Citizen's Sailing-Inspired Eco-Drive Endeavor Chrono Trio; FC's Gold And Onyx Manchette; Hanhart Shrinks Down The 417 ES Moby Dick; Rado Skeletonizes The Anatom; Armin Strom's Artisinal Tribute

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. Sorry for being so late today, I have a house full of sick humans and dogs, so it’s been quite the runaround over here. No major watches today, just things I would like to own.

Also, I want to point out that there are 8 more days to buy the Alpina × TRTS Seastrong Diver Extreme. I reviewed it a couple of weeks ago, if you’re interested. I loved it, despite (or maybe because) the fact it was made by my friends from The Real Time Show.

In this issue

• Citizen Takes Inspiration From Sailing For The Sporty New Eco-Drive Powered Endeavor Chrono Trio

• Frederique Constant Gives Their Groovy Manchette Model A Gold PVD Coating And Onyx Dial

• Hanhart Shrinks Down The 417 ES Moby Dick To Its Original 39mm Size

• Rado Brings Their Skeletonized Approach To The Already Avant-Garde Anatom

• Armin Strom Continues Developing Their Simpler Tribute Collection With Gold And Artisanal Decoration

👂What’s new

1/

Citizen Takes Inspiration From Sailing For The Sporty New Eco-Drive Powered Endeavor Chrono Trio

The problem with brands like Citizen is that they have a huge catalogue. That means that even a freak like me, who spends his days just looking over watch websites, might overlook or forget an entire collection. This is exactly what happened with the Endeavor collection. When’s the last time you heard of the Citizen Endeavor? Exactly. There could be a good reason why they didn’t flaunt the collection all that much. It wasn’t the best looking thing in the world. But just the other day, Citizen released the Endeavor Chrono, taking inspiration from sailing, and the result is a somewhat familiar but also good looking sports chronograph that seems to be built to take a beating. And at a pretty great price.

This is not a small watch. Citizen says that the stainless steel case measures 43mm wide, but they don’t seem to give any other measurements on any of their websites. Which is a shame, because it’s doesn’t look to be overly thick. Sure, it’s not under 10mm, but it could be comfortable. The stainless steel case has a brushed finish with polished chamfers. Two of the watches come with uncoated steel cases, while one has a rose gold-colored coating. On top are sapphire crystals surrounded by a scalloped-edge 60-minute bezel that have ceramic inserts in black for the uncoated versions and blue for the rose gold version. On the right side is a protected crown and two smaller pushers. Water resistance is 100 meters.

All of the dials feature a tightly weaved pattern that mimics waves and have a two-tone second/minute track on the periphery, with the first 20 minutes divided into four 5-minute segments. This, with the rotating bezel, is intended to be used for timing regattas and tracking elapsed minutes. All of them have a three-compax setup with 24/12-hour indicator positioned at 3 o’clock, a running seconds sub-dial at 6 o’clock, and a 60-minute chronograph counter at 9 o’clock. All of the sub-dials are black, because these are the apertures that are used to charge the movement. The date window sits at 4:30, but not everyone is perfect. There are three colors to chose from — the black and white are paired with steel cases and black bezel inserts, while the blue dial gets the rose gold case and blue insert.

All of this is powered by the Caliber B620 Eco-Drive movement, which is a solar movement. It can power the watch for 270 days in complete darkness and is accurate to ±15 seconds per month. The white dial version comes on a three-link stainless steel bracelet with a folding clasp, while the other two get a blue or black rubber strap closed with a pin buckle.

The new Citizen Endeavor Chrono is available now in Europe and I believe in the US as well, with a pretty good price. The models on the rubber straps are priced at $595 while the steel bracelet one comes in at $650. See more on the Citizen website — in the US click here and in Europe click here.

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Frederique Constant Gives Their Groovy Manchette Model A Gold PVD Coating And Onyx Dial

There are very few bad things one could say about Frederique Constant. They produce beautiful watches with in house movements — often highly complicated — at always pretty unbeatable prices. Then last year they made a bit of the pivot, when they brought back the Manchette, a watch they made 20 years ago, a departure from traditional watchmaking to something a but wilder. And while cuff watches are not unusual, this one is quite special, with a case and bracelet that share the same Clous de Paris pattern making it quite a statement piece with strong eighties vibes. Following the original four versions, the Classics Manchette now comes in a black PVD coating with an onyx dial.

