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  • Citizen Introduces Trio Of Solar Powered Promaster Ana-Digi Watches; Union Glashütte Gives Belisar Chronograph New Look; Mr Jones Uses Yellow And Pink Gold For XL Ricochet; New From Genus And Lederer

Citizen Introduces Trio Of Solar Powered Promaster Ana-Digi Watches; Union Glashütte Gives Belisar Chronograph New Look; Mr Jones Uses Yellow And Pink Gold For XL Ricochet; New From Genus And Lederer

Despite the overall trend of shrinking watches, today's releases are all quite large

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It's About Time
March 25, 2024

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. The ana-digi releases continue and I’ll say I didn’t see 2024 getting so many new of these fantastic pieces. You might not be huge fans, but I am. So, sorry!

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In this issue:

  • Citizen Introduces Trio Of Rugged And Solar Powered Promaster Ana-Digi Watches

  • The Union Glashütte Belisar Chronograph Gets A More Modern And Updated Look

  • Mr Jones Uses Yellow And Pink Gold For Their Latest Pinball-inspired Extra Large Ricochet Watch

  • The GNS2 Is The Sophmore Effort From Genus That Doesn’t Disappoint Their Fans

  • Benhard Lederer Shrinks Down The Beautiful Central Impulse Chronometer To 39mm

Today’s reading time: 9 minutes and 22 seconds

👂What’s new

1/

Regardless if they are mechanical or quartz - actually, even more so if they are quartz - analogue display watches are our strongest link with the history of watchmaking. Ever since the verge escapement has been invented in the 14th century, we have used hands on a 12 hour disc to tell the time. This radically changed in the 1970s when Hamilton introduced the first digital electronic watch, and we god an onslaught of modern watches that offer virtually unlimited functionality. And the two camps are pretty firmly divided between those who love the link with history and the charming imperfection of mechanical watches and those who wholly embrace the cold embrace of quartz multi-function watches, with very little overlap. Then there’s the weird bunch out there, people like me, who just know that the ana-digi watch is superior. Sure, we adore mechanical watches, and can appreciate the simple complexity of a digital one, but analogue-digital watches are just perfection.

The entire rant was, of course, a bit of hyperbole to show how much I love ana-digi watches and to serve as a lead for a new ana-digi release, just like the new Breitling Aerospace only, perhaps, even better. Citizen is adding a new trio of watches to their Promaster line, called the Eco-Drive combination watch and it’s a great looking robust take on the ana-digi genre.

The Promaster first came out in 1989 - meaning that this year Citizen is celebrating the 35th anniversary of the model - as a rugged tool watch that was supposed to rise up to any task put in front of it on land, in the sea or sky. Being a rugged watch often means being a large watch, and the new Promaster Eco-Drive combination is no different. It comes in a stainless steel case that measures 43.9mm wide and 14mm thick. The round case has short and widely spaced lugs, very prominent crown guards on both the right side and the left side where you’ll find the single crown used to rotate the internal bezel. All the crowns and pushers have deep grooves or knurling, making for a very tough look. The watch comes in two case colorways - with either a silver finish that has a anthracite coating on the smooth bezel or a fully anthracite coated case. Water resistance is 200 meters.

The dial also gets it’s choice of colors - grey, green or blue. All three have the same layout, with large white hands filled with lume and equally large Arabic numerals and bar indices. The entire dial is encircled by a rotating internal bezel that has compass markings. There are two subdials, at 4 and 8 o’clock, with the one at 4 showing you which function you are controlling and the one at 8 serving as a power reserve indicator. But more importantly, there’s a white-on-black display at 12 o’clock, one that uses Memory-in-Pixel (MIP) technology offers better legibility, especially outdoors.

The hands and display are powered by the newly developed Cal. U822 movement. Among the new upgrades is the ability to set multiple alarms for different times on different days, but you also get all the functions you would expect from a Citizen digital watch - accuracy of ±15 seconds per month, world time functionality, a chronograph and a perpetual calendar. The watch also has a light level indicator, which visualizes the power generated by light-powered Eco-Drive, and since this is an Eco-Drive you also get solar charging. Each of the three variants gets its own strap. The grey dial gets a black rubber strap made out of Benebiol, a biomass-based polyurethane that’s supposed to last much longer than regular rubber, the green dial gets a cordura green strap and the blue dial comes on a stainless steel bracelet.

