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- New movements for vintage Eco-Drives; a limited Seiko 5; Angelus has the revival of the year; Unimatic has a new GMT; and H. Moser & Cie. returns to making regular expensive watches...
New movements for vintage Eco-Drives; a limited Seiko 5; Angelus has the revival of the year; Unimatic has a new GMT; and H. Moser & Cie. returns to making regular expensive watches...
So much news we can't fit it all into out title
It's About Time
March 15, 2023
Hey friends, welcome to It’s About Time. We promise to tell you all the watch news you need to know in 5 minutes, but we doubled that today. Not because we want to, because the brands just flooded us with new releases.
In this issue:
New movements in new vintage Citizen Eco-Drives
Seiko has more limited editions for us
The new Angelus might be the watch revival of the year
Unimatic has a new GMT, Ressence and Girrard-Perregeaux have awesome new green colors, H. Moser & Cie. returns to making just regular expensive watches and Swatch has some new art colaborations
And… invite your friends to win a Tiffany PRX
Today’s reading time: 10 minutes and 5 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.
That’s right! You’ve read about them, you’ve seen the videos and now you can own your own Tissot PRX with the Powermatic 80 movement and the light blue dial. All you have to do is forward this email to five of your friends and get them to click on the button below to subscribe. Both you and one of your friends will be eligible to win one of the watches
We only have two conditions when entering this giveaway - invite 5 of your friends to subscribe and live somewhere were you can buy the PRX online, so we can do this for you and ship it to your address. That’s it!
👂What’s new
1/
Citizen is not really know for their vintage re-issues and have for years delegated retro watches to another brand they own - Bulova. But they’re slowly coming around, seeing the truckloads of money other brands are raking in banking on their heritage.
This could be the reason why the new Citizen Eco-Drive 365 is based off of one of its earliest quartz models, a 1973 Citizen Quartz E.F.A. (Extra Fine Adjustment). The vintage model was a futuristic look forward at the supremacy of the quartz era. Today quartz watches are mostly reserved for non-enthusiasts, but Citizen’s new movement might be interesting enough for watch nerds as well, by sticking it’s most advanced movement to date into a very sexy vintage case.
The new movement is called the E365. Yeah, you guessed it - the 365 stands for one year. The Citizen Eco-Drive 365 can run on one full year on a single charge. It’s accurate to -/+15 seconds per month and a full charge takes about 11 hours in direct sunlight and 40 hours on a cloudy day.
That’s all fine and good. But where the new collection shines is it’s vintage inspired design. The case is lugless and measures 42.5mm in diamter and is 11.1mm thick, while the crown is recessed. Two of the models are offered in full steel cases with matching bracelets and foldover clasps, one of which features black ion-plating throughout, and the other of which features just a black IP bezel. Both of those models feature radial brushing on the bezel and sunburst brushing on the case, with brushed bracelet links. The third model is a near copy of the original 1973, with a fully polished case and a brown leather strap. This will also be a limited edition of 1200 pieces. Water resistance is reported at 100m.
The dials are very interesting - they have a glittery black finish. Citizen says it reminds them of a moonless night sky. And you know what? It actually does. The limited edition Seiko’s dial features lab-grown rubies cap the markers at 12-3-6-9. Interestingly, none of the three models feature lume. The price is $480 for the steel model (BN1014-55E), $530 for the black model (BN1015-52E), and $875 for the limited edition (BN1010-05E).
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It was just last week that Seiko introduced a number of new models, including a new Customized model range based on user feedback. Now they’re introducing a new limited edition that’s not half bad. I mean, can it be bad if it’s based on a cult 70s Japanese TV show?
The newly released Seiko 5 SRPJ91 Masked Rider Limited Edition model SRPJ91 is based on the 5126-9080 from 1968, a watch featured in the Japanese TV show Kamen Rider, which was also known as The Masked Rider. The original became quite desirable among collectors and is now relatively difficult to find and aren’t that cheap.
The new watch is visually similar to the original, but it obviously uses the modern 42mm Seiko 5 Sports case. It takes inspiration from the original, but does not copy the colors directly. The dial is a greenish color with some texturing, while the vintage-looking black leather strap has red backing. Seiko went all out with the link to the Masked Rider on the caseback, which has smoky glass display back with the “Tachibana Racing” logo that was used in the show.
There will be 4,000 individually numbered pieces of the Seiko 5 Masked Rider Limited Edition with availability starting in April. Seiko did not communicate a price, but several websites say it’s £380.
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Angelus is introducing a new collection named La Fabrique and they have teamed up with design studio Massena LAB to create a re-edition of a stunning vintage doctor’s watch, which is now powered by an internally-produced movement.
Angelus has a rich and impressive history. However, in recent years, it’s almost like the brand is was trying to purposefully move away from it. With the Angelus x Massena LAB Chronographe Médical they’re taking a sharp turn back towards their heritage. This is a watch modelled after a 1960s doctor’s watch, with a singular purpose - to help doctors read vital signs of their patients so it includes a pulsometer to measure the pulse and an asthmometer to measure the respiratory rate.
The case is compact at 39mm, 9.22mm in thickness, with slim bezels that really blow out the dial. And the dial is one of the two very special things about this watch. Slightly domed and silvered opaline with a warm off-white feel, the dial features the same dual-scale layout as the original model, with a pulsometer scale on the periphery, and covering the first quarter of the dial, as well as an asthmometer scale that is located inside the seconds scale, with a 5-breath base. The pulsometer even has a specific colour code – green, black, or red – corresponding to the severity of the reading obtained during the examination. Both have a very large font to make them more legible.
