Tissot Introduces the PRC 100 Collection With A New Solar Powered Movement; Hamilton's Death Stranding Watch; March LA.B’s Titanium GMT; RGM Shrinks Down The The American-Made 801 Classic Enamel

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. I had to cut things short today because preparations for Watches & Wonders is in full swing. If you will be in Geneva during the week, let me know (just respond to this email), I would love to grab drinks!

In this issue:

• Tissot Introduces the PRC 100 Collection With A New Solar Powered Movement

• Hamilton Releases A Very Special Watch That Appears In The Death Stranding 2 Video Game

• March LA.B’s New Watch Is The Monochrome AM2 “Millésimée March 2025” Slim GMT In Titanium

• RGM Shrinks Down The The American-Made RGM 801 Classic Enamel To A 40mm Case

👂What’s new

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Tissot Introduces the PRC 100 Collection With A New Solar Powered Movement

Blockbuster success is both a blessing and a curse. Just ask Tissot if you don’t believe the saying. It is now almost burdened with the immense success of the PRX model. And it’s clear they don’t want to be a one-model brand, despite the fact that the PRX comes in a whole slew of different sizes, colors and movements inside. To fix that, they are constantly trying to repeat the formula. Now, they’re relaunching the PRC collection. PRC stands for “Precise, Robust, and Classic,” and the collection was first introduced in the mid 2000s, easily identified by its dodecagonal bezel. It’s this collection that will serve as a canvas for their Lightmaster Solar tech. This is the new PRC 100 Solar, with a classic look, intriguing movement and good price.

The case gets pretty perfect proportions. It measures 39mm wide and just 9.2mm thick. I couldn’t find a lug-to-lug measurement anywhere, but I assume it will be pretty fantastic since the watch doesn’t have long lugs. The cases are brushed, both in the untreated steel case and the black PVD-coated one, with polished facets on the 12-sided bezel. The bezel surrounds a sapphire crystal and if you look at it up close, you’ll notice that right underneath the crystal sits a fine honeycomb mesh. Those are the actually solar cels that absorb energy for the movement. Water resistance is 100 meters.

The good thing about the honeycomb mesh sitting right underneath the crystal is that it allows Tissot to do with the dials whatever they want. There will be three dials available at launch (so I guess more experimenting will come later), a silver, blue and black version, all with a brushed surface. The indices are simple ingots, there’s a date aperture at 3 o’clock and the hands are also as simple as they get, with lume inserts.

The movement you will see inside is the ETA F06.615, which gives the watch 14 months of power reserve on a full charge, with charge coming also from artificial light. Tissot quotes a full day of charge from a 10-minute exposure to light. This movement is nothing revolutionary, a variation of the movement you could find in the PRX Quartz. The cool thing is that honeycomb above the dial. The watches come on either a case finish-matching, three-link steel bracelet, or a simple leather strap.

The new PRC 100 Solar is available for purchase now and it’s priced starting at €445 on leather and €495 on the steel bracelet. Oh, and before you complain that 39mm is too large, Tissot already announced they will be releasing a 34mm variant later in the year. See more on the Tissot website.

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Hamilton Releases A Very Special Watch That Appears In The Death Stranding 2 Video Game

Hideo Kojima shaped my childhood. The Metal Gear series of video games showed me that games don’t have to be just for fun — they can actually tell a very compelling story that is on par with the best of movies. Kojima is a master at telling stories through video games and he’s been pushing the genre to its edges. A couple of years ago, Kojima’s studio released their magnum opus, Death Stranding, a videogame that cost more than 200 million to make, starred Norman Reedus and took years of intense work to complete. While it wasn’t a runaway hit, it broke even and received huge praise from critics. Enough for them to come out with a sequel, the trailer for which dropped just the other day. The game was big enough, story-based enough, to make Hamilton jump over from their deep ties with Hollywood to a watch made for a video game. This is the very cool American Classic Boulton Death Stranding 2 Limited Edition.

Hamilton takes the very classic American Classic Boulton and brings it into the future. The far future. The case is made out of titanium with a black PVD coat, extending way over where the regular crystal would sit. It almost looks like one of those Minase Window watches, as it has seven pieces of crystal — a main central piece held in by two columns on either side of three trapezoidal pieces of sapphire — giving you a look at the dial from all sides, while looking like something that could withstand the harsh post-apocalyptic world.

The dial has a matte black base has grey markers, hands, and text, and the only pop of color comes from the bright orange seconds hand and the 12 o’clock marker. Despite it being fully black, there is some charm to the dial thanks to its sector construction and a roughly grained area outside the circular dial.

Inside is the well expected automatic H-10 calibre, a variation of the Swatch Group’s Powermatic 80. That means that it beats at 3Hz and has an 80 hour power reserve. The watch comes on a black titanium bracelet.

The new Hamilton American Classic Boulton Death Stranding 2 is limited to 2,000 pieces and goes on sale on June 26, when the game comes out. Price is set at $1,495. See more on the Hamilton website.

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March LA.B’s New Watch Is The Monochrome AM2 “Millésimée March 2025” Slim GMT In Titanium

March LA.B is a curious company. Technically, they are based in Los Angeles and Biarritz, an unlikely pairing, and take a huge amount of inspiration from Paris, like for their Mansart collection which is inspired by Place Vendôme. That’s one interesting thing. The other is their use of shaped cases, a wonderful combination of curved squares and sharp facets. They are also known for releasing a yearly limited “Millésimée” watch to show of what they like best about their watches. Their latest edition, the Millésimée March 2025 comes in titanium and with a GMT inside.

