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- Yema Brings Back 80s Legends With Urban Sport Collection, Spinnaker Puts Budget And Colorful Mother-Of-Pearl On Your Wrist, G-Shock's Gaming Inspired Collection, New From MDM And Franck Muller
Yema Brings Back 80s Legends With Urban Sport Collection, Spinnaker Puts Budget And Colorful Mother-Of-Pearl On Your Wrist, G-Shock's Gaming Inspired Collection, New From MDM And Franck Muller
It's nice to see that 2024 will have amazing sub $1,000 watches just like 2023 did
Vuk Radic
January 11, 2024 • Estimated Reading Time: 18 minutes
Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. Just when it seemed that the integrated bracelet sports watch trend is over, Yema puts out three models and I have to say, they look brilliant.
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In this issue:
Yema Brings Back 80s Legends With New Urban Sport Collection
Spinnaker’s New Hull Pearl Diver Brings A Budget Mother Of Pearl Dial With Incredible Colors To Your Wrist
G-Shock Releases More Gaming Inspired Watches With The Aim High Series
Maurice de Mauriac Unveils the L3 Gold Edition With Five Very Distinct Dial Colors
Franck Muller Introduces The Giga Tourbillon Vienne Inspired By Austrian Architecture
Today’s reading time: 6 minutes and 43 seconds
👂What’s new
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Every single time I mention Yema on here, you go crazy. It’s easily among the top 5 brands in terms of clicks and attention it gets. And it’s easy to see why. They make fantastic looking, very diverse and different watches for very fair prices. Sure, they still carry around with them a reputation of bad quality control and poor customer service, but after scouring the forums and talking to actual Yema owners, it seems that these issues are in the past and they have stepped up their game. Yema has been making watches since the late 1940s but truly made their name in the 60s and 70s with great tool watches. It started with the Superman skin diver and continued with the Flygraf pilot’s watch, Rallygraf driver’s watch and Yachtingraf regatta watch. Since modern Yema currently makes the Superman it was only a matter of time before they introduced the other three as well. Now we get the new Yema Urban Sport Trilogy with a heavy influence from the 70s and 80s.
The Trilogy comes in the same case which is incredibly retro and cool, made out of stainless steel and measuring 39mm wide, 11.7mm thick and with a 47mm lug-to-lug. The design of the case is inspired by one of the brand’s 1980s sports watches and combines a barrel shape with pronounced angles and an integrated bracelet, making it another entry into the extremely popular integrated bracelet sports watch market. the top of the watch is completely flat with a raised rotating bezel around a flat sapphire crystal. Despite having a push-in crown, you still get 100 meters of water resistance.
The original Rallygraf, Flygraf and Yachtingraf came in different cases and with chronograph functions. So, how do you differentiate the new ones and how do they operate without a chrono? It all comes down to dials and bezels. The Rallygraf has a bidirectional bezel with a black aluminium insert with a printed tachymeter scale. The dial is black with a red seconds hand, white square markers and hands and white checkered flags at 6 o’clock.
The Yachtingraf has a blue gradient dial that goes from a lighter blue on top to a almost black on the bottom. The inner flange has a seconds track and the central seconds hand has an open-tip arrow. How, you may ask, does a regatta watch function without a chrono counter? Yema uses a bidirectional bezel with an aluminium insert that has a 15-minute regatta countdown scale, so just set it to the current minute hand location and you get super easy regatta timing.
The Flygraf comes with a brushed black dial, white hands and applied makers. But unlike the Rallygraf, this one has yellow accents and the rotating bezel that, together with the inner flange, allows for a multitude of in-flight calculations – average speed, average fuel consumption of an aircraft, or even converting nautical miles to miles, and miles to kilometres.
Inside all three watches is the brand’s in-house Yema2000 calibre, which is their version of the basic ETA and Sellita movements. It beats at 4Hz and has a power reserve of 42 hours. The movement is regulated in 4 positions to a precision of -/+ 10 seconds/day. All three also come on a 9-link stainless steel bracelet, also inspired by an 1980s model, but you can also get a leather strap with a steel pin buckle (black leather for the Flygraf, blue leather for the Yachtingraf and perforated brown leather for the Rallygraf).
