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  • Tissot Releases The Best Summer Watch Of The Year, New Certina DS Action Diver 43mm Is Pitch Black, Mido Introduces Multifort Powerwind Collection And The Edox SkyDiver 38 Is A New Skin Diver For The Smaller Wrist

Tissot Releases The Best Summer Watch Of The Year, New Certina DS Action Diver 43mm Is Pitch Black, Mido Introduces Multifort Powerwind Collection And The Edox SkyDiver 38 Is A New Skin Diver For The Smaller Wrist

Took me a long time to realize that this was an edition full of Swatch Group watches

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. Our Seiko Alpinist giveaway is over and the winners can expect an email from me today or tomorrow at the latest. Also, there’s a new giveaway in the works and will likely start next week. If there’s a specific watch you would like to see in the giveaway (keep it reasonable, please), feel free to message me. I love getting mail.

As for this issue… It took me until the Mido and the third time I mentioned the Powermatic 80 to realize that this is a newsletter full of Swatch Group watches.

In this issue:

  • Tissot Releases The Best Summer Watch Of The Year, The Sideral

  • The New Certina DS Action Diver 43mm Is Pitch Black

  • Mido Introduces Stylish Multifort Powerwind Collection

  • Rado Adds Three New Ceramic Watches to their Great Gardens of the World Series

  • The Edox SkyDiver 38 Is A Vintage Inspired Skin Diver For The Smaller Wrist

Today’s reading time: 6 minutes and 25 seconds

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👂What’s new

1/

The late 60s and 70s are arguably the golden age of watch design. It’s the time when watches stopped being elegant personal timekeeping devices and became tools. Or, at least, gave the illusion of being a tool watch so you could look like a badass on the beach. It gave us luxury sports watches like the Nautilus and Royal Oak, gorgeous chronographs from Heuer and dive watches from the likes of Blancpain and Rolex. It was also the the time of experimenting with materials and Tissot used their Sideral to do so. Since it’s supremely cool today to revive funky vintage watches, Tissot is now bringing back the Sideral, also experimenting with new materials, but this time with forged carbon.

The late 60s version of the Sideral was the first watch to ever use a monobloc fibreglass case. Two years later, the Sideral S was introduced, a sportier take on the concept with a now famous yellow rubber strap and different fastening system.

The new version retains a lot of the aspects of the original, but updating it for the age it’s made in. It retains the barrel shape of the case made of forged carbon fibre and stainless steel that measures 41mm in width and 46.5mm in length. You can get the watch in three colors, and while the black & yellow and black & grey models show the natural colours and pattern of the forged carbon fibre, the black & blue one comes with blue flakes embedded into the material. The unidirectional rotating bezel on top is fitted with a black insert and a graduated regatta scale in white. The screw-down crown ensures it is water-resistant to 300m.

The dial is predominantly black, with either a grey, blue or yellow minute track. This segmented track is accompanied by a green and red regatta countdown section between 12 and 2 o’clock. Tissot is a Swatch company, so it’s just natural that it gets the Powermatic 80 automatic movement. This is Swatch Group’s go-to automatic for several brands and is essentially a heavily modified ETA 2824 which has gotten decent reviews and has an 80 hour power reserve.

The watch comes on three perforated rubber straps in yellow, red or blue, inspired by the original yellow one. Additional coloured straps are said to be available too.

Each of the watches, available now, will retail for EUR 1,075. Looks like Tissot has another hit on their hands.

2/ 

Cartina has had a long stretch of being neglected by owners and undermined by the public. But boy, are they back. In the past couple of years they have regrouped and boy, are they on a bender. Vintage reissues, fantastic affordable divers… they even have a modular watch system which is… meh. However, the latest release form the Swiss watchmaker is not meh. In fact, it’s pretty bold. The new Certina DS Action Diver is super black.

