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- The Longines Conquest Chrono Ski Edition Takes On A Monochrome Colorway; Rado Has New Edgy Anatoms; Norqain's Independence Skeleton; ZRC Brings Back A Legendary Diver; A Cool New Ulysse Nardin
The Longines Conquest Chrono Ski Edition Takes On A Monochrome Colorway; Rado Has New Edgy Anatoms; Norqain's Independence Skeleton; ZRC Brings Back A Legendary Diver; A Cool New Ulysse Nardin
How cool is that new Freak X?
Vuk Radic
November 05, 2024 • Estimated Reading Time: 19 minutes
Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. Hey, if you’re in the U.S., where most of my readers are, I hope this newsletter gives you a brief break from checking the election results.
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In this issue:
The Latest Longines Conquest Chronograph Takes On A Very Monochrome Colorway With Red Details
Rado Gives Their Edgy Anatom A Really Nice Ceramic Bracelet And More Curved Shape
Norqain Releases A New Skeleton Version Of It’s High End Independence Model
ZRC Brings Back Its Legendary Securicode, Unfortunately Without The Very Cool Calculator Dial
Ulysse Nardin Teams Up With Middle East Retailer Seddiqi For A Guilloché And Enamel Freak X
Today’s reading time: 8 minutes and 3 seconds
👂What’s new
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I generally dislike the vast majority of watch collaborations, especially those linked with sports (just look at the Senna themed TAG Heuer from last week). They never seem to work out right. But this new watch from Longines is not like the others — any references to the sport they are partnering with is nowhere to be found on the front, making it, in essence, just a new colorway of the Longines Conquest Chronograph, and not a bad looking one. But it’s also a Conquest Chronograph Ski Edition that celebrates the 48th FIS Alpine Ski World Championship in Saalbach, Austria. Longines has been timing ski races since the 1920s and has been the Official Timekeeper for both the FIS Alpine Ski World Cup and the FIS World Championships for years now.
On the outside, this is still the chunky Conquest Chrono we’ve seen before. This is an old-school 90s and 00s chronograph in size, meaning its stainless steel case measures 42mm wide and 14.3mm thick. On top is a sapphire crystal surrounded by a black ceramic bezel that has a tachymeter scale. On the back is the only reference to this being the Ski Edition, with an engraved alpine skier and an engraving that reads “Saalbach 2025 – FIS Alpine World Ski Championships” and “Limited Edition – One of 2025”. The good thing of the size, I assume, is the fact that it has 100 meters of water resistance.
The dial is brand new for the model and very subdued. It’s anthracite in color, with a vertical satin. You get the traditional sub-dials, with the running seconds sitting at 3, 12-hour totalizer at 6 and a 30-minute chrono counter at 9 o’clock. The sub-dials have a black snailed finish, with silver hands on the running seconds and red on the other two. The dial has applied and faceted indices filled with lume, while the silver, polished hands are sharp and also lumed. The central chronograph hand has a red tip.
Inside is the same movement you’ll find in other Conquest Chronographs, the Longines L898.5 automatic. Based on the ETA 2892, it gets a silicon balance spring, beats at 4Hz and has a 59 hour power reserve. The watch comes on a stainless steel bracelet and you get an additional black rubber strap.
The new Longines Conquest Chrono Ski Edition is limited to 2,025 pieces, marking the 2025 ski season, and is priced at €4,500. See more on the Longines website.
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Rado watches are a love it or hate kind of thing. And despite their ridiculous insistence to always point out that they are using high-tech ceramics (God forbid they were regular-tech ceramics), I like them. And not just for the ceramics, but also their quirky shapes and sizes. One of the more unusual model lines they have is the Anatom, a sleek little thing which has been made almost exclusively in metal up until a year ago, when they introduced ceramic bezels to the model line. Now, they are updating the Anatom with a more anatomic design and a ceramic bracelet.
While Rado makes a lot of ceramic watches, this not one of them. It’s made out of stainless steel. However, the entire top of the watch is covered by the ceramic bezel, so only the sides and back show a bit of the sandblasted steel, giving it a ceramic look. It also has pretty great proportions — 32.5mm wide, 11.3mm thick and with a lug-to-lug of 46.3mm. If that length worries you, don’t let it, because it curves strongly around your writs.
