- It's About Time
- Posts
- Seiko's Fantastic Looking Blue-Dial Prospex Speedtimer, New Brand Kollokium Introduces Spectacular Neo-Brutalist Watch, Méraud Updates Retro Diver Bonaire And New From Hublot And Bovet
Seiko's Fantastic Looking Blue-Dial Prospex Speedtimer, New Brand Kollokium Introduces Spectacular Neo-Brutalist Watch, Méraud Updates Retro Diver Bonaire And New From Hublot And Bovet
What are your thoughts on spending more than $500 on a quartz powered watch?
Vuk Radic
December 15, 2023 • Estimated Reading Time: 16 minutes
Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. It’s great to see new watch brands pop-up. But the Kollokium doesn’t look like a freshman effort. It’s a freaking brilliant watch. Just look at it!
If you like this newsletter, you might consider supporting it. You can do so in two ways. Forward it to someone you know loves watches and ask them to subscribe, or you can directly support it through Patreon.
In this issue:
Seiko Introduces Fantastic Looking New Blue-Dial Prospex Speedtimer
Watch Industry Veterans Come Together To Launch Kollokium With A Spectacular New Neo-Brutalist Styled Watch
Méraud Updates Their Bonaire With The MkII, A Funky Retro Diver With A Great Price
Hublot Introduces The Big Bang Unico Magic City, The Only Watch You Should Wear If You Live In Miami Vice
The Bovet Récital 26 Chapter 2 Golden Dragon Is An Out Of This World Homage To The Year Of The Dragon
Today’s reading time: 7 minutes and 5 seconds
👂What’s new
1/
Just a few years after Seiko established a very dominant position in the dive watch world with the 62MAS in 1965, they decided they would like to dominate other watch fields as well. That’s why they introduced the Speedtimer, the industry’s first-ever automatic chronograph to feature a column wheel and vertical clutch in the movement, which made time-telling more accurate, making it a go-to in the 1970s in auto racing. In 2023, Seiko has been focusing heavily on expanding the Speetimer lineup, now under the Prospex banner. The latest addition is the rather handsome and affordable blue-dial Seiko Prospex Speedtimer SSC937 which is, unfortunately, an EU exclusive.
The SSC937 comes in the slightly smaller new Speedtimer case that measures 39mm across and 13.3mm thick, with a 45.5mm lug-to-lug. Sure, a bit thick, but overall great proportions. It has circular-brushed top surfaces and a high-polished case band, with a stainless steel bezel with a tachymeter scale in black on top. This is also the first new Speedtimer that has a silver colored bezel. The crystal is sapphire and the lugs curve down slightly.
The dial is even better than the case. A light blue is just the perfect shade, with two black subdials. Speaking of, those subdials - running seconds at 9 o’clock, a 60-minute chronograph register at 6 o’clock, and a 24-hour (AM/PM) indicator at 3 o’clock - are solar cells that charge the watch. A neat trick is hidden in the 6 o’clock subdial which also serves as the power reserve indicator, with an “E” for empty and an “F” for fully charged, if the chronograph is not running. the inidices are silver and applied on a black minute/seconds track. The hour and minute hands are black and filled with Lumibrite, while the chronograph hand is a very nice contrasting orange. The only thing spoiling the great look of this watch is the date aperture with a white date wheel at a bit after 4 o’clock.
Inside is the solar-powered quartz V192 movement. Sure, a mechanical movement might have been much more attractive, but can you really complaing that much? You get 6 months of power reserve in complete darkness, accuracy of + / - 15 seconds per month and is super durable. The watch comes on an Oyster-style bracelet with a push-button folding clasp
The Speedtimer SSC937 will be available only in Europe starting in January 2024 with a pretty good price - €780. Sure, this price point is competing with some mechanical chronographs and much cheaper meca-quartz watches, but very few look this good. See more on the Seiko website.
2/
Over the past several years, Manuel Emch has helped brands like Jaquet Droz, Romain Jerome, Raketa and Louis Erard make a huge comeback. Amr Sindi is known in the watch industry as The Horophile and is well known for his collaborations, especially with independent watch brands. And Barth Nussbaumer is a watch designer who has worked for Jaquet Droz, Chaumet, TAG Heuer and Petermann Bedat. Now these three have come together to launch a new brand called Kollokium with a lot of buzz words around it - “not a brand”, “platform”, “no constraints”… But behind these words is the Projekt 01, a new watch that fuses raw, industrial case finishings with a unique 3D dial made fully out of pegs in what the trio calls “neubrutalist horology”.
