Grand Seiko's Purple Spring Drive UFA Ice Forest; FC's New Moneta Moonphases; Tissot's Grendizer PRX; Mr Jones' Monster Melter; Union Glashütte Shrinks Belisar Chrono; Moser's Pioneer Flying Hours

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. You can’t believe the number of watches that are coming out, I would need to double the number of watches I write about to cover them all in a timely manner. So, apologies if something is missing now, it’s coming soon!

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In this issue

• Grand Seiko Combines Ultra Fine Accuracy, Steel And A Purple Dial On The Spring Drive UFA Ice Forest SLGB005

• Frederique Constant Releases New Versions Of Their Very Cool Classics Moneta Moonphase

• Tissot Celebrates 50 Years Of UFO Robot Grendizer With A Stealthy Robot Watch

• Mr Jones Adds The Monster Melter 3000 To Their Regular Collection

• Union Glashütte Makes The Best Move Possible And Shrinks Down Their Retro-Inspired Belisar Chrono

• H. Moser & Cie. Pioneer Flying Hours Pairs Their Satellite Time Display With Jumping Hours

• SPECIAL FEATURE: The Serica 1174 Parade: Minimalism, Revival, and the New Shape of Watch Authenticity

• FOR WATCH CLUB MEMBERS: The Environmental Reality of Sapphire Crystal Watchmaking

👂What’s new

1/

Grand Seiko Combines Ultra Fine Accuracy, Steel And A Purple Dial On The Spring Drive UFA Ice Forest SLGB005

Grand Seiko had a good year at Watches and Wonders, with two releases that came with very cool Ultra Fine Accuracy movements that broke accuracy records. Those Spring Drive movements promised an accuracy of 20 seconds per year. However, the SLGB001 and SLGB003 came in titanium and platinum. That only meant that a steel version is around the corner. Well, it might have taken a bit more than expected, but here we are, with a steel Spring Drive UFA Ice Forest SLGB005, a watch with a great dial, even better movement and the most infuriating decision in watchmaking history. One so bad it warrants a boycott of Grand Seiko.

Just like the titanium version released earlier in the year, the SLGB005 comes in a well sized case. The Ever-Brilliant Steel case measures 37mm wide, 11.4mm thick, with a 44.3mm lug-to-lug. The case combines brushed surfaces with Zaratsu polished accents, as you would expect, and on top is a box-shaped sapphire crystal surrounded by a thin, fixed bezel. The crown screws down and has a 100 meter water resistance.

Like the previous two releases — in fact, most Grand Seiko releases — the dial is inspired by nature, this time an Ice Forest. This time, the dial represents the ice forest during a winter dawn, bathing the frost-covered tree-inspired texture in a purple glow. It’s a really nice look, with a gradient from a brighter purple in the center, to a darker purple on the outside. The grooved hour markers and thick hands are silver colored and there’s a date aperture at 3 o’clock.

Inside is a very cool movement. It’s the calibre 9RB2. A Spring Drive movement that has their new Ultra Fine Accuracy tech, it is very accurate. Like, very accurate. Accurate to ± 3 seconds per month, or about 20 seconds per year. That’s quartz-level accuracy. It features a single barrel, automatically wound, with a power reserve of 72 hours and a rear mounted power reserve indicator. Now, for the insanely infuriating part. The SLGB001 and SLGB003, released in April, came on bracelets that have micro adjust in the clasp, as one would expect these days from an even €300 watch. For some bat-shit insane reason, Grand Seiko decided to equip the steel SLGB005 with a stainless steel bracelet with a three-fold clasp with no micro-adjust. Is there any better business decision to not just go backwards in development, but also not offer something that people can get on a watch one tenth of the cost? Like I said, this is worthy of a brand boycott.

The new Grand Seiko Evolution 9 Spring Drive UFA Limited Edition SLGB005 is, as the name suggests, a limited edition. 1,300 will be made and the price is set at €11,000. Grand Seiko, get it together with those dumb clasps. See more on the Grand Seiko website.

2/

Frederique Constant Releases New Versions Of Their Very Cool Classics Moneta Moonphase

Despite being owned by Citizen, Frederique Constant almost seems to operate like an indie watch brand. They make a plethora of watches, many that pass under the radar, but also a few dozen that are truly spectacular, not just as watches but also for their incredible value for money. They also make a lot of their movements in house, which is rare for a mid-sized brand. So, when they come out with a new moonphase watch, you would expect that this epitome of a mechanical movement would also be an in house automatic. Perhaps a manual wind. Well, they kind of pulled a fast one on us last year when they released the Frederique Constant Classics Moneta Moonphase collection as it came with a quartz movement with a moonphase complication. It was easily one of my favorite watches of last year. Now, they’re updating the collection with new colors.

