Zodiac Has A New Beautiful Deep Green Super Sea Wolf Skin Diver, Frederique Constant Collaborates With Chef, CW Releases The Twelve Halo, New Watches From Glashütte Original And GoS

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. A lineup of great looking watches today and that unfortunate Christopher Ward. They do such great work we can forgive them for this one misstep.

Also, I recently published the inaugural sixth edition of the newsletter. It was all about the sterile secret watches of MACV-SOG. If you want to tell me what to write about next, subscribe to the Pateron and let me know.

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In this issue:

• Zodiac Unveils The Super Sea Wolf Skin Diver With a Deep Green Sunray Dial

• Frederique Constant Collaborates With Chef Alain Caron For A Tasty Special Edition FC Highlife

• Christopher Ward Releases Twelve Halo, A Minimalist Version Of Their Integrated Bracelet Sports Watch With Gold Bezel

• Glashütte Original Unveils Its Latest Limited-Edition Watch, The Incredible Senator Chronometer Tourbillon Premiere

• GoS Turns A Piece Unique Into A Highly-Limited, Highly Attractive Blue Guilloché Watch

Today’s reading time: 8 minutes and 32 seconds

👂What’s new

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Zodiac Unveils The Super Sea Wolf Skin Diver With a Deep Green Sunray Dial

Two weeks ago, Zodiac released with Worn & Wound an incredible funky watch inspired by the 90s, specifically the neon lights of laser tag arenas. It was a radical watch with incredible neon colors, milled channels in the case that are filled with lume and the entire thing glows a completely different color when under blacklight. It really is one of the craziest watch releases of the year. However now, Zodiac is settling back into their celebration of 70 years of their Super Sea Wolf model with a much more subdued piece, a Super Sea Wolf Skin Diver with a deep green dial.

As the 70th anniversary tips it off, the Zodiac Sea Wolf has been around since 1953. Seeing as how there’s the discussion on what came first, the Blancpain Fifty Fathoms or the Rolex Submariner, here’s another wrench in the wheel, as the Sea Wolf was released at the same time the Fifty Fathoms from Blancpain, and slightly before the Sub. It’s said that the Sea Wolf is the world’s first purpose-built diver’s watch manufactured and sold commercially and it could also go deeper (100 meters) than the Fifty Fathoms (92 meters). The original Sea Wolf, and its successor, the 1970s Super Sea Wolf, are widely considered two of the most iconic commercial dive watches.

The new green Zodiac is in essence the same Super Sea Wolf Skin Diver we know, but now with a new colorway. This means that you get the more vintage-inspired case compared to the Super Sea Wolf Compression Diver. The stainless steel case measures 39mm wide and 12.5mm thick. Since it’s a skin diver, it’s expected that it would get less water resistance than the Compression Diver, and with a screw-down caseback and crown you can expect 200 meters of it. Sorrounding the sapphire crystal is a black ceramic crown with a 60 minute scale made painted with lume that has a green tint to it.

This green tint complements the dial perfectly and both match the retro aesthetic. The dial has a subtle sunray finish and is painted a very old-fashioned emerald green. On the dial are large arrow-shaped hour markers that have small Arabic numerals set inside the oversized triangles at the cardinal points. These triangles are also painted in the same green-tinted Super-LumiNova as the bezel. Seeing as this is a time-only watch, you only get three hands of which the hour and minute ones are dauphine shaped.

Since Zodiac is owned by Fossil, it makes sense that you will find a movement made by STP, who is also owned by the same group, inside. It’s the STP1-11 automatic, which is their version of the ETA 2824. It runs at 28,800vph (4 Hz) and has a power reserve of 44 hours. The watch comes on a five-link bracelet that is typically found on the brand’s Super Sea Wolf Compression Diver models

This will not be a limited edition and is available for purchase now for a price of $1,595. See more on the Zodiac website.

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Frederique Constant Collaborates With Chef Alain Caron For A Tasty Special Edition FC Highlife

I have this idea which I haven’t had the time to put into reality, but will soon. I’m sure that there is a huge overlap in interest between food and watches, and I want to put together a video project that will cover both. And it seems that I wasn’t the only one thinking this way. Frederique Constant sees this link as well and has teamed up with Dutch jeweller Reijersen and chef Alain Caron to create a special edition Frederique Constant Highlife, called the Edition Caron.

Caron, a French chef, is actually a big deal in the Netherlands, where he owns four restaurants and is a television personality with numerous cookbooks behind him. He was chosen by Reijersen Jewelers to be the next chef they will work with, as they have previously collaborated with Michelin Star chefs for their ‘Collection des Cuisiniers’ series of watches.

The new watch comes in two sizes, 34 and 39mm, as Reijersen has imagined the duo as a his and hers thing. The watch is thin at 9.8mm and has a slightly retro tonneau shape with a mix of polished and brushed surfaces, a domed sapphire crystal, a see-through caseback, much like the regular FC Highlife models.