The March LA.B AM2 usually comes in two sizes, one measuring 39 and the other 36mm. This one uses the 36mm wide case, but it’s a bit thicker than the regular edition at 12.5mm, likely thanks to the movement inside. The case is made out of grade 5 titanium and it has a super interesting construction. On top is a domed sapphire crystal, surrounded by a super thin bezel that has a pronounced vertical brushing, which then extends to surfaces between the lugs and the H-link titanium bracelet. The sides, however, have a wonderful polished treatment, which has an anti-fingerprint treatment. Water resistance is 100 meters.

The dial continues the grey theme, with a couple of textures happening here. On the very periphery of the dial is a black and white 24-hour track, followed by a brushed, recessed track that holds the applied steel indices and minute/second track markings, and in the centre is a chain-link fence type pattern. There’s a step-framed date window at 6 o’clock with March LA.B’s signature green 3 on the third of the month. The hands are incredibly cool, with a split end, while the GMT hand has a green arrow tip.

Inside, you’ll find the La Joux-Perret G110 which beats at 4Hz and has a 68 hour power reserve. The watch comes on a two-part titanium bracelet with brushed H-shaped links and has a retro-inspired “jewellery clasp” closure, requiring the logo-engraved folding part to be looped into and over a bar of the other part of the bracelet.

The new March LA.B AM2 Millésimée March 2025 is available now and limited to 133 pieces. Price is set at €2.703 with my local VAT included. See more on the March LA.B website.

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RGM Shrinks Down The The American-Made RGM 801 Classic Enamel To A 40mm Case

The story of American watchmaking — true, in-house, watchmaking — is a complicated one. The “Made in the U.S.A” label is way more regulated, overlooked and strict than Swiss Made, so true “Made in the U.S.A” watches are actually quite rare. But one of them is RGM, an independent high-end watch brand founded in 1992 in Pennsylvania. Taking its name from the initials of its founder, Roland G. Murphy, RGM makes incredibly beautiful in-house movements and dials decorated with traditional métiers d’art. Their latest release, RGM 801/40-CE, takes their 801 in-house movement and gives it a more wearable 40mm case, down from 42mm.

The new stainless steel case now measures 40mm wide and 9.3mm thick. But with the shrinking, it might have lost a bit of its charm. The larger case featured a pretty intricate a fluted caseband, which is missing from the new one. Instead, you get a much simpler case that has an overall satin brushed finish. On top is a box-shaped sapphire crystal that extends all the way to the edge of the case, eliminating the need for a prominent bezel. For such a serious watch, it’s nice to see 50 meters of water resistance.

RGM is best known for its métiers d’art applied to the dials, and has created some of the more beautiful hand-made dials we’ve seen. This one, while still made by hand, is a bit simpler, as it’s inspired by vintage pocket watches. The stark white dial is made up of three distinct panels — the chapter ring, central panel and a recessed small seconds sub-dial — which each are enameled individually, making the process all the more difficult. The chapter ring features a black railway-style minutes track and red Arabic numerals for the minutes. The hours are indicated with elongated black Roman numerals, and pointed to with blued Breguet hands. The same Arabic numerals, but black, and railway-style track can be found on the small-seconds.

Inside, and visible through the transparent caseback, is the in-house manual-winding calibre 801. It beats at just 2.5Hz and has a 44 hour power reserve. 90% of the movement is American-made, with the balance spring and jewels coming from outside the country. It’s also hand-decorated with circular damascening, chamfered edges, Geneva stripes and blued screws, and RGM allows for a lot of customization on the movement.

The new RGM 801/40-CE is capped in production to 300 pieces per year, and price is set at $14,900. See more on the RGM website.

⏲️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 this personal essay for New Lines Magazine, Stefania D’Ignoti uncovers her grandfather’s hidden past—and her Italian family’s history. While helping to declutter her mother’s parents’ home, she finds old photographs from her grandfather’s days as a soldier. D’Ignoti notices one detail: In each photo, he wears fascist military attire. She then learns that he settled in Libya in 1938, when the first wave of Italians arrived as part of Italy’s colonial project. Through family memories and historical research, D’Ignoti examines Italy’s largely forgotten campaigns of colonial violence and ethnic cleansing.

• In a beautiful piece of writing, Alice Feiring honors her friend Joe by nurturing his sourdough starter. Joe passed unexpectedly, and on looking around his apartment—complete with laptop still open—Feiring requests one thing to take away: “The putty-colored slurry” in his near-empty fridge. Entwining it with her own sourdough starter, Feiring finds a way for Joe to live on. Making bread, she thinks of him, and the decades of friendship they shared.

• Devon O’Neil bravely attends Kitzbühel’s legendary Hahnenkamm downhill ski race in this riotous piece. In Kitzbühel, parties are as important as skiing—particularly during Hahnenkamm—and O’Neil fully embraces the lifestyle, staying in the hub of the fun at the SnowBunnies Hostel for six nights.

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

I’m really not that much into photography. I’m not good at it, even though I understand the technical basis. I’m not, however, a camera nerd. But these videos… they are so incredibly well made that even if you hate cameras, you will want to watch it.

Thanks for reading,
Vuk