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- IWC Unveils Majestic Big Pilot’s Tourbillon Le Petit Prince, AP Releases Chocolate RO Perpetual Openworked, Panerai Sells A Watch For Just 24 Hours, And New From Furlan Marri, Aquastar And IFL
IWC Unveils Majestic Big Pilot’s Tourbillon Le Petit Prince, AP Releases Chocolate RO Perpetual Openworked, Panerai Sells A Watch For Just 24 Hours, And New From Furlan Marri, Aquastar And IFL
Rare are days where you see such a huge disparity between the most expensive and the cheapest watch in one newsletter, from $1,000 to $200,000
It's About Time
December 04, 2023
Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. You’ll have to excuse me today, but this entire edition is full of extremely limited and extremely expensive watches. It’s just one of those days, but we’ll get through it together.
If you like this newsletter, you might consider supporting it directly through Patreon. If you were subscribed, you could have already read my lengthy piece on Only Watch and it potentially being the biggest scam of the watch world. Other subscriber-only articles include the Completely Sterile Secret Watches Of MACV-SOG and my choice of 11 vintage Heuer watches that would make the perfect basis for new TAG Heuer recreations, including a possible MoonSwatch type watch that could actually break the internet.
In this issue:
IWC Unveils A Majestic Big Pilot’s Watch 43 Tourbillon Le Petit Prince
Audemars Piguet Teams Up With Travis Scott For A Chocolate Brown Royal Oak Perpetual Calendar Openworked
Panerai Sold A Hyper Limited Luminor Luna Rossa Carbotech For Only 24 Hours
Furlan Marri Teams Up With Revolution And Auro Montanari For Their First Mechanical Chronograph
Aquastar Revives Another One Of Their Legendary Watches, The Benthos Diver
IFL Watches Continues Oris Cotton Candy Custom Range With Divers 65 Boogeyman And Aeroman
Today’s reading time: 10 minutes and 56 seconds
👂What’s new
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It’s incredibly easy to be cynical. To swat away new things and poke fun of things you find ridiculous. So many times I’ve done that, especially when I see collaborations in the watch world. They are often over the top and forced money extraction vessels with very little effort. They can be corny. And it would be easy to put the IWC collaboration with the Antoine de Saint-Exupery estate into that basket. But, dammit, the IWC x Le Petit Prince watches manage to melt even my icy heart. Sure, this latest one, the IWC Big Pilot’s Watch 43 Tourbillon Le Petit Prince is ridiculously expensive, ostentatiously gold and all-around bold. But you have to love it.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery was a french poet, writer, aristocrat and aviation pioneer. Prior to WWII he was a successful commercial pilot and during the War, he joined the French Air Force where he flew reconnaissance missions. During a wartime hiatus in the United States he wrote Le Petit Prince. He returned to war shortly thereafter and his plane disappeared on his ninth reconnaissance mission in 1944. Le Petit Prince helped solidify his status as a French hero afterwards. The novella has sold more than 140 million copies and it is regarded as one of the greatest commentaries on the human condition, but without any cynicism but rather with childlike wonder and dreams.
IWC has been working with the Saint-Exupery estate since 2005 and the two have come out with a range of watches that take inspiration from the Prince. Their latest collaboration takes the form of the smaller Big Pilot’s Watch version introduced in 2021. The 43mm wide and a hefty 14.58mm thick case is made out of 18k Armor Gold, IWC’s proprietary alloy that they say is much more resilient than conventional 5N gold. It’s the same case as the steel one - meaning it’s brushed with a polished bezel, diamond-shaped crown and caseback and it’s water-resistant to 100 metres - just rendered in shiny gold.
Like all the Le Petit Prince, you get a beautiful sunray finish on a blue dial and this one has large stylised gold-plated Arabic numerals, along with gold-plated dots and triangle at noon and propeller-style hands. All the numerals and hands are full of lume so the watch looks amazing at night. At 6 o’clock on the dial you’ll find an aperture which shows off the flying tourbillon fitted with a stop mechanism for accurate settings.
The entire watch is powered by IWC’s in house calibre 82905 which beats at a 4Hz frequency and delivers a robust power reserve of 80 hours. The watch is wound by a bi-directional Pellaton system with reinforced ceramic components. This Le Petit Prince edition, like many others, has a beautiful 18k gold rotor shaped like an asteroid with the Prince standing on it, seen through a transparent caseback. The watch comes on a brown leather strap.