The watches in the Yema Urban Sport Trilogy are all priced the same - €829 on the leather strap or €890 on the steel bracelet. Yema also made a 10-piece limited collector’s case containing all three models that sold for €2,669, but that’s all sold out. You can see more on the Yema website.
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When does a microbrand stop being a microbrand? I would say a pretty firm distinction would be when a brand makes more than five or six different models and has its own factory to boot. So Spinnaker, is definitely not a microbrand - it just lives in the limbo between mainstream and micro brands. But what a life it is. They make more than 10 different models, with an incredibly wide range of colors, dials and cases. Most recently, they made one of the best watches of 2023, the Halloween collaboration with seconde/seconde/ with the most incredible dial full of little ghosts. Now, they’re introducing a new trio, the Spinnaker Hull Pearl Diver Automatic Limited Edition made with mother-of-pearl dials and a tribute to the legendary Ama pearl divers of Japan
The watch comes in as a chunky diver. This means it’s 42mm wide, 14mm thick and has a 50mm lug-to-lug. The case is made out of stainless steel with a cushion shape, thick lugs, brushed finishing and a coin-edge bezel. But this chunkiness contributes to the tool-watch look and functionality, as it has 300 meters of water resistance.
But the main attraction are the three different mother-of-pearl dials. There’s a dark blue MOP dialed model called the Twilight, the Emerald has a dark green MOP dial that shimmers like a dark forest and there’s Frost, the most traditional of MOP versions - almost white with undertones of punk, green and blue. All three have gold-toned hands, crown, and bezel which sports a matching ceramic insert.
Inside the watches are the very familiar budget option of the Seiko NH35. It’s not particularly accurate, but it is easily servicable, beats at 21,600vph and has a 41 hour power reserve. The watches come on a simple three-link steel bracelet.
The Spinnaker Hull Pearl Diver is a limited edition and only 250 pieces of each will be made. All three are still available on the website, but some are marked as low inventory, so hurry up if you want one. Because the price is pretty good - €395. See more on the Spinnaker website.
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One of the best read posts of last year was one that featured a duo of G-Shock watches that were made in collaboration with the Leagues of Legends video game. No wonder, then, that G-Shock is doubling down with the video game connection. They are releasing a new Aim High Series that’s inspired by the UI of shooter games.
The trio of watches come in the same colorway, a polarized purple and greenish paint with a shimmering appearance that changes depending on the angle of view. The purple color of the bezel and band gradates to the greenish color near the end of the bands. The three watches included in the collection are the DW-B5600AH-6, GA-2100AH-6A, and the GA-B001AH-6A.
The gaming inspiration extends to the dials of the watches where you’ll find the purple and red colors of the case as well as design elements inspired by the UI of shooting games. The DW-B5600AH-6 has a distinctive red graphic on the display that resembles an aiming reticle.
The DW-B5600AH-6 and GA-B001AH-6A are equipped with Bluetooth smartphone link. The GA-2100AH-6A and GA-B001AH-6A are Carbon Core Guard models with a carbon fiber-reinforced case.
The watches were released in Japan back in Novemeber, but it seems that they are now coming to the rest of the world. Price is difficult to gather as it differs from country to country but expect to pay €120 for the DW-B5600AH-6JF, €105 for the GA-2100AH-6AJF and €130 for the GA-B001AH-6AJF. See more on the G-Shock website.
4/
One of the weirdest watchmakers out there is Maurice de Mauriac. I wish I could understand them more. Some of their watches look like homages to models from Rolex and IWC, but often at a multiple of the price of the original and I can’t really figure out why. Anyhow, their latest release makes a bit more sense. To mark the Olympic year, MDM is releasing the L3 Gold Edition, a limited series of five watches, some with incredibly colored dials.
Each of the watches comes in a brushed 18kt 5N red gold case that measures 40.5 mm wide. It has a screw-in red gold crown and mushroom-type pushers, complemented by an antireflective domed sapphire crystal and a sapphire caseback.
Each of the watches can be had with either a manual-wound or an automatic movement, both made by Concepto. The automatic movement is powered by an automatic Concepto 2100-2120, while the manual-would option contains a Concepto C2000. The Concepto 2100-2120 beats at 28,800vph and a 48 hour power reserve.
