Timex Releases Beautiful Blue Dial Falcon Eye Chrono; Carl F. Bucherer Gives Heritage Bicompax Annual A Silver Opaline Dial; Louis Erard x Silberstein, Once Again; Squale's First Titanium Watch

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. Watches and Wonders is looking large around the corner, so releases are slowing down a bit. And yet, I still find something I like - the Louis Erard x Silberstein will never be not great.

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:

• Timex Releases The Falcon Eye Chronograph With A Very Different Blue Dial

• Carl F. Bucherer Gives The Heritage Bicompax Annual Limited Edition A Silver Opaline Dial

• Louis Erard x Alain Silberstein Le Régulateur Tourbillon Can Now Be Had In Black

• Squale Introduces The First Master In Titanium, Waterproof To 120 ATM And With The Same Classic Look

Today’s reading time: 6 minutes and 6 seconds

👂What’s new

1/

Timex Releases The Falcon Eye Chronograph With A Very Different Blue Dial

It was the late 1960s and the debut of electronic quartz oscillator put traditional mechanical watches to shame. At least when it comes to accuracy. To have a quartz movement-based watch in the 70s and 80s was a point of pride and brands were clamouring to include as many references to Quartz on their dials. Among the brands that used this marketing trick was Timex, which used a large “Q” above the brand logo. The Q watches were so huge for Timex that they brought back the “Q Timex” collection some time in 2019 and have since been releasing vintage-themed quartz watches that have fantastic looks and affordable prices. Four years after releasing the time-day-date version, Timex is now releasing a chronograph version of the Q Timex Reissue Falcon Eye.

The time-day-date version of the Falcon Eye came in a 38mm wide and 12mm thick stainless steel case that used gold-toned highlights on the case and dial, along with a very vintage looking domed acrylic crystal on top. But the show stopper of the watch was the stunning blue dial with a wavy texture. The new version takes on a bit different dimensions to house the chronograph functions. The stainless steel case keeps the same 12mm thickness but grows a bit to 40mm. There’s still a domed acrylic crystal on top, but there are no more gold details and the finishing is brushed with polished accents.

What remains is the beautiful blue dial which uses Côtes de Genève stripes to mimic waves spreading through the dial. The three subdials have a snailed pattern, with a 24-hour indicator, a 60 minute totaliser and running seconds. The hour markers are polished and applied, and there’s a date window at the dreaded 4:30 position.

Like so many other Timex quartz watches, Timex does not say which exact movement is inside the Reissue Falcon Eye Chronograph, but if it’s like the other Q chronographs, which it likely is, it’s the Epson YM12a which beats at 32,768vph and has a 5 year batter life. The watch comes on a three link steel bracelet.

The new Timex Q Reissue Falcon Eye Chronograph is available now, without any word of any limited nature. The price is set at $/€ 219. See more on the Timex website.

2/

Carl F. Bucherer Gives The Heritage Bicompax Annual Limited Edition A Silver Opaline Dial

Following the announcement that Rolex is acquiring Bucherer, the question on many people’s minds was - what happens with Bucherer watches? While Bucherer is mostly known for being one of the largest retailers of luxury watches in the world, they also make watches under the Carl F. Bucherer brand, and have been doing so for decades. And among their most popular watches, at least in the past five years since it was released, has been the Heritage BiCompax Annual, a vintage-inspired sports chronograph. Now, following a whole range of colorways, it’s getting a monochromatic look, hinting that the Rolex acquisition will not stop the Carl F. Bucherer brand.

The Heritage BiCompax Annual comes in the same case that all the previous versions came in, meaning it measures 41mm wide and a significant 14.15mm thick, and it’s made out of stainless steel. The majority of the case is brushed, with polished details on the chamfers and the rectangular pushers. There’s a sapphire crystal on top and bottom. Water resistances is pretty low at 30 meters.