The IWC Big Pilot’s Watch 43 Tourbillon Le Petit Prince is limited to 300 pieces, but likely won’t sell out that fast considering the rather substantial price - €84,700. See more on the IWC website.
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Heads up, this first paragraph will get very graphic with descriptions of detached body parts, so skip it if you are squeamish. On March 16, 1994, Cactus Jack and Big Van Vader squared off in one of the most iconic wrestling matches of all time. During the fight, Cactus began a hangman, but neither wrestler was aware that the ring ropes had been drawn extra tight before the event, and Cactus could barely move. When Cactus finally freed himself from the ropes and fell out of the ring, his ears were badly split at the back. When Cactus re-entered the ring, the two wrestlers began trading blows. Van Vader reached out, grabbed Cactus Jack by the ear and the ear just came off. The two men continued wrestling as the referee picked up the ear and gave it to the ring announcer.
In what became a match to be remembered forever, Cactus Jack once again proved why he was one of the greatest wrestlers of all time. Cactus is, of course, the iconic and unforgettable Mick Foley. However, Cactus Jack is also a brand and record label started by American rap star Travis Scott. While I appreciate Scott’s music, using the name Cactus Jack, regardless off where the inspiration came from, is just heresy. Unless he is ready to get his war ripped off for the entertainment of millions.
Now that I’ve gotten my grip with Scott calling stuff he does Cactus Jack, I can move on to his new collaboration with Audemars Piguet, the final collaboration of François-Henry Bennahmias as CEO of AP before Ilaria Resta takes over in January, and the new watch is called the Royal Oak Perpetual Calendar Openworked “Cactus Jack” Limited Edition.
The watch comes in the 41mm wide and 9.9mm thick ceramic case that has an incredibly rich chocolate brown color, a first for AP. Outside it’s a Royal Oak, so you know what to expect, but in this color it really stunning.
The dial is also pretty much what you would expect - even though you don’t see a Royal Oak Perpetual Calendar Openworked - with a few Cactus Jack references thrown in. The Cactus Jack logo is a handwritten one that appears as if someone drew it on a napkin (but while also making sure to strongly reference the handwriting of Basquiat, because why be original) and the same handwriting is used by AP as the typography of the days, date, weeks, months and leap year indicators.
Through the dial you can see the movement, the in-house self-winding calibre 5135 with 40-hour power reserve. It’s equipped with week indication, day, date, astronomical moon, month, leap year, hours and minutes, all of which will be accurate until the year 2100. You can also view the movement through the exhibition caseback where you can see the Cactus Jack logo again on the rotor. The watch comes on a brown textured calfskin leather strap.
The Royal Oak Perpetual Calendar Openworked “Cactus Jack” Limited Edition will be made in 200 pieces. A bit less than the Le Petit Prince mentioned above, but at a staggering price - CHF 178,000. Excluding taxes. I can’t exactly imagine there are 200 die hard Travis Scott fans looking to drop CHF 200.000+ on a watch he made, but it sure is a good looking watch. See more on the AP website.
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The point of watch news, and this newsletter, is to telly you of upcoming releases, alert you when something new has hit the market and, preferably, let you know what’s happening far in advance so you can prepare. Sometimes I miss a new releases, and in most cases this is not a huge deal as not everything sells out that fast. However, I missed one big thing, and the right thing would be to take the loss and skip writing about it. But I like this watch so much I’ll just tell you a bit about it, even though none of us can buy it. On November 30th, Panerai opened a 24 hour window on their website to purchase one of 37 pieces of the Luminor Luna Rossa Carbotech that marks the 37th edition of the prestigious America Cup and Panerai’s collaboration with the Luna Rossa sailing team.
The new PAM01529 looks very much like the 44mm PAM01408 from the Luna Rossa collection, the similarities come down to just the color scheme - dark blue, red and black. Everything else is radically different. The Luminor Luna Rossa Carbotech is made from Panerai’s carbon composite material. It’s a lot tougher and lighter than the steel DLC of the standard collection model making far more of a high-performance case.
