Citizen's Terra Force Chronographs; Seiko's Anime Diver; A Snowy Watch From Alpina And Label Noir; Parmigiani's Agave Blue Tonda PF Micro-Rotor; In House Movement For The 38mm AP Royal Oak Chrono

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. I’m not a huge fan of the last few releases from Citizen, but it’s certainly establishing them as a very diverse brand, taking over the entire budget range that’s been left open by Seiko going up in price. We’ll see how that works out for them.

In this issue

• Citizen Releases The Vintage Pilot Watch Inspired Terra Force Chronograph Duo

• Seiko Releases A Diver Inspired By The Iconic Unit-01 Mecha From Neon Genesis Evangelion

• Alpina Teams Up With Label Noir For A Hammer-Cased Alpiner Manufacture Date Special Edition

• Parmigiani Pairs The Tonda PF Micro-Rotor In Steel And Rose Gold With An Agave Blue Dial

• The 38mm Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Chronograph Gets An In-House Movement

• FOR WATCH CLUB MEMBERS Watch School Wednesday: Understanding the Fusee and Chain

👂What’s new

1/

Citizen Releases The Vintage Pilot Watch Inspired Terra Force Chronograph Duo

Citizen is having a very busy start to 2016. We saw the new diver-style and three-hander that came at pretty great price points, as well as the brand new Promaster Land GMTs that have fantastic textured dials. Now, we’re getting two new chronographs that take a lot of inspiration from vintage aviation chronographs. These are the two new Citizen Terra Force models, powered by a solar-charged movement.

Citizen isn’t exactly known for making compact watches, so this one is up there in size. The stainless steel case measures 43mm wide, with no thickness given on the sites that I can see (more on that later). The case has a brushed finish, on top is a mineral crystal and that is surrounded by a rotating 60 minute bezel. At 3 o’clock is a crown flanked by chronograph pushers in rose gold and silver, depending on the version you get. Water resistance is 100 meters.

There are two setups of the watch available — CA4746-08X has a brown dial, black bezel and rose gold colored accents on the hardware; while the CA4747-05L gets a blue dial with a blue bezel, with silver hardware on the case and dial. They share the same architecture, with applied Arabic numerals and hour markers, both filled with lume. The hands are filled with the same lume and sword-shaped. Around the edge of the dial is a tachymeter scale, at 4:30 is a date aperture, and you get a tri-compax sub-dial layout: you get the incredibly useless 24-hour indicator at 3 o’clock, a running seconds at 6 o’clock and a 60-minute totalizer at 9 o’clock.

Inside, you’ll find the Caliber B620 Eco-Drive movement, which is a solar movement that we recently saw in their sailing chronograph collection. It can power the watch for 270 days in complete darkness and is accurate to ±15 seconds per month. The CA4746-08X comes on a brown leather strap secured by a steel pin buckle, while the CA4747-05L comes on a brown leather NATO strap.

The new Citizen Terra Force chronograph collection is available now, priced at $425. Now, I would usually give you a website to go check them out on your own, but Citizen has one of the worst geo-limited websites I’ve ever seen, which means that every single country gets its own website. So this link likely won’t work for you, so you’ll have to google the collection. Sorry about that.

2/

Seiko Releases A Diver Inspired By The Iconic Unit-01 Mecha From Neon Genesis Evangelion

I’ve tried getting into anime a couple of time over the past decades, and I just can’t force myself to stick with it. I feel like all of the series that cam out after I stoped watching require way too much investment from me. I just don’t have it in me to casually watch 1,500 episodes of anything. So, my knowledge of anime is stuck in the 90s and very early 2000s, and I have a lot of nostalgia for the genre from the time. Among the anime that I did watch, one of my favorites is surely Neon Genesis Evangelion. So imagine the smile on my face when I saw that Seiko announced the C038 EVA-01 Diver’s Watch Limited Edition, a diver that celebrates 30 years of the franchise by paying homage to the EVA Unit-01, an iconic mecha character from the anime.

The watch comes in a stainless steel case that has quite the presence. It measures 45mm wide, 14.1mm thick and has a 49.1mm lug-to-lug. On top is an unfortunate hardlex crystal, but it’s surrounded by a very cool fully graduated 60 minute bezel that has a green bezel with the first 15 minutes done in purple, which are the colors of the EVA Unit-01. Water resistance is 200 meters.

