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- Orient Star's New M34 F8 Date Could Be An Affordable Grand Seiko; Louis Erard Gets Guilloché Dial; RL Shrinks Down Safari Chronometer; And New Girard-Perregaux With Meteorites
Orient Star's New M34 F8 Date Could Be An Affordable Grand Seiko; Louis Erard Gets Guilloché Dial; RL Shrinks Down Safari Chronometer; And New Girard-Perregaux With Meteorites
Louis Errard once again knocks it out of the park with a Petite Seconde with a wonderful guilloché dial
It's About Time
February 28, 2024
Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. It’s slim pickings out there. Not a lot of releases today, so bear with me as I reach to the furthest edges of the watch world. I have made fun of Orient Star a lot in the past several months, but this new one… I think it might be something interesting.
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In this issue:
Could Orient Star’s New M34 F8 Date Models Be A Viable And Affordable Alternative To A Grand Seiko?
Louis Erard Gives Their Excellence Petite Seconde A Wonderful Guilloché Dial
Ralph Lauren Shrinks Down One Of Their Most Unique Watches, The Safari Chronometer
Girard-Perregaux’s New Bridges Model Doesn’t Have A Traditional Dial, But Still Incorporates Meteorites
Today’s reading time: 5 minutes and 21 seconds
👂What’s new
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Yes, I will admit I have been very harsh with Orient Star lately. While I am aware they make some interesting watches, there are just too many things - the fact that their new releases are shrouded in secrecy, their open-heart models looking cheap, and very high, often unjustified prices - to annoy me. But sometimes, just sometimes, they put out a new watch that’s not only interesting, but could be considered impressive. Joining their M34 collection are two M34 F8 Date models, one in a bizarrely limited (just 160 pieces) stunning white dial and the other in a good looking blue, both inspired by the Perseid meteor shower.
The watches come in a 40mm wide, 12.9mm thick, stainless steel case that has a 47.3mm lug-to-lug measurement and a very familiar look if you’re into Japanese steel sports watches. The sharp lugs have some heavy vertical polishing to it, while facets are polished and on top is a plain and thin bezel that holds down the sapphire crystal. You also get a transparent caseback and 100 meters of water resistance.
Moving on to the dials, tell me that white one doesn’t look like something Grand Seiko would do? Both the white and the blue dial have a very interesting cloud-like texture to it which the company says is hand carved. But Orient Star claims the white dial was inspired by “the lustre of a meteor shower in the dawning sky”, while the blue dial is inspired by the night sky. I see more inspiration from Grand Seiko and verbose descriptions of nature, but I don’t mind because they really are pretty. Both versions have central hour, minute and seconds hands, a date window at 3 o’clock and Orient Star’s power reserve indicator at 12 o’clock.
Inside the watch is their in-house calibre F8N64 automatic movement. It features a silicon escape wheel, has a 60 hour power reserve and Orient claims accuracy of +15 seconds to –5 seconds per day. It also not ugly, with chamfered Geneva stripes on the rotor. Both versions come on a nice looking metal bracelet and you can get the blue one on a brown leather strap as well.
The Orient Star M34 F8 Date in blue comes in unlimited numbers, but like I mentioned the white one is limited to just 160 pieces, which is really, really limited for a watch like Orient Star that sells in thousands of locations around the world. The price is €2,500 for the blue version on leather or €2,700 for either the blue or the white on metal. Tell me I’m wrong, but I like this. See more on the Orient Star website.
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There are very many things that Louis Erard is good at but one thing that they are almost the best in the world in, and that’s making incredibly high end watches for pretty affordable prices. And their latest release is just in line with that ethos - this is the Excellence Petite Seconde Guilloché in black and blue and two different sizes.
The watch is based on the watch from their Excellence line called the Petite Seconde. It’s their dress watch with a small seconds and it comes in both 39mm wide and 42mm wide, both made out of steel and with a high polish. And for the new versions, Louis Erard decided to use both sizes, giving them two each a color. On top is a domed sapphire crystal and out back is a transparent caseback. Being a dress watch, the 50 meter water resistance is to be expected.
The 39mm version gets a grey and blue dial, while the 42mm has a grey and black dial, both rendered in a stamped guilloché pattern. But there’s so much more to those dials. The dials are made out of a series of rings, with the center disc and small seconds counter being reserved for the wavy guilloché. Sorrounding it is a chapter ring that has a basketweave pattern and silver-coloured Arabic hour numerals and indices. On the very outside of the dial is a railway-style minutes track with a brushed finish and white markings. All the hands are Louis Erard’s signature fir tree shaped.
Inside is the Sellita SW261-1 in an elaboré grade. It’s a version of the very familiar SW-200, but with a small seconds indicator, meaning it beats at 28,800 and has a not-so-great power reserve of 38 hours. Through the transparent caseback you can see the openworked rotor and Louis Erard logo. Both watches come on a black grained calfskin straps with a polished steel buckle.
And best of all, after a number of fantastic limited editions, the Louis Erard Excellence Petite Seconde Guilloché joins the regular, unlimited collection. Price is set at CHF 2,300, making it one of the best looking watches in this price range. See more on the Louis Erard website.