The changes all happen on the dial, which gets and incredibly creamy champagne color with a colimaçon or snail-shell-like pattern. The dial is finished with a black printed minute track and applied indices. The luminous sword-shaped hands for the hours and minutes are paired with a slender steel central seconds hand. To continue the culinary theme, the luminous inserts on the indices are white and pistachio green. The finishing touches include a framed date window at 3′ and Caron’s logo at 6′.

Inside the watch is the brand’s FC-303 which is, essentially a Sellita SW-200 with “Frederique Constant” engraved on the rotor and the Sellita SW-200 is the basic, robust and easily servicable clone of the ETA 2824-2. It beats at 28,800 bph (4Hz) and has a power reserve of 38 hours. It’s not much of a movement to look at, so FC gives the transparent caseback a bit of opaqueness and prints on it one of Caron’s drawings. The watch comes on the regular stainless steel integrated bracelet the FC Highlife comes on, as well as a khaki-coloured rubber strap.

The Frederique Constant Highlife Edition Caron is limited to 50 pieces for each size. The watches are exclusively available at EditionCaron.nl and are priced quite aggressively at €2,295 for the 34mm version and €2,395 for the 39mm version. See more on the website dedicated to this model.

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Christopher Ward Releases Twelve Halo, A Minimalist Version Of Their Integrated Bracelet Sports Watch With Gold Bezel

Christopher Ward has been a fan favorite in the past few years. Their Trident and Sealander models regularly receive a bunch of praise and get better and better with each released update. The C1 Bel Canto is still one of the most stunning pieces of engineering and design at an incredible price. It seemed, up until this yesterday, that they could do no wrong. Well, the tide was bound to shift at one point. Christopher Ward has just introduced the Twelve Halo, a more elegant and simple watch that gets a gold bezel. And boy, the reactions form the community weren’t really that good.

The Twelve Halo measures 36mm wide, meaning it can suit both men and women and comes in a choice of dials and straps. The simple brushed stainless steel case gets a dodecagonal (12 sided) bezel on top made out of 18 karat rose gold.

To show off the gold more, CW went for a completely minimalist approach to the dial. You can have it in either black or silver with basically nothing on the dial other than the Christopher Ward logo and the words Automatic and Swiss made on the bottom half. There are no indices, numbers, no day or date functions. Even no seconds hand. All you get are simple and elegant hour and minute lumed hands.

This simplicity is where the criticism from the community has come from. It seems that they might have gone overboard when simplifying. Or, as pretty much everyone would say - Christopher Ward has made a Movado. And this is not a good thing.

Inside is the Sellita SW 200-1, the same one in the Frederique Constant mentioned above, meaning it’s a ETA 2824-2 clone that beats at 28,800 bph (4Hz) and has a power reserve of 38 hours. The watch comes on a single link bracelet that tapers down towards the clasp or a rubber strap.

The Christopher Ward Twelve Hero is priced at €2,750 on the steel bracelet regardless of dial color and €2,495 on the rubber strap. See more on the CW website.

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Glashütte Original Unveils Its Latest Limited-Edition Watch, The Incredible Senator Chronometer Tourbillon Premiere

The very traditional German watchmaker Glashütte Original has lately been making waves with their incredible 70s inspired sports watches and some interesting divers. However, it shouldn’t be forgotten that they also have the Senator collection in which they not only implement the Saxon watchmaking style to its maximum, but they also create some pretty incredible complicated models. Like, for example, the Senator Chronometer Tourbillon which came out in 2020. Now, Glashütte Original is updating this model with its flying tourbillon with stop-seconds, zero reset and minute detent with a much more modern design and a new day/night indicator.

There are many similarities with the 2020 model, with most of the internals being the same and the two models sharing the 42mm platinum case with a thickness of 12.6mm. The major changes come on the dial where you get stepped levels and the off-centred hours and minutes dial at noon has an engraved globe in its centre, sorrounded by the Sun and the Moon. The orbit on a spherical axis every 24 hours providing a day/night indicator. Blue hour markers are applied to the chapter ring and indicated by blued hands with a strip of luminescence.

The heart of the watch is its patented Flyback Tourbillon, which really messes with you perception of reality - when you manipulate the drown the tourbillon halts, swivels and resumes its position which just looks incredible. This is all possible thanks to the manual winding Calibre 58-06 which runs at a frequency of 21,600vph and providing a power reserve of 70 hours.

Additional design elements of the watch include laser-engraved bridges visible from the front, coupled with a finely crafted dial featuring a recessed day and night indicator. The platinum case encasing the mechanism is polished and satin-brushed, exhibiting a blend of tradition and modernity.

The Senator Chronometer Tourbillon is a limited edition of 50 pieces worldwide. It is now available in all Glashütte Original Boutiques and select retailers worldwide and retails for EUR 186,600. See more on the brand’s website.

