Farer's 35mm Cushion Case; Serica's First Watch With A Date; Doxa Pays Homage To Rome; MeisterSinger's Brooding Archao Collection; Piaget Does What They Do Best; Scout Motors Bullies Astor+Banks

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. I usually keep to just writing about watch releases, but that move from Scout Motors is just incredibly annoying. I know copyright law is complicated, but big companies really don’t need to be douches going about protecting what they thinks needs protecting. Especially if they’re likely in the wrong.

In this issue

• Farer Has A New 35mm Cushion Case Collection And It’s A Great Return To Form

• Serica Introduces Their First Watch With A Date, The New Ref. 5330 Dive Chronometer

• Doxa Teams Up With Italian Retailer Gioielleria Grande For The SUB 200 Grande Roma

• MeisterSinger Launches Very Brooding New Archao Collection

• Piaget Does What They Do Best With The New Limelight Gala Precious Duo

• Scout Motors, A Company With No Product, Is Bullying Astor+Banks Over a Watch Name. Yes, Really.

👂What’s new

1/

Farer Has A New 35mm Cushion Case Collection And It’s A Great Return To Form

Back in 2022, Farer introduced a new case shape into their lineup and made quite the run at it, with a number of cool dials and finishes. That version measures 38.5mm wide. And while that’s certainly not a large watch, Farer thinks you might like something smaller. This is the new 35mm Cushion Case collection, with the Furneaux and Belzoni models.

The new case looks very much like the larger one. It has a rounded cushion profile, with a polished finish and a hed bezel chamfer, which is inverted from the vast majority of watches and gives it a very unique look. The case measures 35mm wide, 10mm thick and it has a fantastic 38mm lug-to-lug, thanks to the super-short lugs. The case is scalloped between the looks to get the straps all the way up close, making it look almost integrated. On the side is a crown with a bronze cap, and since it doesn’t screw down it gives you 50 meters of water resistance.

The two models are differentiated by their dials. They both have a texture to them, one a bit more radial and the other a bit more cracked, both protected by a clear lacquer, with polished batons and numerals and a polished steel sweep seconds hand finished with Farer’s A-shaped tip. The Belzoni gets a teal gradient from a lighter to a darker on the edges, while the Furneaux has a reddish-pink finish.

The watches are powered by the hand-wound Sellita SW210-1 b which beats at 4Hz and has a 45 hour power reserve. They come on a choice of leather straps.

The new Farer 35mm Cushion Case Furneaux and Belzoni are available now, priced at €1,195. See more on the Farer website.

2/

Serica Introduces Their First Watch With A Date, The New Ref. 5330 Dive Chronometer

Very few brands out there resonate as well with me as Serica does. Every single thing they’ve done was exactly what I would want from a watch. We even talked in Geneva last year how much we loved no-date watches — if you look at their lineup, not a single watch had a date complication. Until now, that is. This is the new Serica Ref. 5330 Dive Chronometer, which is their first watch with a date complication.

Despite this looking extremely familiar to the Ref. 5305, their very cool dive watch, there are some very subtle changes and it’s not just an opening on the dial for the date. On the outside, it comes in the same stainless steel case that measures 39mm wide, 12.2mm thick and has a 46.5mm lug-to-lug, which a re pretty great proportions. It keeps the twisted lugs for a dynamic and vintage look, and you now get an all-satin finish on the entire watch. On top is a 2mm thick double-domed sapphire. That’s surrounded by a new bezel — 120 click unidirectional, with the same amazing action to it, it comes with a new dual-scale setup. It now has an anthracite grey ceramic insert and a classic countup 60-minute scale, with no precise graduation. Tiny changes, I’m telling you. What hasn’t changed is the 300 meter water resistance.

More tiny changes can be found on the dial, not counting the date aperture. Previous versions came with enamel dials that had a polished finish, but this one gets a matte black, with domed luminous indexes filled with cream colored Super-LumiNova. Also new is the minute scale which is a bit tighter towards the center to better sit with the aperture at 3 o’clock. The date disc will be controversial, as it comes in white with red numerals. What remains unchanged is the cool handset, with a broad arrow hour hand and a thinner minute hand done in white lacquer, also filled with lume. The seconds hand has a fat lollipop shape. The only writing on the dial is CHRONOMÈTRE AMAGNÉTIQUE above 6 o’clock, keeping things appropriately sterile.