The case is made out of stainless steel, fully polished and a very pronounced 3D effect due to the deep pyramids that make up the Clous de Paris pattern. Technically, the case measures 20mm wide, 6.45mm thick and has a length of 25.7mm. However, that length is pretty much completely irrelevant as the case flows seamlessly into the bracelet, making it one uninterrupted band around your wrist. Very cool. The entire case and bracelet have the same gold PVD coating. The crystal is sapphire, the crown is heavily recessed to make it completely disappear and water resistance is 30 meters.

While previous versions came with interesting dial — a green malachite dial, a dial set with 158 diamonds and a black onyx dial. It’s this black onyx that returns here, as it’s a perfect complement to the gold case. Black onyx is a deeply black stone, which is just a cool look here. There’s not much more to the dials, other than the two stick hands and the FC logo at 12 o’clock, both done in gold color.

Frederique Constant is very well known for making their in-house mechanical movements, but good luck fitting an automatic in here. So, these four watches come with the quartz FC-200 calibre that has a 60 month battery life. You already know that the watches come on the Clous de Paris band, which is actually made out of seven flexible, flowing links, for size adjustment, and closed with a hidden deployment clasp.

The new Frederique Constant Classics Manchette Onyx Dial available now and while FC markets it towards women, I can totally see this worn by men. Price is set at €1,995. See more on the Frederique Constant website.

3/

Hanhart Shrinks Down The 417 ES Moby Dick To Its Original 39mm Size

Starting off as a maker of Swiss stopwatches and moving to Germany in 1902 to start making watches, Hanhart has made some of the most significant military watches in German history, finding their place on the wrist of German pilots and naval officers for decades. In the 50s they made the 417, the first pilot’s chronograph for the German Armed Forces, but only a few years before it was retired. But, in the meantime, admirals and doctors in the navy have discovered a variant of the 417, named the Moby Dick by collectors, the same watch with a white dial and it became very popular in these circles. A couple of years ago, Hanhart revived the 417 pilot’s chronograph. Last year, they brought back the 417 ES Moby Dick, but that was at 42mm wide. Now, they’re bringing back the 417 ES Moby Dick in its original size — 39mm.

The watch comes in a stainless steel case that measures 39mm wide, 13,6mm thick and has a 46mm lug-to-lug. On top is a significantly domed sapphire crystal surrounded by Hanhart’s recognizable fluted bi-directional bezel. The bezel usually features a red marker on top, but with this edition it’s been replaced by a cream lumed one. Water resistance is 100 meters, which is great considering the vintage piston-style pushers that operate the chronograph.

The dial is pearly white, with the same bi-compax layout of the original. In fact, everything is based on the original. The numerals, the fonts, the hands and markers, they are all pretty much the same as those found on the original 417 chronograph, which shows intense commitment from the brand. There’s one tiny deviation from the original - the numerals are outlined in black and filled with a cream colored Super-LumiNova, just like the pencil-shaped heat blued hour, minute and seconds hands.

Inside is the Sellita SW510M, a familiar, robust and easily servicable manually winding movement which beats at 28,800vph and has a decent power reserve of 58 hours. The watch comes on a brown calfskin strap with white stitching or on a metal bracelet.

The Hanhart 417 ES Moby Dick 39mm, just like its larger cousin, is not limited in number and is available now. Price is set €2,290 for the leather strap version and €2,490 for the bracelet version. See more on the Hanhart website.

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Rado Brings Their Skeletonized Approach To The Already Avant-Garde Anatom

For decades now, Rado has been working on improving material sciences. From that we have gotten the carbide tungsten used in the Diastar in the 1960s, as well as the whole range of high-tech ceramics used since the 80s. And they’ve been milking these advancements to the max, as they should. But they don’t just do different colors in ceramic, they try to incorporate avant-garde looks into their watches wherever they can. The recent attempt to do so is with the Anatom Skeleton which pairs their high-tech ceramic Anatom with a fully openworked dial. It’s a very neo-vintage look and you know I love that.

The Anatom, as the name suggests, has always been Rado’s attempt to make an anatomically pleasing watch, meaning that it should embrace your wrist like a good bracelet. This versions measures 32.5mm wide, 11.5mm thick and has a 46.3mm lug-to-lug, only there are no lugs here, as the strap integrates into the case, connected with yellow gold-coloured steel end pieces. The case is made out of brushed stainless steel, while the crown and bezel are made out of matte grey plasma ceramic, Rado’s signature ceramic material. On top is a edge-to-edge convex sapphire crystal, with grey metallic finishing at the edges. Water resistance is 50 meters.