It’s a big diver, there’s no denying it. 43mm wide, 51mm lug-to-lug and 13.1mm thick. It’s a stainless steel case with a matte black PVD coating, as well as a matte black ceramic insert within the coin-edge bezel. The blackness of the insert is broken up with a single bright white lume pip at 12. The NATO strap it comes on is also black and made out of recycled plastic. The one downside of the case is the fact that it has a 21mm lug width, so good luck finding a different strap.

The dial is just as black, with contrasting crisp white makers that glow like crazy. The triangles at the quarters and the arrowhead hour hand do help to lend an extra sense of aggression to the dial. There’s a date window at three o’clock. Certina, like Tissot, is owned by the Swatch group, so no surprises on what’s inside - it’s the Powermatic 80.

The Certina DS Action Diver in black is now available from all Certina authorised retailers. Price: CHF895

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Here’s another brand from the Swatch Group that has been kicking ass in the past few years - Mido. It might be controversial, but the Mido Ocean Star Decompression Worldtimer is one of my favorite watches of the past few years. Mido does vintage fantastically, just like they did last year when they introduced a limited edition, COSC-certified, revival of the 1954 Multifort Powerwind. Now, Mido is introducing three new variations of the Multifort Powerwind that will be part of the brand’s permanent collection.

The Multifort is Mido’s most important watch. Born in the 1930s, this automatic, anti-magnetic, water-and shock-resistant watch has become its bestseller. The concept was drastically updated in 1954 with an innovative automatic movement and renamed the Powerwind. Developed in collaboration with partner A. Schild SA, the automatic part of the movement reduced the components from the standard 16 to just seven, making it easier to build and service while enhancing durability and reliability.

The new models retain the same elegantly designed case with its thin, twisted lugs, box-shaped sapphire crystal and overall retro style as the limited edition released last year. Compared to the 1954 watch, it has grown quite a bit and is now 40mm wide and 12mm thick. What changes most regarding the design, compared to the limited edition of last year, are the dials.

The permanent collection is no longer a day-date model, but rather just a time and date watch, with reworked markers that are a combination of applied triangular indices and printed Arabic numerals. You can get it in three versions: steel with black dial, steel with blue dial, yellow gold PVD-coated steel with champagne dial.

Perhaps the biggest change happens on the inside - while the limited edition last year had a chronometer-certified ETA 2836-2 movement, the permanent collection gets, you guessed it, the Powermatic 80, here named the Caliber 80. The watch comes on a 3-link stainless steel bracelet with a folding clasp and quick-release spring bars.

You can get the watches now, priced at EUR 970 (black and blue) or EUR 1,160 (PVD gold).

4/

Rado is a polarizing brand. Some love it, others almost detest it. But there’s no denying that Rado has done impressive things with the use of ceramic, be it their retro sports watches in the Captain Cook line, the super minimalist watches in the Designer line or the dressier models like the True Thinline. This is Rado’s slim ceramic watch intorduced in 2011 that is now getting three new models with textured dials inspired by endangered plant species in partnership with the Great Gardens o the World organisation.

This is not the first time that Rado is working with Great Gardens of the World, a network of gardens across 20 countries. They have made seven watches prior, making these Chapters 8 through 10. All three of the new watches have the same 40mm high-tech ceramic monobloc case that’s only 9mm thick, with ceramic bracelets that have a triple-folding titanium clasp. Inside the watch is the Rado 766 movement, based on the ETA 2892.

The major differences of the three come from the looks of the watches. Chapter 8 is housed in a black polished ceramic case, with the dial recreating the pleated leaves of the Hawaiian Luolu lelo palm tree. The hands and brand name are golden coloured. Chapter 9 is dedicated to the Chilean Araucaria, or monkey puzzle tree, and comes in a glossy, white high-tech ceramic case. The sharp, scale-like leaves of the tree are replicated on the dial with a composition of engraved triangles in opalescent mother-of-pearl. Chapter 10 is dedicated to the Dragon Blood Tree in a grey ceramic case and a two layer dial. The top layer is a skeletonised plate cut out in organic shapes to evoke the thick, entangled branches of the Dragon Blood Tree, revealing the lower layer in a pink gold colour.