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GoS Turns A Piece Unique Into A Highly-Limited, Highly Attractive Blue Guilloché Watch

It’s a good day when you get to discover a watch brand that is completely new to you. I hope that this day is today for you, as this might be the first time you’re hearing about GoS, a Swedish brand started more than a decade ago as a collaboration between master bladesmith Johan Gustafsson and master watchmaker Patrik Sjögren. Since then Gustafsson left the company but what remains the same are the incredible dials made out of hand-forged Damascus steel, now made by another Swedish master bladesmith - Conny Persson, as well as their dedication to Scandinavian craft tradition.

GoS watches have their dedicated following among both watch and knife enthusiasts and being small and nimble, they can easily cater to special wishes. Their latest watch, the GoS Sarek Rissa, is the result of one such wish. A client wanted the colored dial from the Norrsken Rissa, but in the thinner case of the 2nd generation Sarek. The watch looked so good that GoS is now putting up a limited edition of 10 pieces up for sale.

Speaking of the case it measures 41.5mm wide and 11mm thick. It has sapphire crystals on top and bottom, with brushed and polished surfaces, highlighting the many facets of the case. However, this is also a very different watch for GoS, as it lacks the Damascus steel components usually found on the dial and case. You can get them for a premium and upon request, but I think this piece works fantastically without the it.

The Damascus in the GoS is usually most prevalent in the dial, but here you get an incredible wavey guilloché patterns, hand turned by the famous guilloché craftsman Jochen Benzinger. Once turned, each dial gets a nano-ceramic blue color coat which in combination with the waves of the guilloché looks like the Aurora Borealis.

Nearly everything about this watch is hand made. You get a hand-blown Swedish crystal chapter ring which is then painted with enamel paint on the underside. The hands are spearhead shaped and it has a simple needle seconds hand.

Inside the watch is the LJP-G101 automatic movement made by La Joux-Perret. While not a clone, it is most similar to the Miyota 9039 and beats at 28,800vph with a power reserve of 65 hours. The same movement is used in watches from anOrdain and Furlan Marri. The rotor is made out Tungsten and is finished with a gold Triskele medallion. The watch comes on a Moose leather strap.

The GoS Sarek Rissa will be made in only 10 pieces, with a production capacity of 5 or 6 per year and it’s priced at $12,500 before any bespoke wishes. See more on the GoS website.

🫳On hand

Our selection of the best reviews we stumble upon

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Hands on with the Hamilton Khaki Field Expedition

2/

A review of the Gerald Charles Maestro 3.0 in green

⚙️Watch Worthy

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

Otsuka Lotec, Perhaps The Coolest Japanese Independent Brand You’ve Never Heard Of

Katayama-san’s small brand has a following on Instagram, and Otsuka is a neighborhood in Toshima, Tokyo. It’s a typical area that mixes traditional Tokyo with the all-pervasive city gentrification. “Lotec” is what it sounds like, meaning “low-tech.” This name stems from Jiro Katayama’s small output of atelier-crafted and hand-assembled wares. All are completed by the designer himself. And just like Hajime Asaoka, Jiro Katayama is a self-taught watchmaker, increasing my fascination. Every part except the Miyota base movements, rubies, crystals, and straps are small-scale manufactured on manually operated machines. In 2022, the entire production was 71 watches, with a range called the No.5, No.6, the No.7, and the latest No.7.5. The design of the last one is as simple as it is quirky, and if you instantly get the inspiration behind it, you’ve got a sharper eye than me. Read the whole story on Fratello, it’s amazing.

⏲️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

• Rarely does an article make me go: “huh, that’s a good point.” This one got me with it’s lead. The Guardian writes how the 2010s saw a series of huge public uprisings in places like Brazil, Egypt, Turkey and Hong kong. And yet, many of them led to the opposite of what they asked for. So, what happened?

• China has invested heavily in an armada of far-flung fishing vessels, in part to extend its global influence. This maritime expansion has come at grave human cost. These are the crimes that are hidden behind your seafood.

• I realized yesterday that I’m getting really good at breaking down chickens. A couple of years ago I found out that there’s a hell of a lot of people who find handling meat disgusting and they couldn’t understand why I buy whole chickens and not already butchered chickens. This realisation that I’m becoming a pro at cutting up chickens coincided with me reading this great essay on how squeamishness around meat is embedded into the English language — and by extension, Western attitudes towards the realities of meat.

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

Are you watching Harry’s Garage? Because if you aren’t you should. Harry Metcalfe is the former owner and founder of EVO Magazine and current farmer who has perhaps the greatest car collection in the world. It’s not the largest, or the most exclusive or the most expensive. But he does have impeccable taste and uses every single one of his cars. For example, he meticulously restored this XJC V12 and is now driving the crap out of it on road trips. Couldn’t get any better.

💵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: 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

• FOR SALE: Longines Heritage Skin Diver, box and papers. €1400. Reach out to us and we’ll put you in touch

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