A Classy Timex For Not A Lot Of Money, And New Watches From Sinn, Marathon, Frederique Constant And Breitling

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👂What’s new

1/ Timex Brings a Cushion Case and Breguet Numerals to the Marlin for Under $300

A cushion case with Breguet numerals is a look you usually pay Cartier or Patek Philippe money for. Well, of course not, there are plenty of mid-range priced watches with that look. But you know what I mean. The cushion case and Breguet numerals is an incredibly classy proposition. So it's really nice to see Timex make the Marlin Chatham Automatic, which gives you the same look, but under $300. The Marlin started in 2017 as a single hand-wound 34mm watch and has since grown into Timex’s main mechanical line, with automatics, a shaped Sub-Dial and the 1960s-inspired Jet. The Chatham is the most formal Marlin yet.

The steel case is 36mm wide and 12mm thick, with a lug-to-lug of 44.5mm. Every surface is polished, and the watch is available in a silver or gold PVD case. The width is right for a dress watch, but the height could be argued to be a bit shorted. The crystal is mineral glass rather than sapphire, which is expected at this price, but an acrylic would have been perhaps a better look. Water resistance is 50 meters.

The steel model has a silver-white dial and the gold model has a black one with gold-tone numerals and hands. Both dials are plain and clean. The applied Breguet numerals just make every dial look so much better. The hands are polished and unlumed.

Inside is the Miyota calibre 8215, an automatic that beats at 3Hz, has 42 hours of power reserve and hacks. You can see it through a display caseback, where Timex has added brushed bridges and its own rotor. The strap is brown or black leather from a Leather Working Group-certified source, with a steel pin buckle and quick-release spring bars.

The Timex Marlin Chatham Automatic is priced at €279 in steel, reference TW2Y84300, and €289 in gold PVD, reference TW2Y84500. See more photos here and the watches on the Timex website.

2/ Sinn Gives The 556 A Bright Orange And Green Look For Another F.A.Z. Limited Edition

On the first of the month, these two new Sinns display an “F” in the date window instead of a “1”. That letter is a reference to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the legendary Frankfurt daily newspaper Sinn has made special editions with for years, and it’s a small nod that doesn't interfere with how cool the watch otherwise. The new Sinn 556 I F.A.Z. II comes in two versions, one with green accents (G) and one with orange (O), limited to 100 examples each.

The case is the standard 556: 38.5mm wide, 11mm thick, in satin-finished steel. You get sapphire crystals on both sides, anti-reflective on both sides of the top crystal and on the inside of the display back. The crown and caseback screw down, and water resistance is 200 meters.

The dial is electroplated silver, a choice tied to the 25th anniversary of the paper’s Sunday edition, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung. The indices and the hour and minute hands are filled with lume in either green or orange.

Inside is the Sellita SW 200-1, an automatic running at 4Hz, with hacking seconds, anti-magnetic protection to DIN 8309 and roughly 40 hours of power reserve. The rotor is engraved with the “Kluger Kopf” signet from the F.A.Z.’s long-running ad campaign, and the caseback has the limited-edition number. Each watch ships with two 20mm straps: green Alcantara and grey canvas-leather for the G, signal orange textile and grey Alcantara for the O.

The Sinn 556 I F.A.Z. II G (Ref. 556.0161) and 556 I F.A.Z. II O (Ref. 556.0162) are priced at €1,690 each, limited to 100 examples per color. See more photos here and the watch on the Sinn website.

3/ Marathon Makes Titanium A Permanent Part Of The GSAR With A Better Movement

A month ago, Watches of Espionage got Marathon to build its first titanium SAR, a 200-piece limited edition with “WOE” printed in red above six o’clock. When they released that, Marathon announced that this won't be their last titanium watch and the material is spreading around the collection. This new 41mm Titanium GSAR is the first titanium watch in the regular catalogue, while keeping the new movement from the WOE collaboration.

The case is Grade 5 titanium, 41mm wide and 13.5mm thick, with 300 meters of water resistance. Every surface is brushed, which is what you want on a watch like this. Marathon says it weighs about 30% less than the steel version, and if you've ever worn a GSAR in 41, this means two things. First, your shoulder will thank you, because the steel version could easily rip it out of the socket. Second, 30% is a lot, but I have a feeling most people will still be shocked by how heavy it is. The bezel is titanium as well, unidirectional with 120 clicks, and the crown at three is big and hobnailed so you can turn it with gloves on.

The black dial is still recognizably a GSAR, with three changes. The date at four-thirty now uses a black disc with white numerals, and blends in better. The font for numerals and text is bolder and squarer. And the “Ti” in the Automatic text is now red. Tritium tubes on the hands and markers are still here and still very cool.

Inside is the Sellita SW200-2 Top Grade, beating at 4Hz with 65 hours of power reserve. The 200-2 is the extended power reserve variant, up from the 200-1 41 hours, which is a very nice update. The watch comes on an FKM rubber strap in black with a titanium pin buckle.