The stainless steel case of the Moneta measures 37mm wide, just 7.65mm thick (thank you, quartz) and has a compact 42mm lug-to-lug. It’s a fully round case with super short lugs, which contributes to the short lenght. It’s a simple thing with a tiny onion-style crown, and a fully polished finish, just as you would expect from a dress watch. On top is a very thin fixed bezel that holds down the sapphire crystal, but the really interesting bezel is underneath. In this new release you get to pick between a regular stainless case and one with a gold colored finish. Oh, and water resistance is decent at 50 meters.

The dial is a bit set in from the edge, thanks to a very pronounced internal bezel that has a fine coined edge, making it actually look like a flattened coin. Hence, the name. Moneta means coin in several languages, and it looks fantastic, especially in combination with one of the two new dials. The silver colored version comes with a familiar blue sunray finished dial, topped with applied steel indices and steel dauphine hands. The gold colored one comes with a champagne colored dial with all the details done in gold.

Inside is a movement they call the FC206 caliber, based on the Ronda 706 quartz that is equipped with a moonphase indicator. It has a 60 month battery life, but otherwise isn’t very special when it comes to quartz movements. The silver watch comes on a steel mesh bracelet while the gold colored one comes on a brown calf leather strap with an embossed crocodile pattern.

The new Classics Moneta Moonphase variants are available now and priced at CHF 1,195. See more on the Frederique Constant website.

3/

Tissot Celebrates 50 Years Of UFO Robot Grendizer With A Stealthy Robot Watch

Growing up in a country that was pretty cut off from the popular culture of the rest of the world for a long while (movies would take months after release to get to our cinemas, if at all), I was uniquely privileged to grow up with a father that was as engrossed by popular culture at the time as I am now. This meant that we had stacks of tapes of old French movies, American horrors and Japanese samurai and anime. But even that wasn’t enough as I devoured everything. We had a video store in our neighbourhood that was run by my childhood friend’s parents on the ground floor of their house and I would spend the weekends there trying to find the dustiest tape I could. This always meant I found something cool. And cool stuff was easy to find because copyright law wasn’t a priority in 90s Croatia, allowing for some cool bootlegs. One of those tapes was a compliation of must have been three episodes of the 1970s anime UFO Robot Grendizer. Only, it wasn’t called Grendizer, as the tape was a French tape and the anime was called Goldorak. I had no idea what was going on, what the other episodes were about, but I loved it. I think I ground that tape into nothingness. But over the years, I completely forgot about the cartoon. Until last year, that is, when Tissot released a special edition PRX Powermatic 80 40mm Grendizer with the robot engraved into the dial. It seems that I wasn’t the only one to think that it was cool, because they’re bringing it back. This time, it’s with the Tissot PRX Grendizer 50th Anniversary Special Edition that, as the name suggests, celebrates the 50th anniversary of UFO Robot Grendizer.

On the outside, it’s still the PRX you know, but now in a darker shade. The stainless steel case now has a black PVD coat and measures 40mm wide, 10.9mm thick, with a rather long lug-to-lug of 51mm, which is not made any more manageable by the integrated bracelet that has a non-articulating first link. On top is a flat sapphire crystal, and you get a transparent mineral glass caseback to see the special rotor this edition has. Water resistance is still 100 meters.

The dial is more special than the case. It’s actually much more subdued than you would expect from a watch that’s styled after a huge anime robot. It’s a black base, with a carved profile of Grendizer and his fist. But it’s quite an intricate engraving, with multiple levels, patterns and different shades of grey. Parts of the engraving are filled with lume so it glows pretty cool at night. The eyes are painted yellow, matching the central seconds hand with a counterweight in the form of Grendizer’s Double Harken weapon.

Inside, absolutely zero surprise. It’s the Swatch Group’s Powermatic 80. This means it beats at 21,600vph and has an 80 hour power reserve. The watch comes on a stainless steel integrated bracelet with the same black PVD. You also get a special box that looks like the UFO Grendizer traveled in.

The new Tissot PRX Grendizer 50th Anniversary Special Edition is limited to 1,975 pieces, marking the year that the anime came out, and the price is set to €1,095. See more on the Tissot website.

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Mr Jones Adds The Monster Melter 3000 To Their Regular Collection

OK, so by now we know that Mr Jones are the absolute masters at creating what can only be described as art watches. Watches that don’t necessarily do a good job at telling the time, but are incredibly beautiful, while keeping costs funny low. What we don’t point out as much, and we should, is how incredibly diverse their lineup is, from absolute minimalist design watches to very maximalists painting, like that crazy watch they did of a bee on a flower. A couple of months ago we saw them introduce illustrated science fiction battles as one of their themes with the Monster Melter 3000. It’s been such a popular releases that now the Monster Melter 3000, with a couple of tweaks, joins the regular collection.

