Zenith Releases Beatuiful Green And Orange Pilots; Timex Celebrates With 1 Dollar Watch; Ikepod’s New Horopod; Ulysse Nardin's History Inspired New Freak ONE; MB&F's Literary Classic Engravings

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. Can’t get over how good looking the green-orange combination on the Zenith is. And a watch for $1 is a fantastic marketing move, good on you Timex.

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In this issue:

• Zenith’s New Olive Green And Orange Pilots Are Best Color Combo To Date; Of Course They Are Limited

• Timex Celebrates 170 Year Anniversary With New Waterbury Watch That’s Actually Priced At $1

• Ikepod’s New Horopod Titanium Updates The Design Classic And Has NOS ETA 2824 Movements Inside

• Ulysse Nardin Takes Inspiration From Their Past For The New Freak ONE In Navy Blue

• MB&F Teams Up With Eddy Jaquet For The Split Escapement Literary Classics Series

Today’s reading time: 8 minutes and 28 seconds

👂What’s new

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Zenith’s New Olive Green And Orange Pilots Are Best Color Combo To Date; Of Course They Are Limited

Over the past few years it seems that Zenith has firmly stepped out of the shadow of just being the creator of one of the best chronographs in history, and fully embraced their role as a maker of extremely cool lineup of watches that gets even better when they collaborate with others, whether it’s fashion brands, media or artists. Just look at the two new Zenith Pilot Automatic and Big Date Flyback they released with Porter, a Japanese bag brand by Yoshida & Company. While a lot of us won’t be familiar with Porter, nearly all of us will say that this has got to be the best colorway of any modern Zenith ever made.

First, the similarities. They both have a green ceramic case and a matching green dial with orange accents. They both come on khaki-green two-piece nylon Porter strap with an orange hook and loop closure. Green and orange has forever been one of the best possible combinations, and on the Zenith Pilots it looks just unbelievable.

Now, for the differences and first the simpler Pilot Automatic. It comes in a matte green ceramic case that measures 40mm wide, 12.9mm thick and with a 49.6mm lug-to-lug. Zenith combines the green of the case with black hardware, so you get a black screw down crown that gives you the 100 meters of water resistance. The dial is equally as green, with deep horizontal grooves cut into it. The applied Arabic numerals are white, just like the Zenith and Porter logos that sit at 12 o’clock. There’s a color-matched date disc at 6 o’clock, with a strip of lume just above it. This is contrasted with the orange sword-shaped hands that are lumed with white lume, and a fully orange central seconds hand.

Inside the watch is the in-house El Primero 3620 movement which beats fast at 5Hz and has a 60 hour power reserve, the same movement used in the Defy Skyline. The watch comes on a khaki-green nylon strap made by Porter and you get an additional green cordura rubber strap with black hardware. The Zenith Pilot Automatic Porter edition is limited to 500 pieces and priced at €11,800. See more of it here.

Then, there’s the Zenith Big Date Flyback. It’s made out of the same green matte ceramic, but larger at 42.5mm wide, 14.3mm thick and with a hefty 51.4mm lug-to-lug. The hardware, including the crown and pushers is once again black. The dial is green, with the same grooves cut into it, but also with the addition of two sub-dials — an oversized 30-minute counter at 3 o’clock, which has extra orange accents for every other five-minute segmetn, and running seconds at 9. All of the hands, including the central chronograph hand and the ones in the sub-dials are orange. At 6 o’clock is the big date complication.

Inside is the in-house El Primero 3652 movement that has a column wheel and a lateral clutch, beating at 5Hz and with a 60 hour power reserve. It also has a flyback function activated by the pusher at 4 o’clock. The watch comes on the same two straps as the Automatic. Again, the Zenith Big Date Flyback Porter edition will be limited to 500 pieces and priced at €16,200. See more on the Zenith website.

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Timex Celebrates 170 Year Anniversary With New Waterbury Watch That’s Actually Priced At $1

Founded in 1854, Timex has gone through its ups and downs, but all the while supplying people with affordable and decently made watches. Over the past few years they have really stepped things up with watches that really aim way above their price point. And this year they are celebrating their 170th anniversary. One of the watches they are releasing is an homage to one of their first bestselling watches, the Yankee dollar pocket watch. As Timex points out, back then in 1895, 35 cents got you about five pounds of candy, and the Yankee was priced at one dollar. Now, their new 170th Anniversary Waterbury is taking a cue from the Yankee with the same price - $1.