The dial has the signature sandwich construction with a blue sunray brushed finish. There’s then a date window at 3 o’clock and snailed small seconds subdial in black at 9 o’clock with a red hand. The central hour and minute hands are black with strips of lume down the centre.
Inside the watch is P.9010 calibre with 3-day power reserve and automatic winding. The watch comes on a blue rubber and textile strap with a red stripe down the middle.
Like I said, only 37 pieces have been made and they all sold out on the 30th, but it’s still a nice watch so I wanted to show it. See more on the Panerai website.
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It’s just incredible that Furlan Marri has been around only a bit more than two years. While clearly a microbrand, Furlan has earned the reputation of a full fledged brand that draws incredible hype whenever they release anything. They started off with a very successful Kickstarter campaign for meca-quartz powered chronographs, and quickly grew up enough to participate in the now-canceled Only Watch auction with a perpetual calendar. Surely not something you would expect from you run-of-the-mill microbrand. Now, Furlan Marri is unveiling their first mechanical chronographs in collaboration with the noted watch magazine Revolution and collector and early Furlan supporter Auro Montanari, known to many in the community by his pen name, John Goldberger.
The three new watches carry references 3177-A, 3188-A, and 3199-A, andare very much alike other than their dial differences and a couple of very nice details. The watches come in a 38mm wide case that’s not overly thick at 13.2mm. Each piece is individually numbered with an engraving between the lugs at 6 o’clock and the design borrows a lot from the 1940s and 50s. Two cases, the 3177-A and 3199-A feature special “olive style” pushers, suggested by Montanari as characteristic of the time they drew inspirtion from, while the 3188-A has “Tasti Tondi” pushers from the original Furlan Marri chronographs, a special request from Revolution’s founder Wei Koh.
While the pusher thing is a nice touch, the main difference between the three comes in the dial design. The first watch, ref. 3177-A "Taupe Flyback," is heavily influenced by Montanari and is available only through Furlan Marri. The second, ref. 3188-A "Salmon Flyback" with a two-toned salmon pink and black dial, is a Wei Koh special exclusive to Revolution. Last but not least is the ref. 3199-A 'Honey Blue Flyback," with a deep blue dial, honeyed beige indications, and 23K yellow gold PVD-treated hands. All three have a sandwich style dial which gives it incredible depth, and a sector dial that the brand is known for.
While previous Furlan Marri models used the meca-quartz, this one gets a huge update. Inside is the manually wound Sellita AMT5100, a column-wheel flyback chronograph with 58 hours of power reserve. But more than that, the movement was customized with a bridge exclusively redesigned for Furlan Marri, circular graining, côtes de Genève, a blued column wheel and screws, and an 18K rose gold coating on the movement.
The new Furlan Marri watches will be a limited release of just 300 pieces each, which you know will be crazy difficult to get. The Taupe version will be sold exclusively through Furlan Marri’s website, and the Salmon reference exclusively through Revolution. The Honey Blue will be distributed by both Furlan Marri and Revolution. Price wis set CHF 2,750, and the watches go on sale December 7 at 12:00 PM ET or 6:00 PM CET. See more on the Furlan Marri website or the Revolution website.
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Back in the 1960s, diver, sailor, pilot, mathematician and watchmaker Frédéric Robert founded Aquastar, a brand he developed from s fathers watchmaking business. Over the next ten years, Rober filed a number of patents that are still relevant today, like inner rotating bezels, multiple dive decompression bezels, a new crown sealing system and the friction bezel ring. When Robert retired, the brand was bought and sold by a number of companies and ended up being revived in 2020 by Rick Marei, who is known for building up Doxa to the powerhouse it is today. And ever since then they have been putting out fire releases. After killing it with the Deepstar, they reintroduced their rst-ever diver with modern specs, the Model 60. Now, they’re reintroducing their "other" dive watch, the Benthos. And boy, is it great.
The new Aquastar Benthos H1 is a limited-edition reinterpretation of the original Benthos 500 from 1970. And they keep their dimensions true to that legend. The watch comes in a stainless steel tonneau shaped case that measures 42mm wide, 16mm thick and has a lug-to-lug of 16mm. Water resistance is set at 500 meters, just like the original. On top is a flat sapphire crystal and a uni-directional diving bezel with a black ceramic insert. The dial has a semi-glossy black finish with blocky markers, hands, and a big orange seconds hand.