It’s the dial where things get much wilder. Surrounding the dial is a bright purple flange that holds the minute scale, while the base of the dial is done in a darker shade of purple with a honeycomb pattern. At 12 o’clock the marker is replaced with EVA Unit-01’s head, while at 3 o’clock is the day and date display. Underneath that display you’ll find the Evangelion 01 text that might be the only questionable design choice of the watch. What’s not questionable is the bright red seconds hand that’s modeled after the Spear of Longinus, an important weapon from the anime.

Inside, you’ll find the 4R36 movement which beats at 3Hz and has a 41 hour power reserve. It won’t win any accuracy competitions, but it will tick for a while. The watch comes on a black silicon strap.

The new RADIO EVA "THE 30" x Seiko C038 EVA-01 Diver’s Watch is limited to 300 pieces and goes on sale in March. Price is set at ¥132,000, which is about €723, and while the watch is sold in Japan, the Evangelion store offers worldwide shipping with partners. See more on the Evangelion store website.

3/

Alpina Teams Up With Label Noir For A Hammer-Cased Alpiner Manufacture Date Special Edition

There’s a decent chance you haven’t heard of Label Noir before. They are a Geneva-based watch and jewellery design firm that often collaborates with niche and independent watchmakers to bring their more adventurous and avant-garde design aesthetics to them. In fact, you might have started noticing the name more and more, because I think I saw them four or five times over the past year, working with some pretty cool brands. Their latest collaboration comes with Alpina, for the new Alpiner Manufacture Date that gets an incredible frosted case.

Most special editions are limited to dial and maybe bezel changes, as it makes an LE easier and cheaper to produce. But this one goes deep on the customization. The case of the Alpiner Manufacture Date remains the same in shape — measuring 41.5mm wide and 13mm thick — but gets a brand new finish. To mimick the look of snow-covered granite, the bezel and lugs get a hammered finish that’s tight enough to be considered frosted. The rest of the case has a brushed finish, on top is a glassbox-style crystal and you get 50 meters of water resistance.

Continuing on with the snow-theme of the case, you get a stark white dial that also gets a textured finish that makes it look like a layer of fresh snow just fell on it. Around the periphery is a light grey minute railway track with lacquered markers at 5-minute intervals and rectangles at the quarters. The hands are also white lacquered and filled with lume. At 6 o’clock is a sub-dial that holds a pointer date complication.

Compared to the more mineral grey colour of the steel case, the pristine white dial evokes the texture of freshly fallen snow with its irregularly grained pattern. On the periphery, a railway track with circular, light-grey lacquered markers at 5-minute intervals and rectangles at the quarters is indicated by white-lacquered hands with blue-emitting Super-LumiNova. Moreover, there is a practical pointer date display at 6 o’clock, indicated by a white hand matching the central seconds hand with its openworked triangular counterweight. The number 31 on the date display is coated in grey lacquer, a feature of in-house calibres with 72-hour power reserves. The dial is protected by a glassbox sapphire crystal.

Inside, you’ll find the calibre AL-706, which is borrowed from their sister brand Frederique Constant. It’s a cool movement that beats at 4Hz and gets you 72 hours of power reserve from a single barrel. Completing the snow theme, the watch comes on a white technical nylon strap with a satin finish and a folding buckle.

The new Alpina x Label Noir is limited to 130 pieces, available now, priced at €3,695, with all taxes and shipping included. See more on the Alpina website.

4/

Parmigiani Pairs The Tonda PF Micro-Rotor In Steel And Rose Gold With An Agave Blue Dial

Parmigiani Fleurier makes some truly incredible watches. A lot of them could be considered dress watches, if you will. But where I like them the most is creating luxury sports watches in the Tonda PF collection. The collection is not that old, just about five years, and it’s already grown to impressive widths, with new additions joining the collection every few weeks. Well, I think it’s been at least a couple of months since we’ve last seen a Tonda PF watch, so here we go! This is the new Tonda PF Micro-Rotor in steel and 18k rose gold, with an Agave Blue dial.

On the outside, not much has changed, except for the materials of course. The watches still measure 40mm wide and a svelte 7.8mm thick, now made out of either stainless steel or rose gold. The steel version gets a platinum 950 finely knurled bezel, while the gold version gets a matching gold bezel. The case has satin brushed and polished surfaces, the crown screws down and you get 100 meters of water resistance.

Then, there’s the dial. We’ve seen it before on other Tonda models, but I think this is the first time paired with the micro-rotor and the gold/steel cases. The brand calls it Agave Blue and it’s one of my favorite dial colors on the market. It actually does look like an agave plant, which just makes it cooler. The base is hand guillochéd with their signature Grain d’Orge motif, while the applied indices are rhodium-plated on the steel version and rose gold on the gold version.