I usually breeze through stuff like the case on Mr Jones watches because they usually remain unchanged, but the new Monster Melter 3000 comes in the new Mr Jones case, a welcome refresh to the spindly lugs the brands has become known for. This new case is much more traditional, with filled out lugs and made out of stainless steel. It measures 37mm wide and has a 46mm lug-to-lug. has a 50 meter water resistance. Inside is a single jewel quartz movement. The watch is mounted on a 18mm wide strap, in this case a mesh steel bracelet.

The dial has been illustrated by Onorio D'Epiro and I just can’t shake the feeling that Mr. D'Epiro has spent as much time watching Futurama as I have. Because that monster that’s front and centre on the dial looks very much like it was plucked out of an episode of the legendary cartoon. On the previous variant, it’s a wild monster with six eyes and many tentacles, that looks like it’s floating in space. The new monster has eight eyes and nine tentacles. It’s surrounded by a floating astronaut engaged in battle with it, and it’s that astronaut and a severed tentacle that are used as the hour and minute hands. That’s pretty amazing. The illustration is done in fluorescent ink and with a glittering airbrush effect.

The original Monster Melter 3000 was a timed edition, but now it’s part of the regular collection. Price is set at £195 / $235 / €235. See more on the Mr Jones website.

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Union Glashütte Makes The Best Move Possible And Shrinks Down Their Retro-Inspired Belisar Chrono

There’s a lot of 60s inspired chronographs on the market. One of my favorites comes from Union Glashütte. Their Belisar Chronograph carries with it a bunch of vintage motorsport inspiration and some pretty great colors. It’s also powered by a variant of an iconic movement and is quite affordable. But there was always a big problem with it. Literally big. It came in a 44mm case. For years! Well, that changes now as Union Glashütte releases the Belisar Chronograph in 40mm.

So, the smaller diameter is very good news, but this thing is still powered by an automatic chronograph, which comes with a lot of thickness. While the previous case measured 44mm wide and 15.01mm thick, this new one measures 40mm wide and 14.65mm thick. Much better, but still not sensational. The rest remains largely unchanged, with pump pushers, a domed sapphire crystal and a diamond-shaped fluted crown. The crown screws down so you get 100 meters of water resistance.

The dial is also quite familiar, with a sunray-brushed ice blue shade that’s surrounded by a black peripheral tachymeter scale. The three snailed sub-dials also have black finishing, with the 30-minute and 12-hour chronograph sub-dials at 3 and 6 o’clock having blue centers and black surrounds, while the running seconds at 9 o’clock is solid black. You get Arabic hour numerals printed in white and a second minutes track, while the hands are painted with lume. It also has a date aperture at 6 o’clock which is well hidden in the sub dial.

Inside the watch is the self-winding UNG-27.SI chronograph movement beating at a frequency of 28,800vph, and a power reserve of approximately 60 hours. Based on a modified Valjoux 7750, this calibre is equipped with a silicon balance spring for enhanced longevity, precision, and resistance to magnetic fields. The watch can be had on a black calfskin strap.

The new Belisar Chronograph 40mm is available now, priced at €2,950. That’s a pretty great package. See more on the Union Glashütte website.

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H. Moser & Cie. Pioneer Flying Hours Pairs Their Satellite Time Display With Jumping Hours

One of the more interesting watches I saw at Geneva Watch Days was an interesting take on a wandering hour mechanims married to a jumping hour from H. Moser & Cie. Not only was it an interesting evolution of the Endeavour Flying Hours, only now housed in the Pioneer, it came in two variants so different from one another that you have to struggle a bit to see the similarities. But they’re both pretty amazing. This is the new H. Moser & Cie. Pioneer Flying Hours

The two watches come in different cases, that even have slight variations in size. One is made out of 5N red gold with black DLC-coated titanium inserts, while the other is made out of stainless steel, and holding them in your hands makes the difference extremely obvious. Both cases measure 42.8mm wide, but the gold version measures 16.1mm thick, while the steel version is much more compact at 14.2mm. Quite an interesting setup. Both versions feature sapphire crystals on front and back, while water resistance remains 120 meters.

The Endeavour Flying Hours was known for the three discs that rotated and showed the time, but these new watches drop the discs below the dial, creating more mystery for the whole thing. The gold version comes with a deep blue aventurine dial, while the steel version gets an even more interesting white fumé dial accented by a sunburst finish. Both of them have a skeletonised central minutes disc and there are three apertures that display the hours that jump at the very top of the hour.