Inside the watch is the ETA 2824-2, which is the biggest departure from the original. The old Benthos 500 was a chronograph, while the new one is a time-only watch. The ETA is adjusted to the elabore standard which gives you an accuracy of +/- 20 seconds per day. The watch comes on a ISOfrane rubber strap.
The Aquastar Benthos Heritage One is a limited edition of 500 pieces, available for pre-order at $1,090, with a full MSRP of $1,390. See more on the Aquastar website.
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In 2019 a group of friends came together and decided to turn their passion into reality. They collective became known as IFL watches and they are most well known today for their customized Casio G-Shock, Tissot PRX, and Oris watches. It seemed that one of their more popular watches was the Oris Divers 65 Candyman, a 38mm Divers Sixty-Five “Cotton Candy” that featured a hand-painted dial with a murderous rendition of the Oris bear and homage to the legendary horror movie. Now they’re introducing two new models to the same range, the Oris Divers 65 Boogeyman celebrates Christmas with a nice hint to a famous movie and the Oris Divers 65 Aeroman celebrates the colorful Cappadocia Festival, where hundreds of hot air balloons create a visual spectacle in the Turkish sky.
IFL Watches once again uses the 38mm Divers Sixty-Five “Cotton Candy” as a backdrop. This is a great watch with vintage looks, 100 meters of water resistance and powered by the Sellita SW200-1-based Oris caliber 733. The bracelet is constructed with real rivets, but all of that is not important. The original Cotton Candy line is already famous for their great dials, but IFL made it better by giving it to their in-house hand-enameler.
The first of the two new models is the Oris Divers 65 Boogeyman. The Oris bear turns green and is ruining Christmas, a reference to the movie How The Grinch Stole Christmas. The soft pink base dial is customized by adding a large Christmas tree standing in the snow with candy canes and presents scattered around it. The second model is the Oris Divers 65 Aeroman. This seafoam-green Cotton Candy dial is customized by putting the Oris bear in a hot air balloon floating through a sky filled with candy clouds.
IFL Watches will only make 25 pieces of each of these two special editions. Each is priced at €3,490 and they go on sale today, December 4th at 16:00 CET on the IFL Watches 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
Let’s start with the brushed and polished stainless steel case. The size is similar but smaller, shedding a millimeter or two all around to bring the new case dimensions to 40mm wide (41mm across the bezel), 47mm long, and 12.25mm thick, including the crystal. I noted the original’s slab sides and heavy appearance in my earlier review. For this version, Second Hour drew upon the design language established by the Mandala. It is vastly improved, featuring a gentle arch to better meet your wrist. Slim, polished bevels on the upper edges, inside the lugs, and a deep undercut (also polished) on the bottom make the new case seem half as thick and twice as pretty as the old one.
⏲️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
The Winklevoss twins had quite an arc in their life. They went from universally hated wannabe tech bros who claimed Facebook was their idea and settled a lawsuit against Zuckerberg for tens of millions of dolars to messiahs of the crypto movement that promised to make them billionaires and superstars. Well, New York Magazine goes inside the twins’ crypto exchange, where they abandoned the rules to get bigger than they could handle. This is how the Winklevii’s second act went bad.
Tania Galiñanes, a librarian at Tohopekaliga High School in Kissimmee, Florida, loves books. But with the spread of book bans across public schools in the state, she decided she’d had enough—and quit. For The Washington Post, Ruby Cramer reports on what’s happening in school libraries across the U.S., like this one, and recounts Galiñanes’ last day at work.
Tyrian purple was once the most noble shade and expensive pigment of ancient times. Made from the mucus and secretions of three species of sea snails, this valuable dye was the color of “strength, sovereignty and money.” For the BBC, Zaria Gorvett writes a fascinating account of this most-celebrated shade in history: its origins, its disappearance, and now its revival, thanks to a Tunisian man who has spent years replicating the dye.
👀Watch this
One video you have to watch today
Starting od Monday with a bang, with this incredible and unexpected mashup of the Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon album with a couple of Wu-Tang Clan tracks. It’s just over 20 minutes long so maybe you can read the newsletter twice while listening to it?
💵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
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.
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
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