval officers for decades. 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. And it’s this red-pushered, fluted-bezeled 417 ES that’s the star of the brand. But there are other cool watches to be revived under the Hanhart name, watches like this very cool 415 ES Chronograph, based on a mid-1960s military chronograph.

You would expect a sports chrono made by an aviation-focused brand to make huge watches, and they do. But this one is not that bad. Sure, a bit thick at 13.5mm, but the 39mm width and 46mm lug-to-lug make it very wearable. On top is a bidirectional rotating bezel with a black matte ceramic insert that has a 60-minute graduation with numerals at the quarter-hour positions and a triangle at 12. The bezel has a slight knurling on the edge. And you get very vintage pump-style pushers on the right side. Water resistance is 100 meters.

The dial is also a very close recreation of the old 415 ES. It has a matte black base, with a series of circular scales. On the very outside is a white tachymeter scale, followed by a red 100-unit scale. Moving further inside you’ll see the yellow hour markers, while the two sub-dials are also white — small seconds at 9 o’clock and 30 minute totalizer at 3. The hour and minute hands are sword-shaped, with a golden finish and Super-LumiNova inserts. The minutes and central chronograph seconds hand have bent tips to follow the dial. And keeping things retro is the old winged Hanhart logo.

Inside, you’ll find the ubiquitous chronograph offering from Sellita, the SW510. It beats at 4Hz and has a 58 hour power reserve. The watch can be had on a number of leather straps.

The new Hanhart 415 ES Chronograph is available now and part of the regular collection. The price is set at €2,390. See more on the Hanhart website.

3/

Studio Underd0g Adds Another Food-Themed Collection, This One All About Eggs, And Its Sold Out

Limited editions are just swamping the industry these days, and it’s making a lot of the watch way less fun than it should be. Take, for example, the new Studio Underd0g watches. They were released after I published yesterday’s newsletter and sold out instantly. How are you supposed to buy a watch if you don’t even get to know it’s coming out. However, despite being sold out, I still wanted to feature these three special editions made in collaboration with Hong Kong’s Wristcheck sales platform because I like them a lot. And it’s a continuation of Studio Underd0g’s food-themed watches. We had the Watermel0n, the pizza watches, the Salm0n dials… These three are all about eggs, which you might guess from their name: Studio Underd0g x Wristcheck Uneggspected Series.

Like I said, there are three egg versions, but they all come in the same case, the one used on the 3rd generation 01Series Chronograph. It measures 38.5mm wide and 12.9mm thick, with a larger crown to make it easier to wind. The caseback is larger to better show off the new movement. But more on that later.

The three versions are differentiated by their dials. The B0iled Egg features a light yellow dial with eggshell highlights and a white minute/tachymeter track, while the Fried Egg has a golden dial with yellow highlights. But the best one has the worst name — R0tten Egg, which has a green dial with speckles on its minute track and chronograph subdial. All three have egg-shaped indices.

Inside is the manually wounding ST-1901B, a bespoke version of the Seagull ST-19 made just for Studio Underd0g. It features a black main plate and it’s regulated in the UK to -10/+15 seconds per day. The watches come with both a Saffiano leather strap and a steel Milanese bracelet.

So, yeah, sorry about this if you really liked it and you wanted one. The B0iled Egg and Fried Egg were limited to 200 pieces, while only 90 pieces of the R0tten Egg were made. And they sold out in seconds, at a price of $800. See more of the watches on the Wristcheck website.

4/

J.S. Elliot Is Back With The Deeply Grooved And Very Blue Theory Two

Some brands try to hide how old they are, implying they have much more heritage than they actually have. Others just simply make up their heritage. But then there’s brands like J.S. Elliott who released their first watch maybe a bit over a year ago. Even if they wanted to, they couldn’t claim a long history to the brand or the watchmaker behind it. That’s because when J.S. Elliott released the Theory One, the founder of the company was 17 years old. And the press that J.S. Elliott garnered with that watch wasn’t just about the novelty of a young watchmaker. It was actually a very cool watch. And now he is releasing a new model, the Theory Two. And it’s even better.

The case of the Theory Two is very similar to the old model, and that’s a good thing. That means that it still has those very cool openworked lugs. The steel case measures 39mm wide, 10.9mm thick and has a mix of brushed and polished surfaces, with sapphire crystals on top and bottom. Water resistance is 50 meters.

