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Daniel Roth Returns With Sold Out Tourbillon Souscription, Doxa Does Green on Steel For The Army and Jacob Introduces Ultra-Fast Rotating Movement

Every brand is preparing for Watches and Wonders, so news is tight around here

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It's About Time
March 21, 2023

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. I’m looking around and there’s not much going on, so this will be a short one - all the brands are saving their announcements for Watches and Wonders which starts on Monday, March 27th.

In this issue:

  • LVMH revives Daniel Roth

  • Doxa sneaks in new colorway

  • Jacob & Co. introduces a crazy fast rotating movement

  • A guide to Watches and Wonders

  • And… invite your friends to win a Tiffany PRX

Today’s reading time: 4 minutes 24 seconds

We’re starting off with a bang! We’re giving away TWO of this year’s hottest watches:
THE TIFFANY PRX!

This is the PRX Powermatic 80 we’re giving away. Not this one obviously. But one just like it.

All you have to do is click the button below and have five of your friends subscribe. Both you and one of your friends will be eligible to win one of the watches

👂What’s new

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Just a few weeks ago, Louis Vuitton’s head of watchmaking Jean Arnault and master watchmakers Michel Navas and Enrico Barbasini announced their plan to resurrect the Daniel Roth watch brand. Now we get to see their first watch, and boy is it a resurrection.

Brief history lesson first. Daniel Roth was a watchmaker that worked for Jaeger-LeCoultre and Audemars Piguet before joining Breguet in 1975. where he set the direction over the next 13 years and created iconic watches, including the first tourbillon for Breguet. However, after Breguet had to declare bankruptcy, Roth left and created his own brand, creating beautiful watches with his now-famous double-ellipse case design. In 1995, the Singapore retailer The Hour Glass took a majority stake in Daniel Roth. Five years later, Bvlgari acquired the brand and incorporated it into its own line of high-end watches. While Bvlgari continued to use the double-ellipse case shape and incredibly complex movements that Roth designed, most dials featured a double Bvlgari/Daniel Roth signature.

That’s how the Daniel Roth brand ended up in LVMH and now the Tourbillon Souscription continues the tradition of the first Daniel Roth watch, the Tourbillon C187. It will feature a yellow gold case, respecting the original dimensions of the watch (35.5mm × 38.6mm and just 9.2mm thick). The dial of the Daniel Roth Tourbillon Souscription is also yellow gold with beautiful Clous de Paris guilloché decoration. It is produced in the mountain-top workshop of another famous independent watchmaker, Kari Voutilainen.

To demonstrate that the revived Daniel Roth is Haute Horlogerie, the new DR001 tourbillon movement is finished entirely by hand. According to the brand, this even includes the mirror-finished screw heads. The movement measures only 4.6mm thick and consists of 206 components.

This first new Daniel Roth watch will be available on a souscription basis, with a deposit required upon order confirmation. However, since it’s limited to just 20 pieces, it seems that they are all sold out already. LVMH announced new models with less limited runs are supposed to come soon. The new Daniel Roth Tourbillon Souscription is CHF 140,000 excluding VAT.

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Doxa introduced their new SUB 200 C-Graph II yesterday with new colors and right as this newsletter went out to subscribers, we got some new Doxa news - they are releasing the Army in Green Hunter on full steel.

In the years since Doxa reintroduced the Army model, it was available in steel with a black ceramic insert and steel bezel, or, later on, a green hunter ceramic insert on a bronze bezel. People loved the green-bronze combo, but some wanted more options. Now they have them - the green hunter ceramic insets comes on a steel bezel. It’s available either on a beads of rice bracelet, or with an FKM rubber strap in black or in green. In both cases, the box also includes a textile NATO camouflage strap. Available now at EUR 2,210 on rubber strap and EUR 2,250 on steel bracelet.

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Jacob & Co. has managed to create some of the wildest, craziest and most complicated watches in recent years. Among these is the Jacob & Co. Astronomia. Since 2014. Jacob the Jeweller has been creating variations to his Astronomia line, creating supremely complicated timepieces that transcend watches and become works of art. Love them or hate them, you have to admit the Astronomia line is shockingly impressive.

One of the defining attributes of every Astronomia watch is the fact that every element is in constant motion: the movement rotates on itself and drives arms bearing different functions, including a flying tourbillon regulator pacing the mesmerizing ballet. The Jacob & Co. Astronomia started at one rotation every 20 minutes, then pushed the speed at one every 10 minutes and even one every 5 minutes! The Astronomia Revolution takes the concept to the next level and breaks all records with an ultra-fast 1-minute rotation.

If you can’t comprehend how fast that is, I suggest you go watch the video on the Jacob & Co. website.

Everything is crazy about this watch, not just the crazy fast rotating movement. The case is 47mm in diameter and 27mm thick and there are high-gloss rose gold mirrors inside it to show off the movement. The watch comes on a black Cordura strap and in a limited edition of 18 pieces, 6 in rose gold, 6 in white gold and 6 in black PVD-white gold.

The price is $600.000. Talk among yourselves whether this is too much or not.

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Chances are you won’t be going to Watches and Wonders next week, just like me. But you will be following through your favourite news outlet - the It’s About Time newsletter. We will be following everything religiously, but before the show starts, you might want to check out what to expect at the biggest watch show of the year.

🫳On hand

Our selection of the best reviews we stumble upon

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Interestingly, two watch outlets published two reviews of two different Bell & Ross watches: the BR 03-94 Chronograph and the BR05 Skeleton Golden

⚙️Watch Worthy

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

“Collaboration often leads to the best results, and Stella is a brand born of collaboration. With the name formed out of the founders Stephen and Marcella’s names, you can tell that their partnership is really the core of the company. A passion for watches is common between them, and the meshing of Marcella’s creative brain and Stephen’s business nous is what has led the New York-based brand to create three watches since their inception in 2019. The latest of these is the Stella Ellis.”

⏲️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

This is a beautifully shot short documentary on one of the most impressive places I have ever visited. I remember being just a kid, finishing the last episode of Band of Brothers a day or two before we took a trip to the Alps and visited Eagle’s nest. It was uncanny.

💵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 

Want to sell your watch to a community of passionate horologists? Reach out to us and we’ll put your ad up. $15 per listing without photos, $25 with photos. 10 available slots per day, discounts for multiple slots.

We’re starting off with a bang! We’re giving away TWO of this year’s hottest watches:
THE TIFFANY PRX!

This is the PRX Powermatic 80 we’re giving away. Not this one obviously. But one just like it.

All you have to do is click the button below and have five of your friends subscribe. Both you and one of your friends will be eligible to win one of the watches