The L3 Gold Edition Series is available for purchase now with handwound examples priced at 14,200 CHF and the automatic version priced at 14,700 CHF. That’s a lot of money, even for a gold watch. See more on the MDM website.
5/
When a brand that makes special watches tells you they’ve made something really special, I guess they must be right. Such is the case with Franck Muller, which unveiled a trio of new watches, the Giga Tourbillon Vienne, watches from their masterpiece line and inspired by Vienna’s iconic landmarks, the Schloss Schönbrunn, St. Stephen’s Cathedral and the Wiener Staatsoper.
Since all three are part of the Giga Tourbillon line, they come in the Curvex CX case which measures 38mm wide. Each watch get it’s own case material - rose gold, yellow gold, and white gold - all of which color match to the architectural inspiration. The rose gold is inspired from warm architectural interiors and colours, the yellow gold variant reflects external architectural elements and the white gold version draws its inspiration from paintings.
The watch is powered by the Giga Tourbillon which has been fully redesigned and manufactured with a completely new movement. The hands, bridges and tourbillon upper bridge have been fully reworked, inspired by Vienna's beautiful architecture. The skeletonised movement is placed above a stunning dial, allowing a clear distinction of the barrels and tourbillon cage. In contrast to traditional tourbillons powered by only one or two barrels, the Giga Tourbillon Vienne features four barrels to ensure an impressive 4-day power reserve elegantly displayed through a dedicated counter at the 12 o’clock position.
The Giga Tourbillon Vienne is exclusively available at the boutiques Uhrmachermeister Hübner and Schullin Uhren im Looshaus in Vienna and they are priced at €218,000. See more on the Franck Muller website.
🫳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 likewatches
Another interesting option for the ID Geneve Circular S watch is related to the case. The entire watch is themed around the sun, and that includes the laser-engraved sunray effect on the dial, as well as the case itself. ID Geneve seemed unconvinced that everyone would want its sunray case, so it decided to offer the Circular S watches (including this version, which is actually called the Circular S Sun) with two types of case edge “decoration.” One option is the “fluted” case decoration (meant to look like sunrays) that you see in the pictured watch. You can also opt for a simpler “brushed” side decoration similar to that on the bezel. The case shape is interesting because it layers shapes in a novel way. The dial and bezel are round circles, the middle case is a tonneau shape, and then there is an added side section which is a wider tonneau shape. I actually think it is pretty cool-looking. Overall, I am taking the ID Geneve Circular S watch seriously because of its good looks and interesting style.
⏲️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 2012, 16 year-old Federica Mangiapelo was found dead on the side of a road south of Turin, Italy. Her shoulder was dislocated and her purse and cell phone were missing. The coroner declared Federica had died due to natural causes—but did she? Enter Paola Magni, a pathologist who studies creatures “that arrive opportunistically at crime scenes like uninvited party guests, from flies to barnacles,” creatures that help her bring criminals to justice and solace to living loved ones. This is the story of a scientist using bugs to help solve murders.
Novelist Johannes Lichtman doesn’t write about the CIA, or CIA-adjacent topics. So he found it a bit of a mystery when he was invited to speak to a writing group inside Langley. In this dispatch for The Paris Review, Lichtman recounts the strangeness of the experience, which starts in the parking lot. (Apparently parking at CIA headquarters is a headache, not just for visitors, but for the people who work there.) Lichtman includes odd and funny details from the day (did you know, for instance, that Langley has a gift shop?), and captures the odd mundanity of this place on the surface. Overall, the piece creates more questions than answers—which, after all, seems absolutely appropriate.
Tom Wolfe is a literary icon for many reasons, not least his white suits and liberal use of onomatopoeia. In this smart assessment of Wolf’s legacy, Osita Nwavenu reads the late author’s works closely in search of an ideology.
👀Watch this
One video you have to watch today
This is a super-nerdy video about how planes could be changed forever with just one innovation - a wing that would allow stable flight at sub-sonic speeds and the perfect shape for supersonic flight. It would mean the return of quick travel like in the era of the Concorde. But we also live in a world in which a whole chunk of a plane gets ripped off because someone didn’t fasten a screw properly. Can we really handle a movable wing?
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