Inside, you’ll find the same movement as the regular 5303. It’s the Soprod M100 caliber. Thanks to the thinner movement, it allowed Serica to use a soft iron cage around the movement to improve its magnetism resistance. It beats at 4Hz and has a 42 hour power reserve. It’s also COSC certified, which is always a great thing. The watch comes on a great looking mesh bracelet with a very unique link to the case, but you also get a white and red elastic nylon strap.

To prove how capable the new 5330 Dive Chronometer really is, French adventurer Alexandre Gaye will wear the watch during his solo crossing of Vatnajökull, Europe’s largest glacier, in Iceland. In the meantime, the watch is available for purchase now, priced at €1,690. See more on the Serica website.

3/

Doxa Teams Up With Italian Retailer Gioielleria Grande For The SUB 200 Grande Roma

A Doxa watch, any Doxa, is made to be worn underwater. Or at least near the water. Preferably on a pristine sandy beach while sipping on a tasty cocktail. But it’s also a watch that’s perfectly comfortable in a big city. Preferably, an old world one. And you don’t get much more old world than Rome. So, Doxa has now teamed up with their Italian retailer Gioielleria Grande to create a watch that pays homage to the iconic city. This is the new Doxa SUB 200 Grande Roma.

The case is a standard SUB 200 case, meaning that it’s made out of stainless steel and while it might sound large at 42mm wide and 13.8mm thick, Doxas — this one included — are notorious for wearing much smaller. Likely due to the short lyre lugs. On top is a coin-edge unidirectional bezel with a black insert that has a 60 minute scale. The bezel surrounds a domed sapphire crystal and out back is a closed caseback with an engraving of the Colloseum with the word Grande underneath.

The dial has a beautiful brown gradient shade, from a lighter brown in the center to an almost black on the edges. The writing on the dial is minimal, “Doxa” at 12, “SUB 200” at 6, and the same illustration of the Colloseum as the one on the caseback above that. Other than that, everything else you would expect is here — baton indices outlined in black and lumed, a black minutes track and a black outlined date window at 3 o’clock. The hands are also black and filled with lume.

Inside is Sellita SW200 automatic movement. It’s not a particularly advanced or beautiful movement, but it does the job reliably. It beats at 4Hz and has 38 hour power reserce. The watch comes on a beads-of-rice bracelet with a folding clasp and dive extension, as well as a brown NATO strap with stainless steel pin buckle.

The Doxa SUB 200 Grande Roma is a limited edition of 50 pieces and there’s only one way to buy it — get it from Gioielleria Grande. The price is set at €1,590. See more on the Gioielleria Grande website.

4/

MeisterSinger Launches Very Brooding New Archao Collection

Last time I mentioned MeisterSinger, it was just a few weeks ago and it was with a radical departure from their standard one-hand setup to introduce a jump-hour setup. But that was just a brief distraction for the brand. What I didn’t notice from them is that they released a brand new collection, the Archao, which is once again a one-handed watch. But this one is moody, bold and much more edgy than their more dressy stuff. With a sportier, darker and bigger case, the new Archao is kind of a cool watch.

The stainless steel gets a black DLC coating, for a dark matte finish. The black will certainly help make the case look smaller than its actual 43mm width and 12.3mm thickness. On the right side is an oversized black crown and water resistance could be a bit better than the 50 meters you get. The black, large case suggests that this should be a capable sports watch.

There are three dial options available — black, blue and red, all with a grained center and polished edges. It’s familiar and yet different enough. You get 12 hour markers, with markers between them marking 15 minute intervals. For more precise readings, light grey dots along the perimeter indicate five-minute intervals. The hour markers, the double-digit numerals, and the needle-shaped hand are all made out of white LumiBlocks, a chunky lumed material. The hand is skeletonized and with a black central pinion, it appears to float on either side of it.

Inside, you’ll find the expected Sellita SW200 movement which beats at 4Hz and has a 38 hour power reserve. The watches come on saddle leather straps in red, black and tan.

The new MeisterSinger Archao is available now, priced at €2,390. See more on the MeisterSinger website.

5/

Piaget Does What They Do Best With The New Limelight Gala Precious Duo

For a while there, Piaget was entangled with Bvlgari for the title of numerous thinnest watches, with and without complications. And it really did seem like Piaget was making quite the effort of it. But the thing is, Piaget doesn’t have to make an effort, as they’ve been making ultra thin watches since the middle of last century. They needed the thin watches for their famous jewellery watches that married the elegant thinness with incredible gold and precious stone cases and bracelets. Now, Piaget is bringing two new additions to that iconic Limelight Gala collection that draws its roots from the 60s and 70s.