Inside is the caliber PF703, a micro-rotor movement that beats at 3Hz and has a 48 hour power reserve. The movement is decorated with Côtes de Genève, perlage and bevelled bridges. The watch comes on material matching integrated bracelets closed with folding clasps.

The new Parmigiani Fleurier Tonda PF Micro-Rotor Agave Blue models are part of the regular collection, priced. at CHF 23,700 in steel and CHF 58,000 in gold. See more on the Parmigiani Fleurier website.

5/

The 38mm Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Chronograph Gets An In-House Movement

Yesterday, I mentioned that I wasn’t exactly a fan of the idea of in-house movements being the end-all of movements. For decades and decades, it was perfectly normal for high-end brands to work with high-end movement makers and we got beautiful creations. The obsession with in-house movements, in part, is the product of clever marketing from large watch groups finding another selling point to what they were making. Alas, we now live in a world in which it’s awkward to sell a CHF 34,000 chronograph that doesn’t have an in-house movement. And that’s exactly what the Royal Oak Selfwinding Chronograph did in its 38mm size, which is fitted with a modified Frédéric Piguet 1185 ébauche. That changed last week when AP introduced the new Royal Oak Selfwinding Chronograph with an in-house movement.

The new watch comes in three variants, one available in stainless steel and two in 18k pink gold. Despite the changes in material, they all have the same basic details. The case is expectedly tonneau-shaped, with the iconic octagonal bezel with exposed screws on top. The case measures 38mm wide and 11.1mm thick, which is an increase of 0.1mm from the non in-house movement. You get polished chronograph pushers with brushed hexagonal guards. Water resistance is 50 meters.

The stainless steel version gets a “Bleu Nuit, Nuage 50” Grande Tapisserie dial, with blue snailed sub-dials at 3, 6 and 9 o’clock. The rose gold versions come with one of two dials — a dark grey Grande Tapisserie with silver sub-dials, and a sand colored Grande Tapisserie with beige sub-dials that’s paired with a diamond-set bezel. The sub-dials are a 12 hour totalizer at 3, running seconds at 6 and 30 minute ttoalizer at 9 o’clock. All three versions feature indexes and hands that are matched to the case material and there’s a date aperture at 4:30 with color matched date discs inside.

Then, we have the new movement. And not just a new movement to this collection, but a new in-house movement for the brand, the calibre 6401. It’s an integrated column-wheel chronograph with a vertical clutch system patented by AP to reduce the number of components and eliminate play. It beats at 4Hz and has a 55 hour power reserve. It has an opeworked rotor with decorations that include Côtes de Genève on the bridges and polished bevels. The watches come on material-matching very familiar bracelets with triple-blade folding clasp.

The new AP Royal Oak Selfwinding Chronograph in 38mm is available now, with prices set at CHF 34,000 for the steel version, CHF 66,700 for the pink gold and CHF 72,400 for the diamond set bezel pink gold case. See more on the Audemars Piguet website.

FOR WATCH CLUB MEMBERS Watch School Wednesday: Understanding the Fusee and Chain

Exploring the microscopic chain and pulley system that kept history on schedule. Read it here.

⏲️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

• ChatGPT-3 sparks dread among writers, a silicon Sibyl spitting B-level essays that threaten journalists, poets—even adjuncts grading them. Echoing Swift’s word engines, Clark’s Eureka hexameters, and Turing’s tender love notes, this oracle unmasks our fears: machines devouring language’s soul. Yet Luddite hammers remind us — the true foe profits from the code, not the craft.

• Sheriff Lummie Jenkins ruled Alabama's poorest county for 32 years without a gun — or so the legend went — coaxing confessions with pipe smoke, "Truth Medicine," and sheer mystique. In Black Belt Wilcox, where slavery's shadow lingers, elders from Gee's Bend whisper a darker truth: beatings, shootings, and a reign of terror that crushed voting rights until the very end.

• A racer vanishes mid-race on Alaska's brutal Mount Marathon—3 savage miles that draw 25,000 fans for blood, bones, and glory. Timekeeper Tom Walsh waves on the lone straggler, bib 548, into fog-shrouded cliffs. Weeks of searches yield nothing; the indifferent peak swallows him whole. In Seward's backyard inferno, where thrill dances with death, one man's fate unmasks the razor edge of frontier fun.

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

A classic from Jon Stewart.

Thanks for reading,
Vuk