Brand new is the dial or, better said, the shade on the dial. You still get the same bi-compax setup with a small seconds at 3 o’clock and a 30-minute counter at 9. The annual calendar has a large date aperture above the central hour and minute hands and a slightly bizarre month indication at 4:30 which is driving me a bit nuts. Same is also the tachymeter scale around the dial and the Arabic numerals that are printed on the dial. What’s new is the silver opaline color of the dial, with rhodium-plated subdials and blackened syringe hands.

Inside is the calibre CFB 1972, which is based on the ETA 2894, with the addition of an annual calendar module. It beats at 28,800bph and has a 42 hour power reserve. The watch comes on a grey vegan nubuck strap closed by a pin-lock folding clasp and a multi-link stainless steel bracelet with folding clasp.

The Carl F. Bucherer Heritage BiCompax Annual is limited to 888 pieces and it’s priced at €8,900. See more on the Carl F. Bucherer website.

 3/

Louis Erard x Alain Silberstein Le Régulateur Tourbillon Can Now Be Had In Black

One of the best watches released last year was the collaboration between the French designer Alain Silberstein and Louis Erard, one of the most creative small Swiss brands. This was their fourth collaboration, a trio of khaki-dialed and colorful watches which included a regulator display tourbillon. Now, Louis Erard is bringing this collaboration back for the Le Régulateur Tourbillon Louis Erard x Alain Silberstein Black, essentially the same watch with a new colorway.

The Le Régulateur Tourbillon Louis Erard x Alain Silberstein Black comes in a complicated case that’s made up of two parts. And while most multi-part cases use the same material, this watch uses a micro-blasted grade 2 and polished grade 5 titanium for each of the parts. It’s 40mm wide and 11.8mm thick, making it easily wearable, with a very futuristic look - the central part of the watch is fully round, while the lux extend from the case at the 3 and 9 o’clock positions and angle down like spiders legs. You still get the same red lacquered crown. On top is a sapphire crystal.

Instead of the khaki color of the previous version, this watch gets an all black matte dial, which are contrasted by white minute and yellow hour markings, with a red one at 12 o’clock. The hours are displayed on the silver sub dial at 12 o’clock and pointed to by a red lacquered triangle hand. Being a regulator, the minutes are shown by the central blue lacquered hand that has an arrow on one side. The tourbillon, with a yellow lacquered seconds hand affixed to its cage making one turn every minute, sits at 6 o’clock.

Since tourbillon regulator watches are incredibly rare, this wasn’t an off-the-shelf movement. It was developed by BCP Tourbillons in La Chaux-de-Fonds and it’s called the calibre BCP T02. Manually wound, it beats at 21,600bph and has a 100 hour power reserve. The watch comes on a black nylon strap with a micro-blasted grade 2 titanium hook-and-loop fastener system.

The Le Régulateur Tourbillon Louis Erard x Alain Silberstein Black is limited to 78 pieces, just like the trio before it, and it’s priced at CHF 15,900 excluding tax. See more on the Louis Erard website.

4/

Squale Introduces The First Master In Titanium, Waterproof To 120 ATM And With The Same Classic Look

There is no shortage of cool diving watches out there. You can get pretty much everything you would like, from subtle recreations of 60s divers to hard-core military grade beasts that take over even the beefiest of wrists and introduce new tech to the genre. One of the brands that comfortably operates in this space is Squale, whose history dates even before 1959 when founder Charles Von Büren registers the “Squale” trademark to him making diving watches for other Swiss brands. Squale struggled during the quartz crisis, fading a bit but never truly going away. After the retirement of Charles von Büren, the Maggi family which distributed Squale watches in Italy and the former Italian distributors of von Büren watches partnered with one another and in 2005 relaunched the brand. Since then they have been making outstanding and quite affordable diving watches that take on vintage inspiration from the old Squale watches, right along with the amazing shark logo, one of the best in the business, while also incorporating new materials. And right there is the new Squale Master Titanium 120 ATM, a very capable, very retro watch housed in the famous Von Büren case shape.