The dial is completely skeletonized, similar to other models from Rado that use the same movement we’ve seen before. That means you get a complicated maze of bridges done in matte grey, contrasted with yellow gold-coloured moving parts of the movement. At 12 o’clock is the balance wheel, the middle section holds the wheel train and the keyless work of the crown, while towards the bottom of the dial you can see the barrel and mainspring. Surrounding the entire dial is a white minutes track that holds lume blocks for the indexes, with gold-coloured openworked hands with lumed inserts.

The movement you see is the Rado R808. Since Rado is part of the Swatch group, the movement is also part of the Powermatic 80 family. This means that the movement has a Nivachron hairspring for magnetic resistance, beats at 21,600vph and has a great 80 hour power reserve. The watch comes on a grey rubber strap with a steel 2-fold clasp that has a matte plasma ceramic cover.

The new Rado Anatom Skeleton is part of the regular collection, priced at €4,500. See more on the Rado website.

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Armin Strom Continues Developing Their Simpler Tribute Collection With Gold And Artisanal Decoration

If you could expect one thing from Armin Strom, then it would be for them to make fantastically complicated and wild looking watches. It’s evident from all the wild watches of theirs that I have been writing about over the past few months. And yet, one of their more popular models, introduced in 2021, is the Tribute 1, a surprisingly simple, much smaller, watch that still carried on the Armin Strom design language but in an almost dressy package. That led them to the Tribute² which opens up the dial, but just a bit, to expose a couple of cogs and wheels. Now, we’re getting the Armin Strom Tribute² Aurum Edition, with a gold look and artisanal decorations.

While most Armin Strom watches are really imposing on the wrist and call out for attention, the Tribute series are more subdued. You can see it from the size, as it measures just 38mm wide and 9.38mm thick, with a 44.35mm lug-to-lug. The stainless steel case has a brushed and polished finish, with sapphire crystals on top and bottom. The top one is surrounded with a thin bezel that has a notch at 6 o’clock, the brand’s staple. Water resistance is 50 meters.

The Tribute² is known for exposing parts of the movement, but just a couple of gears next to the off-center dial, which is finished with a grey fumé color. You still get the recognisable details of the brand - an offset and exposed barrel, and larger dial plate. That plate is done in brass, gold plated, hand-finished with tremblage technique. The hands and applied markers match the gold of the main plate.

Inside is the brand’s in-house movement called the AMW21, with 21 standing for 21-jewels. The regulating system contains a flat hairspring with a variable-inertia balance wheel and brass barrel bridge. The 100-hour power reserve results from the large barrel, and the movement ticks away at a 3.5Hz (25,200vph) frequency. Just like in every other Armin Strom timepiece, this movement has hand finishing throughout, with hand-bevelled bridges with polished and matte surfaces, black-polished screws, Geneva stripes and circular graining. The watch comes on a Epsom taupe strap with taupe stitching, closed with a steel folding clasp.

The new Armin Strom Tribute² Aurum Edition is limited to 10 pieces and priced at CHF 27,000. See more on the Armin Strom website.

⏲️End links

A bunch of links that might or might not have something to do with watches. One thing’s for sure - they’re interesting

• In Rome, the Bronx-born prince of sleaze cinema has traded crack-fueled chaos for cacio e pepe, AA meetings, and school runs in the rain. Abel Ferrara’s memoir and late-career revival chart a jagged path from downtown junkie-auteur to sober “maestro,” still volatile, still working, and trying hard not to fail the daughter walking just behind him.

• Museum curators’ desperate climate controls have unleashed a stealth enemy: xerophilic molds thriving in dry storage, devouring da Vinci sketches, Tut’s tomb, and Viking hats. This investigation cracks open a whispered crisis—taboo even among insiders—revealing how our preservation efforts cultivated perfect fungal oases, and races to map which treasures will crumble next.

• From customs clerk to postal drone, literary greats like Melville, Hawthorne, and Bukowski toiled in banal government jobs to fund their genius. This essay traces the drudgery of day jobs that birthed masterpieces, pondering the curse and privilege of writing amid manifests, mail trucks, and bullshit bureaucracy.

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

I stray away from watch videos here as these videos are meant to be a bit of a break. However, there’s two interesting things about this video. First, there’s something so familiar about Simon’s videos that I can’t pinpoint. Maybe you can figure it out. Second, it’s about the Alpina made with the TRTS crew and you only have until the end of this week.

Thanks for reading,
Vuk