Nivada Really Knows How To Pick Stone Dials; Hamilton Conquers Games And New Watches From Kurono, Studio Underd0g And Singer

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1/ Nivada Grenchen Celebrates 100 Years With Seven Spectacular Stone Dial F77s

Despite a period of inactivity and, of course, completely different ownership, Nivada Grenchen is celebrating 100 years in 2026. Think about that. They were founded in 1926. An impressive feat. Especially since you could argue that it is one of the most successful relaunches of a dormant brand of all time. Guillaume Laidet helmed the restart of the company in 2020 and they have since put on a masterclass of reimagining their classic watches by diving deep into their catalogue. Now, to celebrate the centenary, they are releasing seven versions of their compact 1970s-inspired integrated-bracelet sports watch, the F77 with incredible stone dials. And you might have noticed that stone dials are quite on trend over the past year or two. Which means they are quite boring. Well, not with Nivada, as they really do know how to pick interesting stones.

The case is unchanged: 316L stainless steel, 38mm wide, 12.1mm thick, with a lug-to-lug of 46.2mm and 100 meters of water resistance. A broad tonneau body running straight into the bracelet, circular bezel with its exposed screw heads sitting proud on top, and enough hard angles to keep the F77 from blending into the crowd of integrated-bracelet watches that has formed since it launched. The closed back is gone, replaced by sapphire, and on the limited edition it comes individually numbered, and this will be important later.

The dials are made out of seven different stones, six of them will remain in the permanent collection. They are Labradorite, for a blue-green flash with darker earthy streaks; Jade is a bit more uniform; Azurite will is stunning with deep blue shot through with green in a way that looks like an aerial photo of a; Shungite Black has a fractured, raw texture; Smoky Quartz is a warm grey-brown; and Black Opal shines a bit of green through the black. Then there's the limited edition Ice Agate, which is pale blue and white, unlike any other stone dial you see. The rest remains the same, with applied baton markers, shield logo and simple hands.

But flip the watch over and you'll find the big change for the F77. This watch is now powered by the La Joux-Perret G101, a Swiss automatic alternative to the Sellita SW200 that's gaining popularity thanks to its 68 hour power reserve that Sellita is only now catching up to. This variant gets a gold signed rotor. The watch comes on the recognizable broad-link steel bracelet, but you can also opt for a rubber or canvas Velcro variant.

The anniversary F77 models go on sale September 24, priced at €1,870 on the bracelet and €1,660 on Velcro or rubber. See photos of all seven watches here or on the Nivada Grenchen website.

2/ Hamilton Winds Up for Another Round of Call of Duty

Hamilton has spent decades getting its watches onto screens. It surprised me to read the other day that they appeared in more than 500 films. Well, after obviously conquering movies, they are moving to video games and it's working out for them over there as well. They just announced their second Call of Duty collaboration in as many years, following last year's Khaki Field Automatic for Black Ops 7. This new one launches on October 23, the same day as Call of Duty Modern Warfare 4. And while tie-in watches can often be a bit tacky, this is one of the better Khaki Field Mechanical 38mm I've seen in years.

The case is stainless steel with a sandblasted black PVD coating, 38mm wide and 9.5mm thick, with a lug-to-lug of 47mm. I'm not a fan of black coatings, but here it works so, so good. Regardless of that, this is still a regular Khaki Field Mechanical, which means that you get a sapphire crystal on top and some 50 meters of water resistance.

Continuing the black theme, the dial is also black but gets a very, very heavy grain, adding to the tactical look. Hamilton has worked the game's stylized 4 into the numerals and added colored accents pulled from the Modern Warfare palette, which would mean there are flashes of neon yellow against the black. It looks very nice. The dark green numerals and hands are all treated with Super-LumiNova X2.

Inside is the H-50, Hamilton's hand-wound movement beating at 21,600vph with an 80-hour power reserve. The strap is 20mm khaki-green textile with a black PVD pin buckle, styled after British General Service issue.

The new Khaki Field Mechanical 38mm reference H69469930 goes on sale October 23 and I can't find any info on whether it will be a limited edition. I assume it will, but no word on how many are being made. Price is set at €750. See more photos here or the watch on the Hamilton website.

3/ Kurono Tokyo Brings The Calendrier Back In Saxe Blue

Hajime Asaoka builds a handful of watches a year under his own name at prices that rule out almost everyone. Actually, there are probably a lot of people who would want to get one of his watches, but good luck getting on that waitlist. However, with the popularity he enjoys, it's easy to see why he also runs Kurono Tokyo, a much more affordable brand that still has a lot of his charm within it, but at a much lower price. Still, they are incredibly hard to get, selling out in seconds. Now, Kurono Tokyo is bringing bak its Calendrier, this time with a Saxe blue dial. It arrives as a Small Batch Release, meaning the numbers are even smaller than usual and Kurono is not saying how small.

The case measures 38mm wide and 11.5mm thick, withe case being just 10mm without the crystal. That case is also made out of 316L steel that's fully polished and you get a flat crown on the side. Water resistance is 50 meters, but that will do here.

What's new is the dial. Well, the color of it. You get a glossy light blue finish that's paired with familiar details like the vertical lines that run through the centre in imitation of the hand guilloché on Asaoka's tourbillons. But at this price, these are not hand-cut but stamped, instead. The two smooth sub-dials for day and month have a smooth finish and are recessed and at 6 o'clock is a date window. Surrounding the entire dial is a simple train track marking system, paired with applied chrome Arabic numerals. The hour and minute hands are domed, polished, and bent slightly at the tips.