The stainless steel case measures 40mm wide and a pleasant 11mm thick is die cast instead of milled. This means that liquid hot metal is poured into moulds which allows Kollokium to make a case with a spectacular grained texture and rounded edges. The case is made of two parts - a barrel-shaped caseback with lugs that are apparently inspired by the Phillips-head screwdriver. On top is a sapphire box crystal which protrudes far from the case, allowing you to see the dial from the side of the watch.
Ah, the dial. Looking like a rasterised image from 1950s illustrations that made Roy Lichtenstein famous. The base is black and on top of it are 468 cylindrical pins, produced in six different diameters and heights. Each of those pins is sandblasted, filled with Super-LumiNova that emits an orange glow and set onto the dial by hand. The various lenghts of the pins create an undulating look, with the highest points being bunched together to form the hour markers. The hands are oblong and also filled with Super-LumiNova, while the seconds hand is lacquered orange.
Inside is the La Joux-Perret G101 automatic movement, an alternative to the ubiquitous but increasingly hard to source ETA 2824. It bets at 4 Hz and delivers a 68 hour power reserve. The watch comes on an elasticised black textile strap with a die-cast steel hook fastener that makes it easy to size.
The Kollokium Projekt 01 is made in a friends and family run of 99 pieces. The first regular models will be released in the first quarter of 2024, retailing for CHF 2,666.66. I’m in love. See more on the Kollokium website.
3/
The market for divers around the €1,000 price range is pretty packed. You can go retro, super modern, indie or modern. It really is up to you. But, if you are looking for a retro-styled diver from an indie brand, the newly updated Méraud Bonaire is an interesting proposition.
The Bonaire MkII comes in a 39mm wide case that’s 12.2mm thick and has a lug-to-lug of 48.6mm. The lugs are drilled and polished, while the 40mm wide bezel has a coin edge and an acrylic insert with lumed markers and numerals underneath. The crystal is sapphire and has a top-hat shape, meaning it has extra thickness that goes beyond the case, with a rounded edge. If you’re looking at this watch and thinking it looks suspiciously like a really famous watch, one that sells for many thousands of dollars, you would be right. But the founder of Méraud has been open about his inspiration coming from the Blancpain Bathyscaphe MC4. Water resistance is set at 200 meters.
You can get the new Bonaire in three colors - Gloss Black, Moss Green and Marine Blue. The black and green versions come with glossy dials, while the blue has a sunburst pattern. Green and blue feature white print, white Super-LumiNova and silver hardware. The black has gilt-colored printing and hardware with Old Radium Super-LumiNova, if you’re in the mood for fauxtina.
Inside is the La Joux-Perret G101. It beats at 28,800vph, has hacking seconds and has a power reserve of 68 hours. The watch comes on either a stainless steel Oyster-style bracelet that features tool-less micro-adjustments or a tropic-style rubber strap.
The original Méraud Bonaire released five years ago sold for €635, which was an incredible price. Since then, Méraud has update everythign about the watch - a new design, a new and better movement and significant updates for the bracelet. That’s why the Mk.II will set you back €925 on the rubber strap and €1,025 on the bracelet. Significantly more, but looks like it’s worth it. See more on the Méraud website.
4/
Michael Mann is most known for his amazing work with movies like Heat, Thief and Manhunter. People are raving about his biopic of Enzo Ferrari that’s just about to come out. But back in the 1980s, Mann practically created the pastel and neon look Miami has become known for. Well, he didn’t actually create it, it was there, he just made it world famous with Miami Vice, one of the coolest TV shows ever made. Mann captured Miami like no other director. A couple of days ago, Hublot drew inspiration from this look to release a new watch, the Hublot Big Bang Unico Magic City, a watch that is perfect for a Miami Vice drug dealer to wear before being taken down.
The watch is the same Unico Magic Hublot has been making for a while. It comes in a 42mm wide case that measures 14.5mm thick. Water resistance is 100 meters and the case is treated with a black coating. Where things get different and wild is, of course, on the dial.
The dial features a purple and blue color scheme that is instantly associated with Miami and the neon of its night clubs. If that wasn’t a clear enough reference, there’s a bi-color palm tree in the 9 o’clock subdial that features the small seconds display. The dial is partially skeletonized, with gradient purple-blue color scheme on the numerals and markings. Despite it sounding completely wild when described, it actually looks surprisingly tame.
