Christopher Ward Gambles With Skeletonized Titanium The Twelve X; Casio Covers Bases With New Baby-G Line; Circula Brings New Vintage Colors To Divers; And A Unique Collaboration For Phillips

In this issue:

• Christopher Ward Introduces The Quite Impressive Titanium Skeletonized The Twelve X

• Casio Really Is Going After Every Demographic With The New Customisable BABY-G Watch Line

• Circula Brings New Colors To Their Already Great Looking AquaSport And SuperSport Collections

• Massena Lab And Raúl Pagès Co-Create A Limited-Edition 1952 Observatory Dial Watch For Phillips Auction House

Today’s reading time: 7 minutes and 55 seconds

👂What’s new

1/

Christopher Ward Introduces The Quite Impressive Titanium Skeletonized The Twelve X

What a transformation Christopher Ward has seen. They started off as a fairly traditional British brand that made under-the-radar affordable pieces that could, sometimes, be described as a bit plain. That was then. And now, years later, we get this, the Christopher Ward The Twelve X, their most expensive watch yet, one that enters mid-luxury territory, but also offers a fully titanium, fully skeletonized, integrated steel bracelet watch. It will be a controversial piece, but I also think it will be a very important one for the brand.

The Twelve X is based, of course, on The Twelve released last year to mark the 20th anniversary of the brand and was their take on the ever-popular integrated bracelet sports watch. Being based on the regular Twelve, it looks very similar, but takes on a new size. While the original came in at 36mm and 40mm widths, the X is a bit bigger at 41mm wide and 12.3mm thick. While the 41mm diameter might seem too large, the watch has a pretty comfortable 46.3mm lug-to-lug.

You still get the same feel as the smaller The Twelve models, with sharp angles and Genta-esque looks. The watch looks to have an impressive level of finish, at least in photos, with polished, brushed, and sandblasted surfaces and clear distinctions between the three. The case is made out of grade 2 titanium, but Christopher Ward fashions the faceted bezel out of the denser and more scratch-resistant grade 5 titanium. You’ll also find sapphire crystal

It would be unfair to say that the dial is unlike any other previously seen on a Christopher Ward. That’s because CW already skeletonized the C60 Concept. But here the skeletonization looks even more impressive, without a prominent bezel. Since most skeletonized watches are impossible to read, CW gave the movement’s bridges a matte black finish, to better contrast with the brushed steel hands. There’s a floating chapter ring around the edge with tiny minute and hour markers, and the entire ring is lumed, which looks amazing in the dark.

The movement you see through the dial is not the Sellita SW300 that CW uses a lot. Instead, you get their Christopher Ward SH21 movement. Many brands claim to make in-house movements, but actually just sell you differently decorated off-the-shelf movements, but from what I gather, the SH21 really is an in-house deal. It might be produced with some partner input, I couldn’t find any details on this, but the movement was designed in 2014 when Christopher Ward merged with Synergies Horlogères and the SH21 was considered the first commercially viable movement designed by a British watch brand in 50 years. The movement has twin barrels, beats at 4Hz, has a 120 hour power reserve and is COSC-certified with a timing tolerance of -4/+6 seconds per day. The watch can be had on either a rubber strap or a titanium bracelet which has a butterfly clasp with a one-step micro-adjustment that extends the size by 3mm.

The new The Twelve X will not be a limited release and is priced quite aggressively for Christopher Ward - €5,220 on bracelet and €4,850. This makes them the most expensive Christpher Wards ever. Are they worth it? That’s a subjective decision. But I said these would be important watches for CW. That’s because they are testing the 5k market and if there’s significant interest in the brand at that price, say good bye to affordable CW watches. See more on the Christopher Ward website.

2/

Casio Really Is Going After Every Demographic With The New Customisable BABY-G Watch Line

At three years old, my kid is a bit too young for her first watch. But lately she has been noticing the watches I’ve been wearing and seeing the difference between them. So, I can only assume this will be a very expensive daddy-daughter hobby. Lately, I’ve been looking at what her first watch might be and, surprisingly, there’s a decent lineup out there. And just by chance, as I was looking, CASIO announced a brand new lineup of their Baby-G line, the kid-friendly G-Shoc, this time in a shape that can take on many different shapes and sizes.

The new watch is the BGD-10K, introduced to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Baby-G that comes in a surprisingly large case for a kids watch. It measures 39mm wide, 14.7mm thick and has a 42.8mm lug-to-lug. But you don’t really care much about how the watch fits on a wrist of a kid, more about how resilient it is. And the majority of the size is used for protection, so that’s good. Another neat thing is that you can detach the bezel and the band, leaving you with a square watch that you can then place in a silicone holder you get with the watch. The holder can then be attached to a bag or belt.

This whole thing looks very early 2000s, from the functionalities to the colors. You can get it in one of four colors - pink, purple, dark blue or white. The digital display also gets retro-style pixel-art animations, including fun characters that animate the screen at the touch of a button.

The BGD-10K will hit stores in July of this year, at a pretty decent price of $79. See more on the Casio website.

3/

Circula Brings New Colors To Their Already Great Looking AquaSport And SuperSport Collections

Family-owned watch brands are becoming increasingly rare, with old companies either going out of business or being bought out and newer brands not having enough of a history to be called family-owned. Then, there’s Circula, a watch manufacturer from Pforzheim, Germany, founded by Heinz Huber in 1955. Sure, over the years the brand got quieter and a bit more deluted, but in 2018 Huber’s grandson, Cornelius Huber, revived the brand and started cranking out fantastic looking and robust tool watches. Now, Circula is updating two diving watch collections, the AquaSport II and SuperSport, with new dials.