The three new Promaster Eco-Drive combination watches were announced last week, but they won’t go on sale until autumn or winter of this year, so you have some time to save up. The two versions on the strap are priced at $750, while the stainless steel bracelet version will set you back $800. See more on the Citizen website.

2/

Glashütte is an amazing place. The population of the german town is just under 6,700 people. And yet, there are 10 active watchmakers there at the moment. One of them is Union Glashütte. While not a powerhouse of the town, or even the watch group they belong to (the Swatch Group), they make some very nice looking retro-inspired watches. And their star collection is surely the Belisar, a retro sports watch inspired by vintage cars that takes on every guise from dressy to very rugged. The laster UG release is an update to their iconic Belisar Chronograph, with a new look that’s equally as modern as it’s retro.

Despite the retro looks, there’s not a lot of retro measurements here. There’s no other way to describe the Belisar Chronograph other than huge - 44mm wide, 15mm thick and with a 53mm lug-to-lug. Big, especially to enlightened small-wristed watch fans, but as we have seen with some major brands lately releasing larger versions of their popular watches, there is still a demand for larger watches. But despite this, it still looks fine in wrist shots, due to heavily curved lugs. On the right side of the watch are an oversized crown and equally large pushers, while the sapphire crystal on top is gently domed. Water resistance is 100 meters.

The dial remains largely unchanged, other two new colors: a stone grey base with black numerals and a white base with cerulean blue numerals. Both have a tri-compax layout with a date window inside the 6 o’clock subdial. Surrounding the dial is a pulsometer scale, a rare sight on sports chronographs that usually have tachymeter scales, and the edge of the colored part of the dial has a railroad minute scale. The Arabic numerals are large and retro stylized. The grey dial gets white and black subdials, with a red pulsometer scale on a white background, and touches on red on the subdial hands and the tip of the central chronograph hand. The white dial version has blue numerals, chrono sub-counters and outer scale. Red is found once again on the chronograph hands.

Inside is the Calibre UNG-27.S1, a heavily modified Valjoux 7753 base. It has a cam-operated chronograph architecture, along with an anti-magnetic silicon hairspring. It beats at 28,800bph and has a 65 hour power reserve. The grey dialed version comes on a textured grey rubber strap, while the white dial version comes on a blue textile strap.

The two new Union Glashütte Belisar Chronographs are available now and not limited, while the price is set at €2,950. See more on the Union Glashütte website.

 3/

Mr Jones Uses Yellow And Pink Gold For Their Latest Pinball-inspired Extra Large Ricochet Watch

You know Mr Jones. They make affordable art watches that are renowned for not telling the time. They are a joke on your wrist. A joke that often makes you rethink your life. Or, you know, just makes your day. Their latest release is designed by Ryan Claytor and called the Ricochet XL, a watch inspired by the world of the pinball arcade and using some pretty uncommon materials when it comes to Mr Jones.

I almost started this writeup with the description of the case that I almost know by heart - 37mm wide stainless steel case, a sapphire crystal and those instantly recognisable spidery lugs, I would be mistaken. As this is actually an extra large version of the already existing Ricochet, which does come in that 37mm case. The XL is not a format that Mr Jones uses often, but I have to say I prefer the more traditional look of the larger case. This case is 45mm wide and has quite a long lug-to-lug of 53mm. It has a round shape, short lugs and a rather large and polished bezel on top.

The dial is even more interesting. It uses palladium, 20ct. citron gold, and 22ct. rose gold foils to illustrate four robots playing pinball and Mr Jones points out that the watch is a real pain to produce. The individual colours in the design have to be printed one by one, the metal foils are applied by hand, cleaned and then backed with a varnish for protection. Best of all, like with most Mr Jones watches, is the way you tell the time - it’s displayed on the scoreboard of the pinball machine, meaning it’s a jump hour movement with gliding minutes.

To get the jump hour movement, Mr Jones uses the TY2709 20 jewel automatic mechanical movement made by the legendary Chinese watchmaker Seagull. It comes with a 40 hour power reserve. The watch has a milanese-style steel bracelet.

The Mr Jones Ricochet XL is still up on their website, so if you want one you better go for it as they are known to sell out. Price is set at £695, more than most Mr Jones watches, but you get an interesting movement and those precious metal foils (but I would guess they add up to only several dollars worth of material). See more on the Mr Jones website.

4/

In 2019, everybody was pretty sure that only one watch could win the GPHG award for Mechanical Exception and it was the Genus GNS1, an incredible display of complicated moving parts that looked almost like a scaled animal slithering under the crystal. So, everybody was eagerly expecting what their second watch will be. And here it is, the GNS2 Launch Edition. It’s not as wild as the GNS1, but it’s just as interesting.