The 170th Anniversary Waterbury will not be a pocketwatch, but rather a very retro addition to the Waterbury collection. It comes in a 40mm brushed and polished stainless-steel case with a mineral glass on top. Flip the watch over and you’ll find a closed caseback and engraving of the Timex 170 logo, and the text that reads: “This watch celebrates simply great watchmaking since 1984. A true American icon.”

But there are cues taken from the pocket watch. You get the same white dial with black Roman numerals. The cathedral-style hands are filled with lume, something that the original didn’t have, and there’s a day-date function at 3 o’clock. Inside, you get an unspecified quartz movement and the watch comes on a brown leather strap with quick release spring bars.

This is no joke, people. The Timex 170th Anniversary Waterbury is actually priced at $1. Only 1,000 will be made, so good luck getting one. The watches go on sale on November 16th at 10AM locally. That means that they will go on sale at different times around the world, but always at 10 in the morning, and you’ll be able to get them from local Timex websites and select retailers. Check the Timex website to see what the retailers are near you.

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Ikepod’s New Horopod Titanium Updates The Design Classic And Has NOS ETA 2824 Movements Inside

One day, I’ll do a longform article for subscribers on how influential Ikepod watches actually were. Not just on the watch industry, but on industrial design in general. In fact, there’s a clean line that shows that without Ikepod, we likely wouldn’t have modern smartphones in the form we have them now. This watch brand was started by briliant designed Marc Newson and entrepreneur Oliver Ike and it came to mark the age of pre-Y2K design, leaving a strong imprint on the likes of Jony Ive. I love their iconic pebble-like design. What I hate about them is the fact that they constantly go out of business. Now, on their third iteration, they seem to be doing good and I hope they live a long and healthy life. And things seem to be going well, as they have just introduced the third generation of the Horopod, which now comes in a titanium case, with a stunning dial and new old stock ETA 2824 movements.

The new Horopod keeps the pebble-like case of models that came before it. The diameter of the watch is substantial — 44mm — but the fact that that it’s made out titanium and light as well as the fact that it has no lugs so it’s 44mm tall, supposedly make it wear like a much, much smaller watch. The crown sticks out bit from the circular body and screws down to give you 50 meters of water resistance.

Then, there’s the dials. There are seven versions of the new Horopod, all of which feature different textures. The Puxi (grey) and Udaipur (white) have raised dots and a Super-LumiNova chapter ring; the Jodhpur (blue), Neom (green) and Lisboa (black) feature the instantly recognisable perforated dot dial Ikepod has been known for; while the Petra (salmon) has engraved horseshoe-shaped figures. The seventh is a black dial that celebrates Ikepod’s 30th anniversary and is limited to 30 numbered pieces. They are completely devoid of any time-telling hardware, apart from hour and minute hands.

Inside, you’ll find ETA 2824 movements. It’s increasingly rare to see a non-Swatch Group brand use ETA movements as Swatch Group has phased out the sale of ETA movements. But these aren’t new. They were found as a stockpile in the company when the new owners took over in 2017. You know the stats — 4Hz beat rate and 38 hours of power reserve. The watches come on a beautiful bracelet with brushed titanium links that are curved in a way to show a bit of space between the links, but only in the middle.

Oh, want some good news? The new Gen3 Horopod could easily be described as a direct successor to the Gen1 Horizon from 2012, also made in titanium. At release, that watch was priced at CHF 12,500. The Horopod now comes in at CHF 2,990. Look at that, a cheaper watch! Not something you see every day. See more on the Ikepod website.

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Ulysse Nardin Takes Inspiration From Their Past For The New Freak ONE In Navy Blue

The Ulysse Nardin Freak occupies a unique position in watchmaking. It was a groundbreaking watch when it first came out, now more than 20 years ago, and with each iteration it pushed materials and looks forward with crazy experimentations. Last year they introduced the the Freak ONE, which calls back to the beginning of the Freak collection and their latest release, the Freak ONE Navy Blue calls back not just to the start of the Freak, but also to UN’s nautical roots.

The watch comes in the familiar black DLC-coated titanium case which measures 44mm wide and 13.37mm thick, just like the first Freak. On top is a very dramatic notched bi-directional rotating carbonium bezel. Only, as you can see, there are no markings on the bezel. That’s because it doesn’t serve to track a second time zone or passage of time, it’s actually used to set the time. Water resistance is not really that great at 30 meters.