The Marathon 41mm Titanium GSAR is available now, part of the regular collection and priced at €2,750. That's a €750 premium over the steel version. Not insignificant. See more photos here and the watch on the Marathon website.

4/ The Frederique Constant Heart Beat Moonphase Date Gets a Salmon And Midnight Blue

Frederique Constant Heart Beat's biggest differentiator is the small window at 12 o’clock that lets you see the balance swinging. It was meant to prove the watch was mechanical back in the early 90s when the watch first launched and when most buyers at this price assumed quartz. I'm not a huge fan of the look, but I very much like the story. The Classics Heart Beat Moonphase Date adds a moonphase and a pointer date to that window, and it now comes in two new versions: steel with a salmon dial, and gold-plated steel with a midnight blue dial.

The case is 40mm wide and 10.79mm thick, done in steel or gold-plated steel, with a polished finish and with a double-stepped bezel. There's a convex sapphire crystal on top, a display back, and water resistance is 60 meters.

The dial has a lot going on. The center has a Clous de Paris pattern, stamped rather than engraved, which is expected at this price. Around it are a satin-brushed chapter ring with Roman numerals, a fluted ring, and a date track read by an arrow-tipped central hand. The moonphase is positioned at the bottom, a gold moon on blue, with openworked Breguet-style hands pointing out the time. The salmon version prints in black, while the blue version uses gold print.

Inside is the FC-335, which, in a rare move, is not FC's in-house movement. Instead, it's a Sellita SW200-1 with Frederique Constant’s modules on top, running at 4Hz, with 38 hours of power reserve. Date and moon both set through the crown, which is a real convenience on a watch like this. Both versions come on brown alligator-embossed leather with a pin buckle.

The Frederique Constant Classics Heart Beat Moonphase Date is priced at €2,295 in steel (FC-335MCSALB4P26) and €2,495 gold-plated (FC-335MCN4P5). Both are part of the permanent collection. See more photos here and the watches on the Frederique Constant website.

5/ Breitling Makes the Hand-Wound Navitimer B09 and Cosmonaute Permanent Collection Watches

If you wanted a hand-wound Navitimer in the last few years, you had to catch a limited edition before it sold out. Well, no more. Breitling has added two manual-wind chronographs to the regular Navitimer line: the B09 Chronograph 41 with a reverse-panda dial, and the B02 Chronograph 41 Cosmonaute with its 24-hour display. These are the Navitimers enthusiasts have been asking for.

The two watches share a 41mm wide steel case that is 13mm thick, with a lug-to-lug of 47.09mm. The bidirectional bezel turns the circular slide rule, which is what has made a Navitimer a Navitimer since 1952. There are sapphire crystals on both sides, with anti-reflective coating on both sides of the top crystal. Water resistance is 30 meters. That is low, but I guess it has to do with the whole idea of this being a pilot's watch which should be pretty far from water.

The B09 comes in black or blue, each with white sub-dials and a white rehaut. It takes its design cue from the ref. 806 worn by Jim Clark and Graham Hill, which is instantly very cool. There is no date, which keeps an already busy dial in balance. The Cosmonaute is black with white counters and a 24-hour hour hand, the feature Scott Carpenter asked for so he could tell day from night on Mercury-Atlas 7 in 1962. Its date is pretty well hiden in the lower sub-dial and is done in black on white to match. The gold Twin Jet logo first appeared on Navitimer dials in 1965, and it looks right on both.

The B09 uses Breitling’s calibre B09, and the Cosmonaute uses the calibre B02, which was built for it. Both are in-house, hand-wound, with a column wheel and vertical clutch, beating at 4Hz with around 70 hours of power reserve. The B02 is COSC certified. The black B09 and the Cosmonaute come on a brown gradient calfskin strap, and the blue B09 gets a matching blue strap. All three are also offered on a seven-row steel bracelet that alternates brushed and polished links.

These new Breitling Navitimer models are available now, and are not limited. The Navitimer B09 Chronograph 41 is priced at €7,450 on strap and €7,800 on bracelet, while the Navitimer B02 Chronograph 41 Cosmonaute goes for €10,000 on strap and €10,300 on bracelet. See more photos here and the watches on the Breitling website.

⚙️Watch Worthy

• A review of the Marvin Bathyscaphe Automatic Diver
• Hands on with the MING 57.05 Comet

⏲️End links

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• If there’s a Wikipedia page about yourself, you must be famous—some kind of celebrity—or an expert in your field, or a figure who’s made a prominent contribution to human history or culture. But what happens when that page is nominated by Wikipedia editors for deletion? In a quirky tech story for Wired, Duncan Fyfe reports on the strange experience of being told you’re just not notable enough.

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One of those videos that blows me away with its production value. Incredible.

Thanks for reading

Vuk

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