The dial carries over the same blue from the Theory One, but ups the execution greately. It has a deeply grooved pattern radiating from the small second’s display at 6 o’clock. The grooves and metallic paint make the dial shine, and you get applied markers and openworked arrow-shaped hour and minute hands. The hands are incredibly cool! I wonder how they function at a glance with such a thin profile.

Inside, a very well known movement — the Sellita SW261. It’s the small seconds version of the SW200 automatic, easy to service, robust and durable. It beats at 4Hz and has a 41 hour power reserve. That 41 hours means that this is the top-grade version of the movement, which includes finishing like blued screws, perlage and rhodium plating. The watch comes on a handmade grey Nubuck leather strap.

The new J.S. Elliott Theory Two can be reserved now, with deliveries expected in three months. Price is set at $1,300, which seems more than fair. See more on the J.S. Elliott website.

5/

Armin Strom And Horomariobro Team Up For The Tribute² Copper Edition

Let’s get the strange name out of the way first. Who the hell is horomariobro? Trust me, go check out his Instagram account. He is a pseudonymous watch collector that specializes in macro photography. And with it, he gives us a completely unexpected views of watches. He also takes all of these incredible photographs with just his iPhone and a loupe. Incredibly cool. But now, he has teamaed up for the second time with Armin Strom for a new Tribute² Copper Edition which is a serious looker.

The case of the Tribute² Copper Edition continues exactly where the Tribute 1 ended. In fact, I think it’s the exact same case. Made out of stainless steel, it measures 38mm wide and 9mm thick. It has the Armin Strom signature polished bezel with a lip at 6 o’clock and faceted, very angular, lugs. Water resistance is 50 meters.

The dial is very similar to the Tribute 1, but now features a partially openworked design, which suits it very well. It still has the off-centred dial and the exposed barrel with a skeletonized finger bridge at 5 o’clock, it now allows you to see inside the barrel, which just makes sense. The plate of the dial features a rare and intricate finish known as grattage, which requires hand scraping to produce a brush-stroke-like texture. It’s then PVD coated in a very beautiful copper color. In contrast, the dial features a grey fumé finish and a hand-polished and bevelled steel ring around it. The hands are rose gold-plated and you get stick indices in the same finishing.

The movement inside is the calibre AMW21. It’s hand wound, beating at 3.5Hz and with a pretty great 100 hour power reserve. Look at it through the back and you’ll see a three-quarter plate with thick Geneva stripes, polished bevels and countersinks. The watch comes on a grey Alcantara calfskin strap.

The Armin Strom Tribute² Copper Edition is limited to 10 pieces and priced at CHF 27,000. See more on the Armin Strom website.

🫳On hand

Our selection of the best reviews we stumble upon

1/

A review of the Spinnaker Croft 42 Skeleton Automatic

2/

Hands on with the Three New Ceramic Blancpain Bathyscaphe Models

3/

A review of the Eberhart Chronographe 1887 Automatic

⏲️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

• Have you ever driven down a dark road only to be faced with a wall of light. Even worse, it’s one of those super modern headlights that you see is attempting to not blind you but is failing. Then you must have also noticed that headlights are becoming brighter and brighter. The crusade against bright headlights has picked up speed in recent years, in large part due to a couple of Reddit nerds. Could they know what’s best for the auto industry better than the auto industry itself?

• As someone who doesn’t live in the U.S., I’m puzzled by the idea of food deserts. I heard this term first while studying there and it’s a fascinating but kind of horrible reality. I had no idea how they came about, so this Atlantic piece on a federal policy change in the 1980s that caused them is pretty interesting.

• People from all walks of life are turning to AI for companionship. Some have taken their relationships much farther than friendship, viewing their AI as a therapist, boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, or wife. Given that AI is a continuously developing technology, AI personas are subject to constant change. Sometimes the “personality” users have come to know—and sometimes even love—can alter drastically as the software evolves, a problem known as the “post-update blues.” For The Verge, Josh Dzieza spoke with 20 people who never thought they’d be the kind of person with a computerized companion, but got one anyway.

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

Type 7 videos have the same rules as the Watches of Espionage videos. They publish, I paste them into the newsletter. Because they’re all good.

-Vuk