Inside is the Miyota calibre 9122, automatic, running at 4Hz with a 40-hour power reserve and driving the full triple calendar. It's a fine movement and works here as a money-saving device (despite the very steep price you would otherwise pay for a Miyota 9-series). The strap is black calfskin, 20mm tapering to 16mm, on a steel pin buckle.

The watch goes on sale on Thursday, 24 September, from 11:00 P.M. JST and while we don't know how limited they will be, Kurono will sell one per customer. If you happen to be near the Kurono Aoyama and Shanghai stores between the 16th and 24th of September, you'll be able see one up close. Price is set at $2,380 excluding VAT. See more photos here or the watch on the Kurono Tokyo website.

4/ Studio Underd0g Teams Up With Ahmed Seddiqi For A Fish Watch

Studio Underd0g makes some pretty silly watches. And I mean this in the best possible way. They started off with chinese-powered-fruit-themed chronographs that were super affordable while also being super fun, but have come a long way since then. I mean, they made a watch in collaboration with H. Moser which technically meant that one of their watches was priced at many dozens of thousands of money, since you could only buy them as a set. But of the regular watches, the 03SERIES, while keeping the whimsical dials, might be their more serious watches, with a Swiss chronograph movement and a hefty price tag.

The case remains unchanged: 38.5mm wide, 13.6mm thick, with a lug-to-lug of 44.5mm. The watch is made out of 316L steel in three-part construction with a signed crown and a rectangular pusher at two o'clock running all three chronograph functions – start stop and restart. There's a sapphire crystal on top, which stands very proud of the case, with a thickness of 2.8mm. Water resistance is 50 meters.

The dial is made out of two layers. The top one is a blue-grey dégradé color that mimics the fish's scales, cut away to reveal a pale pink layer underneath for the flesh, which is a lighter than the Salm0n's, despite the similarities of the dials. The tachymeter scale and both subdials get Eastern Arabic numerals, connecting it to the regional exclusive. There's an oversized 30-minute counter at three o'clock, running seconds at nine, while the central chronograph seconds gets a yellow tip. The yellow is meant to be the lemon you squeeze over the fish. Cute.

Inside is a Sellita SW510-M, the hand-wound cam-operated monopusher built on the 7750 architecture, in Elaboré grade beating at 4Hz with a 63-hour reserve. Studio Underd0g specifies a ruthenium anthracite bridge with Côtes de Genève, which looks good through the transparent caseback. It ships on a black salmon leather strap with quick-release bars, and a Milanese mesh is in the box too.

The watch went on sale yesterday, but only through Ahmed Seddiqi boutiques. It's limited to just 100 pieces, priced at AED 9,600, or roughly €2,300. See more photos here and the watch on the Ahmed Seddiqi website, if it ever shows up on there.

5/ Singer Introduces The New 1970 DualTrack Collection

Singer Vehicle Design was started in 2009 by Rob Dickinson, former singer of Catherine Wheel and cousin of Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson. They started by restoring Porsche 911 cars to absolute perfection, essentially dominating references to the word “restomod”. They evolved from restoring these old cars to creating their own modern variants of old Porsches, with completely custom made frames and engines. These are insane projects starting at a million dollars to build, but also the pinnacle of restoration. Dickinson also started Singer Reimagined with designer Marco Borraccino, a watch company. At the very beginning, they made chronographs aimed at people who already own a restored 911. But then they released the DualTrack, what might be argued as their first serious non-chronograph aimed at the general public that doesn't buy million dollar restomods. It was an interesting GMT that showed the second time zone with a rotating 24-hour flange at the edge. That first version was 43mm. Now, they're introducing a new DualTrack collection, the 1970, one that is much smaller, a bit more angular and infinitely more wearable.

The case is 40mm wide and 12.6mm thick, made out of steel, with a flat tonneau-shaped middle that's brushed across the top and mirror-polished along the bevels. A fluted polished bezel sits above it. This thing is inspired by 1970s Bertone wedge design: the planes are flat, the angles are sharp, and nothing is rounded off to be friendly. Love that thing. The only rounded things are the domed sapphire crystals on both sides. You get 100 meters of water resistance. A corrector at nine o'clock pushes the home-time disc forward in one-hour jumps.

Three dials are available, all in a velvet finish: khaki green, cobalt blue, and dark espresso brown. Golden faceted markers are filled with cream Super-LumiNova, while the rhodium-plated hands and seconds hand are filled with orange lume. The 24-hour flange around the dial is anodized aluminium with an inverted triangle marking the readout at six o'clock. I love that the numerals all have the same orientation so the numbers at 12 o'clock appear upside-down.

Inside is the calibre 4 Dual Time Slim ST5001, a manual-wind movement developed in-house from Singer's base calibre 4. The movement beats at 4Hz and has four barrels to give you 144 hours of reserve. Having the four barrels, the movement looks fantastic. The bracelet is integrated and steel, tapering from 22mm to 18mm with brushed outer links against a polished center, and the clasp has an on-the-fly adjustment. Singer calls the link shape Track Curb, after racetrack curbing and I can kind of see it.

The Singer 1970 DualTrack collection goes on sale in October and the watches are priced at CHF 23,500, without tax. See more images here or the watches on the Singer website.

⚙️Watch Worthy

• A review of the Rolex Oyster Perpetual 36 126000
• Hands on with the Yellow Gold Minerva The Unveiled Chronograph Limited Edition 30
• A review of the Laurent Ferrier Sport Traveller

⏲️End links

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After every Speeed video I can feel my bank account starting to drain. I guess it's off to fill the apartment with plants now.

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Vuk