Like most other Freaks, there is no dial to speak of. It uses the UN-240 manufacture movement to tell the time. On the bottom is a navy blue rotating disc which houses the hour indicator, surrounded by a blue chapter ring with white luminescent hour markers, and above it is the one-hour orbital carrousel tourbillon, with a silicon balance wheel and escapement, which is shaped as an arrow that points towards the minutes. That UN-240 movement features a 90 hour power reserve. The watch comes with two rubber strap, one black and one blue.

The new Freak ONE Navy Blue is available now and doesn’t seem to be a limited edition. Price is set at €67,500. See more on the Ulysse Nardin website.

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MB&F Teams Up With Eddy Jaquet For The Split Escapement Literary Classics Series 

Way back in 2011, master engraver Eddy Jaquet worked with MB&F for the first time, inscribing the names Kari Voutilainen and Jean-François Mojon on the bridges of the first Legacy Machine calibres. Soon, Jaquet expressed interest in doing more with MB&F, and more they did. In 2020, the two teamed up to create eight unique pieces with engraved scenes from Jules Verne’s novels on the dials. Literature seems to bond the two, as they are back again with a new project, eight unique steel LM Split Escapement models featuring engravings from eight novels: Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe, The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas, The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper, The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling, The Call of the Wild by Jack London, Moby Dick by Herman Melville, Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson and Robin Hood.

The base of the watch is very familiar. It’s the LM Split Escapement which is made out of stainless steel and measures 44.5mm wide and 18.2mm thick. Most of that thickness comes from the heavily domed crystal which is needed to house the 14mm flying balance wheel in the centre of the dial. The bezel has been thinned down a bit to make the opening for the dial larger, to make space for more engravings.

And boy, those engravings. All of them have been done by hand, capturing iconic scenes from the novels. MB&F points out that the baseplate of the dial varies in thickness from 1.15mm to 0.35mm, meaning that the engraving had to be done extremely carefully. You still get the two sub dials which have been openworked to allow for better views of the engravings.

The LM Split Escapement movement is manual-winding and has a 72 hour power reserve. The finishings are, of course, world class and include bevelled internal angles, polished bevels and Geneva waves. The watches come on a navy blue hand-stitched alligator strap.

The new LM Split Escapement Eddy Jaquet watches are released as eight pieces unique and carry with them a hefty price tag — CHF 158,000, without taxes. This is almost double what the regular LM Split Escapement costs. But please, do go on over to the MB&F website and see those dials for yourself. They are incredible.

🫳On hand

Our selection of the best reviews we stumble upon

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A review of the Prevail Onward Future Field

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Hands-On With The Jaeger-LeCoultre Tribute Monoface Steel, Duoface Rose Gold, and Tourbillon Steel

3/

A review of the Depancel Allure Chronograph MecaQ 36mm

⚙️Watch Worthy

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

The Momentum UDT Eclipse Synch Solar is a niche and nerdy classic, reborn and ready for action

Perhaps best known for being the watch on Sylvester Stallone's wrist in Rambo II (1985), the Chronosport UDT came in a few different versions. The watch's base format, movement, and ana-digi display at six on the dial were the basis for other watches in the era, such as the Breitling Pluton. As established, ana-digi is a niche, and within that niche, one will eventually find the Chronosport UDT. If you love sports watches, military provenance, and '80s maximalism – it's not too tough to see the appeal

Read the whole review on Hodinkee

⏲️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

• I normally don’t really like top-100 lists of all time. The only thing they seem to be good for is claiming your superiority over others because only you can have the true knowledge of what really is top 100. However, this Top 100 horror movies from Variety magazine is actually the first one that I had no objections to (thus stating my superiority over all other Top 100 horror movie lists). But not only that, it’s accompanied by essays on horror by Stephen King, Mike Flanagan and Robert freaking Englund!!

• An engaging portrait of Donna Kalil and the practice of professional python hunting. As Lindsey Liles writes, Kalil is “the original python huntress,” the first woman to hold the job, taking on Burmese pythons in the Florida Everglades and winning every time.

• An irresistible, poignant narration of the devastation wreaked on Tampa Bay by back-to-back hurricanes, first Helene, then Milton. Christopher Spata writes like a community member in the “we” voice, walking the streets, surveying the damages, observantly capturing the moods, the fears, and even the jokes.

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

I’m endlessly fascinated with how good Huckberry is at creating these video series. Their Dirt travel series is killer, but Homes, where they explore an incredibly diverse range of houses is just incredible.

💵Pre-loved precision

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-Vuk