Inside the watch is an impressive movement. It’s not a modification of an off the shelf Sellita. It’s the Angelus Calibre A5000, made in-house within the facilities of La Joux-Perret (sister company of Angelus), which is the modern evolution of a movement once done by THA and Journe, only drastically reworked and upgraded.
This is a limited edition of 99 pieces and is priced at $19,900, excluding taxes.
4/
I have been saying it all year and I’ll say it again - 2023 will be the year of the GMT. Brands with fantastic GMT watches will come out with more GMT variants. Brands without them will introduce their first GMT models. Take, for instance, Unimatic. They have teamed up with Canadian outdoor brand Henry Singer to create what? Their first GMT Modello Quattro.
You can hate on Unimatic for using cheap movements and selling them at a markup, but there’s no denying that Unimatic has a lock down on military style watches that can have at a relatively affordable price. There’s hardly a model on their roster that you can look at and honestly say - I would never own this.
Of course, this is not their first GMT, as they have created some great ones in their other model lines. But it is the first in the Modello Quattro, the military-style watch based on the Modello Uno with a 40mm case but fixed bezel instead of a rotating dive bezel. This new Modello Quattro is not just the first GMT version, it’s also the first with a titanium case. As such, it is lightweight and easy to wear while still keeping that utilitarian appearance. The watch is very minimal, so it has a gray dial and a silver 24-hour GMT scale on its periphery. The instantly recognizable hour markers and phantom ladder hands are filled with Super-LumiNova in a light “old radium” tone.
The automatic ETA 2893-2 is a caller GMT movement which allows you to independently set the GMT hand in one-hour increments. It also features a date function, which Unimatic has integrated into the dial at 6 o’clock.
Unfortunately, the watch is limited to 100 pieces and costs $1,995.
5/
I’m not going to lie, Ressence is in my top 5 watchmakers of all time. Since the day they launched their first oil-filled watch, I was mesmerized. A Ressence is on my bucket list and I will spread the gospel of Ressence wherever I can. So I’ll cut it short and just say: look at this color. It’s perfect.
6/
Girard-Perragaux is not considered a contender for a spot in the holy trinity integrated bracelet sports watch discussion. But is that fair? In most cases, yes. But with the new GP Laureato that comes in green ceramic? Boy, is it hard to justify why it can’t be as good or even better than some of the holy-trinity watches.
There are two sizes to choose from: 38mm and 42mm. Both are 100 metres water-resistant, with the 38mm case clocking in at 10.27mm thick and the 42mm case 11.08mm thick. Their green tones are not bright and bold, almost a darker forrest green.
The price is very interesting. $25,000 for the 38mm and $25,800 for the 42mm. While it might not seem like a bargain, it just could possibly be, as it’s half the price of a 34mm Royal Oak in ceramic. And that’s black ceramic, not this fantastic green. So GP might just have a hit on their hand and then they go shoot themselves in the foot and make it limited - 188 pieces for the 38mm and 388 pieces for the 42mm.
7/
After experimenting with watches made of tantalum, H. Moser & Cie. returns to their regular watchmaking concept of making beautifully simple watches for outrageous prices. So that’s why they introduced a new case size for one of their core collections in the H. Moser & Cie. Pioneer 40mm Centre Seconds and Tourbillon Arctic Blue.
The Pioneer case is, as its name suggests, H. Moser’s sportiest design, made from scratch- and corrosion-resistant steel with 120m water resistance. This latest generation of the case has a new diameter of 40mm, reduced from 42.8mm, which will surely be appreciated by everyone.
Both pieces follow similar pricing to their predecessors. That means the H. Moser & Cie. Central Seconds Arctic Blue is £12,900 and the tourbillon is £49,700.
8/
Following the news of releases of $50.000 watches, it’s nice to hear about something more affordable. This year’s Swatch Art Journey Collection consists of five capsule collections. Four of those were presented last week, and in May, the final one will also be unveiled. Swatch is coming out with two watches featuring art by René Magritte, three watches featuring Roy Lichtenstein, two watches featuring Botticelli’s Allegoria della Primavera (Allegory of Spring) and Nascita di Venere (The Birth of Venus) and one with Kanagawa oki nami ura (The Great Wave off Kanagawa) by Katsushika Hokusai.
The price of the watches will be €95 for the smaller 34mm Gent size and €105 for the bigger 41mm New Gent size
🫳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
CIGA Design is a young watch brand and has created a hit with their first model Can they get over the sophomore slump with their second? Beyond the need to build upon the foundation of its award-winning core design, the brand has arguably taken up the mantle of delivering innovative Chinese horology to the masses, which only adds to the pressure on its current slate of releases. With this in mind, any follow-up to the 2021 release of the CIGA Design Blue Planet is bound to garner intense enthusiast scrutiny,
⏲️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
Robert Jan-Broer, the founder of Fratello Watches is also one of the foremost experts on Omega Speedmasters. That’s why you should read his buyers guide for the Omega Speedmaster Professional 145.022
Chances are that if you are a watch enthusiast you appreciate some sort of adventuring. Maybe it’s travel to space, maybe it’s a walk in the woods. But be careful, if you’re not an elite wrestler, you might run into a bear in the woods you won’t be able to fight off like these two college kids.
Rolling Stone magazine has a look at the final days of Lisa Marie Presley
👀Watch this
One video you have to watch today
This is a pretty compelling review of a quartz TAG Heuer.
😉Famous faces
Celebrities are just like us 😄
💵Pre-loved precision
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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.