The two watches share the same 18k rose gold case that measures 32mm wide and 10 mm thick, but that’s where the similarities stop. Starting with the Snake Scale Grand Feu, the watch has a sweeping bezel that extends almost halfway down the bracelet set with white diamonds and spessartite garnets. That surrounds a dial that’s made with orange Grand Feu enamel, in segments made to look like a snake’s skin. The dial is fully made by hand, with engravers create overlapping, organic scale-like patterns with some scales polished while others are engraved with fine lines. The same is done to the bracelet that almost perfectly matches the dial, just in a lighter gold, making it look like it’s made out of snakeskin.

The Decor Palace model uses the same sweeping bezel, but this one is set with cognac and white colored diamonds, creating a gradient from a darker diamond to a transparent one. That’s paired with a wonderful gold dial that’s hand-engraved with grooves of varying depth and thickness, creating a bark-like surface. The same pattern extends over the gold bracelet.

Inside, you’ll find Piaget’s slim in-house automatic calibre 501P1, which is a welcome change from the quartz models of previous generations. This one will get you 42 hours of power reserve.

The new Limelight Gala collection should be available now, and pricing is on request. See more on the Piaget website.

6/

Scout Motors, A Company With No Product, Is Bullying Astor+Banks Over a Watch Name. Yes, Really.

Astor+Banks makes watches. Scout Motors doesn’t yet electric vehicles. That should be the end of it.

And yet — Scout Motors is threatening legal action against Astor+Banks over the Terra Scout, a mechanical field watch built from the ground up around the founder's actual military service experience. The claim is that it conflicts with their brand identity, as they plan on releasing a Scout Terra at some point. The watch has been well received by the collecting community since its release, pre-orders were moving, and then this landed on their desk.

Let's be clear about what we're talking about here. The Terra Scout is a mechanical field watch aimed at watch enthusiasts. Scout Motors intends on making electric vehicles. These are not competing products. They don't share an industry, a customer base, or any realistic overlap. The idea that someone shopping for a field watch is going to be confused about whether they're buying a truck is genuinely difficult to take seriously.

What makes the whole thing more frustrating is the context. Scout Motors hasn't actually brought a single vehicle to market yet. And the trademarks they're invoking for the "Scout Terra" name? Still pending, and filed under entirely different trademark classifications. So we have a company with no product on the road, leaning on unconfirmed trademarks, going after a small independent watchmaker who has done everything right. It's hard not to be annoyed by that.

It also feels very familiar. Recently, Rolex pressured Nodus into renaming their NodeX clasp — a clasp, not even a watch — and Nodus had to comply. Now this. The pattern seems to be that if you're big enough, you can make someone's life very difficult regardless of whether you actually have a case. Legal threats are expensive to fight even when you're in the right, and large companies know that.

To their credit, Astor+Banks is standing firm. They've called the claim meritless, halted fulfillment while the matter works itself out, and are offering full refunds with no questions asked to anyone who doesn't want to wait. That last part matters. They didn't have to do that. It says a lot about how they're running things.

The Terra Scout deserves better than this. Hopefully it gets resolved quickly and the watches make it out the door — because from everything we've seen, they've earned the attention they've been getting. Head on over to the Astor+Banks website to keep up with what’s happening.

⏲️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

• Andrew O’Hagan’s essay is a brutal exposé of Prince Andrew and his ex‑wife Sarah Ferguson, tracing a long pattern of entitlement, grifting, and ethically dubious behavior that began decades before Andrew’s association with Jeffrey Epstein. He portrays them as habitually exploiting their royal status to chase freebies, money, and influence in shady settings around the world. Seen together in this one piece, their choices reveal a shocking, sustained culture of decadence and impunity—visible long before any formal scandal erupted.

• In this piece, Eli Cugini argues that Pixar’s heyday may have passed, with a once-adventurous studio now seemingly paralyzed by efforts to remain “family friendly.” Focusing on Elio and Inside Out 2, Cugini shows how Pixar tentatively introduces subversive ideas—children wanting escape, resisting rigid gender norms, or expressing complex desires—only to defuse them with reassuring endings that reassert the nuclear family, conformity, and safety.

• “Dad first told me of his plan to build the world’s largest jewelled egg while perched in the cab of a small digger,” writes Serena Kutchinsky in this edited extract from Kutchinsky’s Egg: A Family Story of Love, Loss & Obsession. But her dad’s obsession with this egg cost the family everything. This is the strange, fascinating tale of what it takes to build—and sell—a giant gold egg. Sometimes you can dream too big.

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

The Trump administration is really not that funny, but this is. Quite.

Thanks for reading,
Vuk