Starting with the AquaSport II, you get a very interesting case that looks very much like vintage skin-diver cases, with short horns for lugs, but in a more modernised and curvy look. The case is made out of steel and measures 40mm wide, 12.6mm thick and has a very satisfying lug-to-lug of 46mm. On the side is a prominent crown, on top is a sapphire crystal, surrounded by a 120 click unidirectional rotating diver's bezel, with a sapphire crystal insert. Water resistance is 200 meters.

The new dial for the AquaSport II comes in a Turqouise color that perfectly matches both the case, the dial and the intended use. I can easily see how this watch would fit in a beach bar, on your wrist while drinking an ice cold beer. The dial has prominent block markers for the hours which are, along with the hands, filled to the brim with lume. The central part of the dial has a subtle wave pattern engraved into it, helping with the summery vibe. Inside is the Sellita SW200 in Elaboré grade, meaning you get 38 hours of power reserve and a very robust and easily servicable movement. The watch comes on a black tropic dial, while an additional metal “Jubilee” style bracelet is also available.

Then, there’s the SuperSport collection, which has an equally aquatic but completely different look. These are more in the super-compressor style, with an internal rotating diver's bezel engages that’s operated with a crown at 2 o’clock. Also made out of steel, it measures a bit larger - 40mm wide, 13.3mm thick and with a 46.5mm lug-to-lug. Water resistance is 300 meters.

The existing SuperSport models come with a number of modern sunray brushed dark dials, while the new models get two flat colors that look very much retro. The feeling I get is a dive watch on Jacques Custeau’s wrist in the Carribean in the 1970s. The two new colors are yellow and bright orange. The dial has a sandwich construction and everything is covered in BGW9 Super-LumiNova. Inside is the same Sellita SW200 movement in Elaboré grade. And just like the AquaSport II, this watch can be had on a metal bracelet or the tropic rubber strap.

The AquaSport II turquoise on rubber is priced at €899, while the SUper Sport starts at €979. See more on the Circula website.

 4/

Massena Lab And Raúl Pagès Co-Create A Limited-Edition 1952 Observatory Dial Watch For Phillips Auction House

Well, this is a collaboration you don’t see every day. Massena LAB, the design studio founded by watch industry persona William Massena, has teamed up with Raúl Pagès, the winner of the first LVMH Watch Prize, to create a special watch, inspired by the Observatory-grade Patek Philippe Ref. 2458, for Phillips auction house. This is the 1952 Observatory Dial watch.

The watch is perfeclty simple. The case measures 38.5mm wide and 10mm thick, with sapphire crystals on top. You get a combination of brushed and polished surfaces, with a very simple curved bezel on top. Everything about the outside of this watch is simple. Despite looking like a vintage dress watch, you get a water resistance of 50 meters.

Most of the inspiration from the Observatory-grade Patek Philippe Ref. 2458 comes in the dial. The Patek from the story was commissioned in platinum for the esteemed collector and lawyer Joe Ben “J.B.” Champion, Jr. in 1952. To pay homage to the material, the new watch gets a two-tone grey dial, adorned with applied indexes and yellow gold Arabic numerals at 12 and 6. There’s a sub-dial at 9 o’clock that shows the running seconds and a “fake” sub-dial at 3 to keep the visual balance.

Inside is the M690, a manual-wind movement that’s proprietary to Massena LAB and an iteration of their first movement. The architecture of the movement was designed and conceived by Pagès and he oversaw the hand finishing and decoration of every movement, including a plate adorned with Côtes de Genève finishing and meticulously hand-chamfered plates and bridges. The movement beats at 4Hz and has a 60 hour power reserve. The watch comes on a taupe leather strap.

The 1952 Observatory Dial Limited Edition is limited to 99 pieces, priced at CHF 8,000 and will be available only from the auction house. See more on the Phillips website.

🫳On hand

Our selection of the best reviews we stumble upon

1/

A review of the Tudor Black Bay 58 GMT

2/

Hands on with the new Doxa Sub 200T

3/

A review of the Cartier Tortue Monopoussoir Chronograph

⚙️Watch Worthy

A look at an off beat, less known watch you might actually like

The Vulcain Grand Prix 39mm Champagne is a time-only dress watch contender

We just find a clean layout with long, raised indexes on a semi-gloss dial in a champagne hue. A double-domed sapphire crystal with an antireflective coating covers the watch face. As there are no other features, the slim steel hands only show you the hours and minutes with center seconds. The 316L steel case is polished, even on the sides of the short lugs, while the case back is solid stainless steel and polished with some brushed elements. While the crown does not screw down, the case back is a screw-in type, helping to offer water resistance to 5 ATM (50 meters), which is more than enough. You probably won’t take the Vulcain Grand Prix swimming with you, especially not on the 20mm leather strap, which is available in several different colors and styles.

Read the whole review on Fratello

⏲️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

• Inigo Philbrick’s art fraud was the largest in US history. Now out of jail and newly married to the Made in Chelsea star Victoria Baker-Harber, he talks to Laura Pullman about his lack of remorse — and what he’ll tell his three-year-old daughter about his crimes.

• Rodeo stars find purpose in navigating primal forces. None of them ever went harder than J.B. Mauney. Riding the baddest bulls made him a legend. Then one broke his neck.

• Rebel fighters have handed Myanmar’s army defeat after defeat, for the first time raising the possibility that the military junta could be at risk of collapse. Incredible photos from a forgotten war in this piece in the New York Times.

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

I’m assuming that if you like watches, you like architecture. I’m not sure why that’s the case, but most people I’ve met who appreciate good looking watches also appreciate good looking abodes. Well, here’s a really nice one.