There are five new Anatom models. There are two models with black polished high-tech ceramic bezels, crowns and bracelets: one has rhodium-coloured indices, hands and stainless steel connecting links in the bracelet, while the other has yellow gold-coloured indices, hands and gold PVD-coated steel links, both on black lacquered dials with deep horizontal grooves. Then there’s the “polished plasma” colorway which features a grey bezel and grey dial with rose gold accents. And last, there are two Jubilé models which have black bezels and dials, in combination with diamonds. One features diamonds just on the dial at 12, 3 and 9 o’clock, while the other has 124 diamonds set into the horizontal bars separating the links of the bracelet and 38 in the clasp.
Inside, you won’t find a quartz movement, as is so often the case in smaller RAdo watches. Instead, it’s the Rado 766 calibre which is based on the ETA 2892 and has a pretty great power reserve of 72 hours. As mentioned, the watches come on tapering bracelets made out of ceramic, with horizontal links that are separated by bars in different materials.
As far as I understand, all of the Rado Anatoms will be regular additions to the collection. The price for the all black model is €4,950, for the black/gold, grey or Jubilé with diamonds on the dial you’ll pay €5,050, while the Jubilé with many diamonds will set you back €9,900. See more on the Rado website. (Btw. Rado has one of those horrible websites that’s very region specific, so chances are pretty high it will just redirect you to the homepage… nothing I can do about that, sorry).
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Norqain has been around for about six years and they are putting the foot to the floor when it comes to cranking out new models, almost as if they are in a hurry to fill up their roster to be as large as legacy brands. I have my thoughts on this strategy, but it seems to be working for now. Their latest release comes in the form of a new Independence model, where Norqain releases their most high-end models, and it’s a new grey-and-gold Norqain Independence Skeleton.
On the outside, the Independence Skeleton hasn’t changed at all. It’s still made out of stainless steel and measures 42mm wide, 11.8mm thick and with a 48.75mm lug-to-lug. It’s a sports watch so you get rugged lugs, a brushed finish, flat bezel and flat sapphire crystal, as well as hollowed out sides of the lugs that have a sandblasted treatment. You also get the screwed-on plate on the left case flank which has become a staple among Norqain watches which I also have an opinion on, but I’ll keep it to myself. Water resistance is 100 meters.
As the name suggests, there is no dial. Instead, it is completely see-through to the movement. On the edge is a grey flange that has the minute scale, as well as the red gold-plated indices that extend over the movement. The indices are treated with X1 Super-LumiNova, just like the tips of the red gold-plated skeletonised hour and minute hands.
Inside, a bit of a dubious thing, the NN086 automatic calibre. It’s a skeletonized version of the Sellita SW200 which beats at 4Hz and with a 41 hour power reserve. It is, however, ruthenium finished and COSC certified. The watch comes on either a stainless steel bracelet or a grey textured rubber strap.
This Norqain Independence Skeleton is available now, priced at CHF 4,100 on the bracelet and CHF 3,850 on the rubber. See more on the Norqain website.
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Unless you’re a die-hard dive watch fanatic, there’s a pretty strong chance you don’t really know what Zuccolo Rochet & Cie (ZRC) is all about. To be honest, neither do I, so I had to do some research. ZRC released their first watch in 1959 as a deep-dive watch made for the French Navy, the Grands Fonds 300. The Securicode followed in 1965 and was best known for its dial calculator that allowed for keeping track of advanced immersion times at various depths. I say that they released their first watch in ‘59, but they’ve been around for much longer, selling bracelets and straps. In fact, the company has been around for 120 years, an anniversary they are now celebrating by rebooting the Securicode. Unfortunately, without the cool dial calculator.
The Securicode line is relaunched with three new models, differentiated by their case materials — two get satin-finished stainless steel cases, one with a steel and the other with a black ceramic bezel; while the third gets a bronze case with a black ceramic bezel insert. What remains the same with all three models is the size of the case — 39mm wide, 13.4mm thick and a 48mm lug-to-lug. It has a nifty case that has a deformation back made up of two parts, like a submarine airlock — a clamping ring and shielded case back. Water resistance is 300 meters.
The dials are all black with applied and aggressively faceted indices, underscored with small lume dots. The steel models get green lume and silver hardware, while the bronze models get tan lume and bronze hardware. There’s a date window at 3 o’clock with a black date disc on the two models that have the black bezel, while the steel bezel doesn’t have one. The hands are super chunky and Magnum-style.