Inside is the HUB1280 movement which features an integrated flyback column wheel chronograph and it has a 72 hour power reserve. The watch comes with two straps - a classic black rubber strap and a wild gradient strap with pinks, purples and blues on it.
The Hublot Big Bang Unico Magic City is limited to 35 pieces, available exclusively in the brand’s two Miami boutiques in the Design District and Bal Harbour, and sells for $24,700. See more on the Hublot website.
5/
A number of brands have already introduced their watches that honor the Chinese New Year, the Year of the Dragon. Jaeger-LeCoultre showed off a subtle lacquered Reverso, TAG Heuer released a very interesting red and gold version while Hamilton introduced a completely wild Ventura with a dragon dial. But none of them come even close to the new Bovet, perhaps one of the craziest haute-luxury watches out there. This is the Bovet Récital 26 Chapter 2 Golden Dragon.
The dragon holds a special place in Chines culture, but a golden dragon is even more special as a symbol of luck and success. So it’s no wonder that Bovet created an openworked dial that exists around a 18k red gold hand-carved sculpture of a dragon. The base of the dial and the discs that are used for time and world-time city display are rendered in a beautiful blue shade that compliments the red gold. At 12 o’clock is the time dial made of blue quartz while a moonphase indicator sits below the dragon. It’s all very much full of depth and dynamism and it’s actually surprising that all of this fits in a watch that’s 46.5mm wide.
The Bovet Récital 26 Chapter 2 Golden Dragon’s production is limited as they will only be able to produce 1-2 models per month. Price is on request, but looking at it seems to be in the range of a substantial house in Miami. See more on the Bovet website.
🫳On hand
Our selection of the best reviews we stumble upon
1/
2/
3/
⚙️Real Time Reviews
A new segment in which we feature reviews from real users reviewing their personal watches
Owning my Heuer Daytona ref. 110.203B for almost 5 years now, is like wearing a piece of art and racing car on your wrist. There's an emotional depth to this watch that goes beyond its technical part. From the moment I first fastened the sleek stainless steel bracelet - a bit thick - I felt a connection to its storied past related to Heuer’s racing DNA. This isn't just a watch; it's a piece of Heuer's soul, encapsulating the spirit of the 70s with a touch of modern elegance.
⏲️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
I can only assume that it was like this in other countries, but in the 1990s Melrose Place was the biggest thing in Croatia. I never really got into it, but you couldn’t get away from it. Now, this is interesting: it seems that a group of radical artists smuggled political messages into the show. Not everyone found it funny.
In December 2015, five young people were arrested in Australia during a botched drug trafficking attempt. In September 2019, their handler Yaroslav Pastukhov—a onetime Vice Canada editor known as Slava P.—pleaded guilty to conspiracy to import cocaine. Slava admits his involvement in the scheme, and expects to serve time in prison. I love that Vice staff came full circle from being drug users that started the hipster movement, to becoming hipster drug traffickers.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is building a sprawling, $100 million compound in Hawaii—complete with plans for a huge underground bunker. A WIRED investigation reveals the true scale of the project—and its impact on the local community.
👀Watch this
One video you have to watch today
My favorite car reviewer takes on the bizarre new Lambo. This is why Lamborghini was always the best supercar. Because they don’t take themselves seriously. Because they will lift their v10 supercar and let you drive it at stupid speeds through mud puddles. Good job.
💵Pre-loved precision
Buy and sell your watches. Think of this section like old school classifieds - i don’t guarantee anything except that a bunch of people will see your ad and I’ll put the buyer and seller in touch. Want to advertise your watch? Contact us
SOLD: Well, not really new. It’s a great looking mid-90s Tudor Submariner 75090, offered for sale by a member of the It’s About Time reader crew. I love the way it looks and seems to be in great condition. Check it out over on Chrono24.
LOOKING TO BUY: One of our readers is looking to purchase three very specific watches: an Islander ISL-133 Mother of Pearl, a Sinn 556 Mother of Pearl or a Zelos 300m GMT Mosaic Mother of Pearl. If you’re selling any of these, reach out to us and we’ll put you in touch
Want to sell your watch to a community of passionate horologists? Reach out to us and we’ll put your ad up.
Want to let us know what you think about the newsletter? Go to our survey and fill it out.
Reply