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Fashion watches are always slippery territory. Unless you are familiar with the watch industry, it’s pretty easy to be taken for a walk, paying hundreds or thousands for a fashion brand name on a watch that was made in Asia for pennies. But then there are fashion houses like Hermès and Louis Vuitton who put significant effort into their watches. Ralph Lauren is somewhere in the middle. They make some questionable stuff, but also some pretty significant stuff like single and double tourbillon. Which is nor surprising, as their watches are made by the Richemont Group which owns, among others include A. Lange & Söhne, Cartier, IWC, Jaeger-LeCoultre, and Vacheron Constantin. Now they’re updating one of their more unique pieces, the Safari Chronometer.
The biggest change comes from the size of the case. The Safari Chronometer was a significant watch that came in only two sizes - 45mm or 39mm. This newest version comes in a compromising 42mm and it’s very likely that it will be the most popular size. The case is a comfortable 11.5mm thick and comes in a black finish that has been shot-blasted to produce a slightly vintage gunmetal look. The markless bezel is attached to the watch with six exposed screws giving it a very rugged look.
Three dials are available on the new size. First up is a anthracite version with a circular grained texture that has beige Arabic numerals and an orange seconds hand, next is a camo dial with the same numerals and last is a beige dial with black numerals and the same orange seconds hand. Speaking of the hands, they are very dramatically sword shaped.
Inside all three is the COSC chronometer certified calibre RL300-1 which is just a rebranded version of the Sellita SW300-1a. It beats at 4Hz and ahs a 50 hour power reserve. The beige dialed version comes on a black aged steel 3-link bracelet, while the other two come on pretty sweet aged Bund calfskin strap, with an optional olive green weathered canvas strap.
The Safari Chronometer 42mm is part of the regular Ralph Lauren watch collection and the two versions on leather are priced at €3,600 and the steel version at €3,900. See more on the Ralph Lauren website.
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A couple of hours after publishing my predictions for 2024, a thought popped into my head: “you forgot meteorite dials”. I completely forgot to include my idea, which has no basis in anything other than my hunch, that there will be a lot of meteorite dialed watches this year. I waved this away, thinking that I was likely wrong. Well… looks like I was actually right. There was that great Bulova a couple of weeks ago with the meteorite dial, Gravithin is releasing something with metoerites, and now we have Girard-Perregaux joining on this, but with a watch that doesn’t have a traditional dial - the Bridges Collection - the Free Bridge Meteorite model.
The Free Bridge Meteorite is farily untraditional watch that comes in a traditional package. It comes in a stainless steel case that measures 44mm wide and 12.2mm thick, with a brushed finish and almost no bezel in order to maximise the view through the domed sapphire crystal that takes up almost the entire front of the watch.
Through the crystal you get to see the entire movement, with suspended indices on the edge. Since it doesn’t have a dial, GP affixes two meteorite plates to the hour wheel bridge. The meteor is part of the Gibeon meteorite from Namibia which has a pronounced Widmanstätten pattern. The movement you see is the GP01800-2085 in-house caliber, which beats at 28,800vph and has a 54 hour power reserve.
The Girard-Perregaux Free Bridge Meteorite goes on sale in March at a price of $25,700. See more on the GP 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
A bi-colour monobloc ceramic insert in desert red and ivory (love those colour names) matches the dial tones well, and is an impressive feat considering the difficulties in producing single-piece ceramic in multiple colours. The two colours themselves act as an asymmetrical day/night indicator, with the day section stretching slightly past the 6 and 9 positions. This isn’t noticeable at first but a nice touch that doesn’t make my eye twitch like I thought it would. The engraved numerals echo the colour of the dial and the words Ante Meridian (a.m.) and Post Meridian (p.m.) are featured on the white and brown sections, respectively. It’s a nice talking point for the eagle-eyed, time zone nerds amongst you. Another will surely be the unique graduation of the bezel, separated into two 12-hour segments, rather than the more traditional 24-hour style. It’s unconventional, but to those more accustomed to telling time in a 12-hour format, may even be easier to use.
⏲️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
A couple of years ago, the legendary former editor of Vanity Fair Graydon Carter launched a weekly newsletter called AirMail. At the time I questioned whether this would work, but who am I to question Carter as it’s been a resounding success. He made subscription newsletters work before it was cool, but I never really got into it. A mistake, as they have some really interesting writing out there, writing that just could be worth the $100 per year subscription. The best example of this is an incredible writeup of the creation of ESPN, I had no idea it was such an interesting story - how a father and son created ESPN, sports programming’s North Star, on a wing, a prayer, and a chunk of Getty cash—and walked out with almost nothing
Ishmael Reed, the prince of literary hoodoo, traveled to the capital of American voodoo in 1978 to shake his gris-gris as he covered the second Muhammad Ali-Michael Spinks fight. Reed mixes it up with fellow writers Norman Mailer and Hunter S. Thompson, as he provides his running commentary on New Orleans, slavery, politics, and boxing.
I’ve always found Disney adults incredibly puzzling. But hey, who am I to judge? I collect comic book art and obsess over slight changes to watch bracelet. But while Disney adults are often mocked online, sometimes with ruthless jokes, it turns out that they are a bit misunderstood. Amelia Tait gathered data from more than 1,300 self-identifying Disney adults from around the world and found out some interesting stuff.
👀Watch this
One video you have to watch today
Guy Ritchie made a show for Netflix, and I think it looks pretty cool.
💵Pre-loved precision
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