The trilogy – Chapters 8, 9 and 10 of the Rado True Thinline Great Gardens of the World – is available in a collector’s box, limited to 99 units. Alternatively, each model can be purchased individually for EUR 2,900.

5/

The Edox SkyDiver has an interesting story. The brand claims that a mysterious drawing was found in their archives which turned out to be “the sketch of a long-lost timepiece, the SkyDiver”. Along with the sketch, there was a scrawled note reading: 1973. Special production in strictly limited edition“ According to a retired Edox watchmaker, the SkyDiver was rumoured to be a secret project for a mysterious, wealthy Swiss colonel. The anonymous colonel wanted an exclusive timepiece for elite mountain paratroopers under his command. It had to combine the no-nonsense functionality of a dive watch with the style and aesthetics of a precision pilot’s watch.

So Edox took these sketches and remade it in modern times with a bronze version that followed. In 2021, the SkyDiver was entirely revamped with new looks and upgraded materials, yet a solid vintage touch, in a case of 42mm. To fix the biggest complaint they got, they are now releasing a new version - the 38mm SkyDiver.

It’s basically the same watch, but smaller. It’s a traditional skin-diver watch, with a straight case, unprotected oversized crown, rather slim case profile topped by a heavily domed crystal. The screw down crown gives you 300m of water resistance and the domed crystal brings the thickness to 13.7mm. You can have it with two dial colors - black or blue, with a matching ceramic insert on the bezel, and it has a glossy vintage finish with applied markers with orange highlights.

Inside is the Selita SW200-1 automatic movement with 4Hz frequency and 38h power reserve. Both colors come on a 3-link brushed and polished steel bracelet closed by a triple folding clasp.

The watch is available now and is priced at EUR 1,575 (excl. taxes).

🫳On hand

Our selection of the best reviews we stumble upon

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⚙️Watch Worthy

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

Watches and military history have an unbreakable bond. You only need to think back to the very beginnings of the wristwatch as a tool. During the Anglo-Burma War and First Boer War, soldiers began to strap pocket watch cases with primitive soldered lugs to their wrists, which opened the door for a new market. Fast-forward some 70 years, and you’ll find yourself in a new world, free from the shackles of World War II. Despite it being a time of peace, the French government found itself in need of accurate, reliable timepieces, resulting in the Type 20 chronograph that took inspiration from the designs of German pilot’s chronographs of the 1930s and 1940s, and applied it to the set of regulations outlined by the French. Today, original Type 20 pieces remain highly sought-after, spawning many re-editions and homages, with one brand in particular making the most of the design.

⏲️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 wondered how you could hire a pop star for your birthday? And not just your local celebrity. But Drake or Rihanna? Turns out, the world of booking private gigs for megastars is a crazy one.

  • It seems that I say this every day, I’m a sucker for that one sentence that will draw you in. How’s this for one: “My death occurred while playing beer-league hockey at the Winterhawks Skating Center in Beaverton, Oregon. This is the forgotten story of my forgotten death

  • This will be a weird one. Dyson, the vacuum and fan manufacturer, recently released their super advanced robotic vacuum cleaner. Why would you care? Well, because they manage to sell a vacuum cleaner for $2,399, which pretty much anyone sees as insane. But people still buy it, because it’s Dyson, the end all of home consumer products. To see how they built this empire, read this recent piece from Wired magazine.

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

Nerdwriter1 is, perhaps, the worst name on YouTube. I can only imagine how he forgot the password for Nerdwriter so he just opened up Nerdwriter1, because who’s going to ever see his videos? Well, he now has 3.14 million subscribers and his videos have been seen over 230 million times. All that aside, he does these very fine visual essays and his lates one is on how the best horror novella of all time was adapted to film

💵Pre-loved precision

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