All of this is powered by the automatic HMC 240 calibre, which beats at 21,600vph and has a 72 hour power reserve. Depending on the version, it has either a solid red gold rotor or a tungsten rotor, while the bridges and plates are anthracite-finished. The watch comes on a textured black (on the gold) or grey (on the steel) rubber strap closed with a material matching pin buckle.

The Pioneer Flying Hours in red gold and titanium is limited to 100 pieces, priced at CHF 39,000, while the stainless steel version is part of the permanent collection, priced at CHF 29,000. See more of the gold version here and steel version here.

SPECIAL FEATURE: The Serica 1174 Parade: Minimalism, Revival, and the New Shape of Watch Authenticity

On a crisp Saturday morning at a Paris café, sunlight dances across marble tabletops and green Parisian chairs, painting angular highlights on silver cutlery and fine ceramic mugs. Amid the café’s mix of locals and visitors, a slender wrist emerges from the sleeve of a sand-colored linen blazer — just as a barista sets down a flat white with a practiced flourish. What catches the eye, momentarily pulling it from the bustle and hum, is not a screen or an oversized brand’s logo, but a subtle glint — the Serica 1174 Parade.

The watch itself doesn’t beg attention. Its elliptical, stadium-shaped case feels architectural, echoes of brutalist curves softened into something unexpectedly inviting. There’s no loud logo, no ticking seconds hand to urge one onward — just two elegant, polished leaf-shaped hands that point out the time with restraint. This scene is not pure fantasy; it is precisely the kind of encounter the Serica 1174 Parade was built to create. But how did we get to this moment, and why does this object — partly ancient, partly futuristic, wholly contemporary — carry such meaning? The answer is a journey through minimalism, retro revivalism, and the tangled search for authenticity in a distracted age.

Minimalism, in both art and lifestyle, is less a style than a philosophy — a cultivated response to excess and clutter, born of twentieth-century anxieties and post-war optimism. The roots reach deep: from Kasimir Malevich’s 1915 Black Square — an audacious experiment in elimination — to Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s crisp assertion, “less is more,” minimalism reimagines beauty as clarity, paring away until only the necessary remains.

In the visual arts of the 1950s and 60s, pioneers like Donald Judd and Frank Stella rejected noisy abstraction for what Judd called “the thing as a whole, its quality whole, is what is interesting.” Stella, too, distilled his practice to the razor-edged maxim: “What you see is what you see”. Agnes Martin, chasing the infinite within the line, claimed, “Beauty is the mystery of life. It is not in the eye, it is in the mind. In our minds there is awareness of perfection”. Such artistic asceticism found parallels in architecture (van der Rohe’s glass-and-steel rectangles), design, and ultimately, the modern obsession with curating our material lives.

Read the rest of this essay here.

FOR WATCH CLUB MEMBERS: Watches You Might Not Have Seen, Week 49: The Multifaceted Orient All Weather Type II

An Intriguing 1980s Collaboration Between Orient, Puma, and Toyota. Read it here. 

⏲️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

• West Coast Game Park Safari in Oregon, notorious for its long-term neglect and abuse of animals, was finally shut down in 2025 after accumulating over 80 USDA violations within a year. Despite repeated inspections highlighting starvation, unsanitary conditions, and lack of care, enforcement was lax until a multi-agency raid led to the removal of over 300 animals, exposing systemic regulatory failures.

• Gardiner Harris’s No More Tears is a deeply reported exposé of Johnson & Johnson, revealing a century of corporate wrongdoing and health crises—from contaminated baby powder and dangerous drugs to deceptive marketing and regulatory capture. Meticulous and indignant, the book is a landmark account of how profit-driven practices in the health care sector have endangered millions.

• A grim investigation into Oklahoma’s Robert M. Greer Center unveils systemic abuse and neglect of disabled residents. Despite whistleblower reports detailing beatings, sexual assaults, and coordinated cruelty, weak enforcement means perpetrators face few consequences. The case spotlights profound institutional failures and a culture of silence that allowed horrific suffering to persist behind locked doors.

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

There are bad movies, and then there’s Redline: the 2007 street racing film made by a subprime mortgage lender that scored a 0% on Rotten Tomatoes, left a trail of smashed supercars in its wake, and helped kick off a worldwide financial crisis.

In the mid-2000s, former car salesman Daniel Sadek was very rich from handing out mortgages to people with bad credit through his company Quick Loan Funding. But Sadek always dreamed of being a Hollywood big shot. Taking a page from Fast & Furious (and the franchise’s original name), he spent $25M to make a high-octane action movie starring his girlfriend and featuring his extensive collection of supercars.

Thanks for reading,
Vuk