Inside the watches you’ll find the Sellita SW200-1 Elaboré grade. It beats at 4Hz, has a 38 hour power reserve and has been regulated to +/-7 seconds per day. The all-steel version gets a retro steel expansion band, the steel with black bezel has a black tropic-style FKM rubber strap and the bronze version comes on a brown leather strap.
The new ZRC Securicode is available for order now with the steel versions part of the regular lineup, while the bronze version is limited to 200 pieces. The all-steel version is priced at CHF 2,490, the steel and ceramic is CHF 2,690, while the bronze version is CHF 3,290. See more on the ZRC website.
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Ahmed Seddiqi & Sons has established itself as perhaps the premier place in the Middle East to get a nice watch. But they didn’t do so without being completely immersed in the industry. And as such, they have had a bunch of really nice collaborations over the years. Their latest one comes with Ulysse Nardin, using UN’s smaller and more affordable (heh… yeah, right) Freak X that keeps the great looks of the bigger Freak, but a bit simpler. But the collaboration, the Freak X Enamel Seddiqi, is anything but simple, with its guilloché and enamel dial.
On the outside, things remain pretty much the same. The Freak X Enamel is made out of titanium and measures 43mm wide and 13.78mm thick. When UN simplified the Freak to make the Freak X, they unfortunately ditched the amazing mechanism that uses the bezel to set the time and instead you get a much more traditional crown. On top, instead, is a polished bezel that surrounds a sapphire crystal. Water resistance is 50 meters.
The Freaks don’t exactly have a traditional dial to speak of, but it does have a mainplate that is decorated to look like a dial. Here, it’s made out of gold and gets a wave-like guilloché pattern, painted with a shade of blue enamel that is called Yas Blue, as it takes inspiration from the waters of Yas Marina. The flange on the periphery holds the hour indices that are lumed, as is the part of the bridge that functions as the minute hand, and the hour-indicating pointer.
The watch is powered by the UN 230 automatic calibre, which keeps the Freak’s signature baguette-shaped carousel that turns once every hour and holds the pointer for the minutes hand. The watch comes on a textured black rubber strap with white stitching and a titanium folding buckle.
The Ulysse Nardin Freak X Enamel Seddiqi is limited to just 30 pieces and it’s available only through Ahmed Seddiqi & Sons. The price is set at CHF 38,500. See more on the Ulysse Nardin website.
🫳On hand
Our selection of the best reviews we stumble upon
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🫳On hand
Our selection of the best reviews we stumble upon
Like the original Traser P67 Officer Pro models, the dials fitted to the new generation follow a classic field watch layout with printed Arabic numeral hour markers and a smaller 24-hour scale sitting along the interior perimeter. However, rather than having a completely flat surface like the dials found inside the original P67 Officer Pro models, the dials fitted to the updated generation feature angled chapter rings surrounding their perimeters to create a greater sense of visual depth and a more refined overall appearance.
⏲️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
This is an older one, some four years old, but I can never say no to a good heist story. They were an all-star crew. They cooked up the perfect plan. And when they pulled off the caper of the century, it made them more than a fortune—it made them folk heroes. This is the Great Buenos Aires bank heist.
After John O’Keefe was found, near death, in the snowy front yard of a fellow Boston cop, his girlfriend was arrested. As Karen Read’s second murder trial looms, she’s ready to talk about what she says really happened.
What do you do when a Nazi moves to your town? And I’m not talking about one of those “he likes to work out so he must be a Nazi”. I’m talking about a hard core tatted neo-Nazis that worship hitler and want to build a compound to hang out with their Nazi friends. This happened to this city and the way they handled it was pretty great.
👀Watch this
One video you have to watch today
I wouldn’t say I’m a very experienced world traveler, but I have seen quite a few countries in Europe and crossed the oceans several times. But in a clever twist of irony, I’ve never been to Bosnia and Herzegovina, my neighboring country. I tried to visit once, but the line on the border was so long I got bored and gave up. Which is a shame, because it really is a pretty country. A friend of mine just took his bike on a short trip there and took some pretty incredible videos.
💵Pre-loved precision
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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
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-Vuk
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