The watch comes in a 43mm wide, 18.8mm thick grade 5 titanium case. Now, before you balk at that thickness, keep in mind that the actual body of the watch is only about 13mm thick and the rest is the prominently domed box crystal. The sides of the case are hollowed out and the crystal reaches all the way into the case.

While the GNS1 features an icnredibly complicated dial, this one has a grained steel dial plate in which two openings have been crafted to hold two subdials. Each of these cutouts features a polished sloping edge frame leading down to the graduated minutes track and skeletonized wheels. They move in opposite directions – clockwise and counterclockwise – propelling the train of time-indicating elements in metallic blue arrows. The first blue arrow indicates the minutes, making a full figure eight around them. The hour is indicated by the blue three-arrows around the outer edge of the dial’s hours track. Six polished rhodium-plated arrow-shaped appliques, three on each side, adorn the dial symmetrically, accompanied by a set of screws with polished tops, neatly embedded within their designated silos.

Inside the watch is the brand’s in-house hand-wound movement, the 260Rh-2. It beast at 18,000vph and has a 50 hour power reserve. The watch comes on a range of strap options, available in various colours and materials, from alligator and saddle-finish calfskin to padded and stitched rubber, either with a titanium pin buckle or a folding clasp.

Only 18 pieces of the GNS2 Launch Edition will be made, with more variants coming soon. As you would expect, the price is not for the faint of heart - CHF 58,250, including taxes. See more on the Genus website.

5/

Some watches just drop jaws. The Ledered Central Impulse Chronometer, the winner of the Innovation Prize at the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève in 2021, is just such a watch. The watch not only looks incredible, it’s also an incredible technical achievement. Lederer improved on George Daniels’ Independent Double-Wheel Escapement by incorporating it into a wristwatch. Just like for Daniels Space Traveller I and II pocket watches – 2Hz, the escapement is driven by two independent gear trains each with its own barrel. Bernhard Lederer brought his own tweaks to the escapement and added a remontoir d’égalité for each gear train. And now he fixed one thing that might have bothered people - the size. This is the new and smaller Lederer Central Impulse Chronometer.

Whereas the original came in a 44mm wide case, the new version of the CIC comes in at just 39mm wide and slims down from 12.2mm to 10.75mm. You can have the case made out of either white or rose gold, and with the decrease in size you also get more flowing case lines and a smaller bezel. On top is a domed sapphire crystal and a bowl-like sapphire crystal caseback.

The dial is also new, coming in two different colors - blue on the white gold model and grey on the rose gold. Around the edge you’ll find a raised hour ring with simple hour markers, framed by the minute track. On the left side of the dial is a figure eight made up of a double small seconds indicator, the bottom one graduated and the top one skeletonized.

The movement inside has a very similar architecture, only shrunk down to fit into the smaller case. You still get the two independent barrels, two independent gear trains, two constant force mechanisms and two independent escapement wheels. The movement beats at 21,600vph and has a 38 hour power reserve. The watch comes on a beige leather strap.

The new Bernhard Lederer Central Impulse Chronometer 39mm comes in two limited series of 20 pieces each. Price is a pretty steep CHF 136,800 excluding taxes. See more on the Lederer 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 like

All the design cues of the U1 are intact, from the bead blasting of the entire case, bezel, and bracelet to the matte black, hyper-legible dial. The bezel is captive, meaning it’s held in place by screws (rather than tension like most dive watches) to prevent it from popping off even under the most stressful usage. The flat sapphire crystal is so anti-reflective that at most angles it seems like it’s not even there, which is equal parts enchanting and alarming. A 4 o’clock screw-down crown and a solid caseback keep things watertight down to 500 metres, a pretty remarkable feat for a watch just 11mm thick.

⏲️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

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

I loved the latest Batman movie. Like, a lot. Way more than I expected when they announced Robert Pattinson would be staring in it. But if I had to complain about one thing, then it would be that we didn’t get to see enough of Colin Farrell’s Penguin, a masterful performance with an even better mask. Well, thankfully, we’re getting more Penguin in the form of a series for HBO. That should be interesting.

💵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 

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  • SOLD: Well, not really new. It’s a great looking mid-90s Tudor Submariner 75090, offered for sale by a member of the It’s About Time reader crew. I love the way it looks and seems to be in great condition. Check it out over on Chrono24.

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