The Von Büren case, named after the founder of the company, has become known for its asymmetrical shape and a crown at 4 o’clock, but instead of being made out of steel, this version is made out of grade 5 titanium, a first not just for the Master line, but for Squale in general. It’s a chunky watch, measuring 42 mm wide, a whopping 16,15 mm thick and it has a lug-to-lung length of 49 mm. On top is a 4mm thick sapphire crystal, and at 9 o’clock you’ll find the helium escape valve, both necessary to achieve the 1200 meter water resistance. Surrounding the bezel is a unidirectional bezel with a brushed black ceramic insert, with a fully-graduated 60-minute diving scale, painted in old-radium Super-LumiNova.

The dial has a sandwich construction, with the lower disc being coated in old-radium Super-LumiNova, while the upper level is a perforated plate revealing the luminous markers underneath. All of the cutouts have a brushed applied metallic marker on the perimeter. The hour and minute hands are also filled with old-radium Super-LumiNova. There’s a a date window at 3 o’clock.

Inside is an Elaboré grade Sellita SW200, a simple and easily servicable automatic movement that beats at 28,800bhp and has 38 hours of power reserve. The watch comes on a matching brushed titanium bracelet that closes with a three-fold butterfly clasp, and you get an additional black rubber strap.

The Squale Master Titanium 120 ATM is part of the permanent collection and not limited, with a price set at CHF 2,080, without taxes. While it surely is a very capable watch, that’s a lot of money for a SW200 powered watch. See more on the Squale website.

🫳On hand

Our selection of the best reviews we stumble upon

1/

A review of the Marathon Navigator Desert Tan

2/

Hands-On With The Louis Vuitton Escale Cabinet Of Wonders Collection

3/

A review of the Vacheron Constantin Patrimony

⚙️Watch Worthy

A look at an off beat, less known watch you might actually like

Monday Morning On Earth With The Omega Speedmaster X-33 Marstimer

Saying that the Marstimer isn’t a crowd-pleaser is an understatement. In reality, this watch is an intimidating instrument. ESA challenged Omega to develop a watch that, for instance, takes into account that one day on Mars is 39 minutes and 35 seconds longer than one day on our planet. The watch also features a solar compass because Mars has no magnetic field. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The watch can do so much more. To fully appreciate and unlock the watch’s full potential, you need to go through a very elaborate manual. But many people, including me, don’t want to go through a manual.

Read the whole review on Fratello

⏲️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 November 2018, the town of Paradise was devastated by the Camp Fire, the deadliest wildfire in California history. Five years after they first visited Paradise in the wake of that apocalypse, J. Matt went back to take the measure of the town’s rebirth, and to consider what the Camp Fire continues to mean for those living in the wildland-urban interface. There’s much to mourn here, but there’s also hope for how people might fare in the face over ever-increasing wildfire risk.

• People embrace extremity for all kinds of reasons. Aimee Levitt ended up in the Antarctic because, as she tells us, she was angry. Angry at her job situation, angry at what her life had become, angry at herself for letting things get this way. So: extremity. Buffeted by cold and wind, yet buffered from a world that was lurching toward a pandemic. No easy resolutions here, though—just a plainspoken excavation of the interior journey that goes along with a physical one.

• The November 2022 shooting at Club Q in Colorado Springs claimed five lives. If it weren’t for Rich Fierro, an Army veteran who helped subdue the shooter, more people might have died. Fierro has been widely lauded for his bravery, but as Dan Zak finds in this moving profile, being a hero is complicated.

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

I spent the weekend scrolling through very old Vice articles. Man, those people were so talented. They did stuff nobody else could even come close to. It really was punk rock in written and later on video form. And this short documentary about their move from Canada to New York shows you how it really was as punk as you would imagine.

💵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 

• LOOKING TO BUY: Here’s a crazy request. One of you is looking to buy the Ōtsuka Lotēc No. 7.5. Sure, it’s a big ask, but if any of you have one and want to sell, reach out to and I’ll put you in touch

• 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 let us know what you think about the newsletter? Go to our survey and fill it out.

-Vuk