Grand Seiko's Two GMTs; Nomos Is Serious About Gold; Dryden's Grab-And-Go Watch; Mühle-Glashütte's Sporty Big Date; Chronoswiss Brings Back Their Guichet; Capek With Another Guichet; GPHG Results

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. We’re back on track, thank you for your patience. There’s a lot of ground to cover, so get ready to see a lot of watches in the coming days. Also, I’m making up for the missed posts for paid subscribers. The first two are below, the other two are coming tomorrow!

In this issue

• Grand Seiko Releases Two New GMT Watches In Their Elegance Collection

• Nomos Gets Serious About Gold With New Tangente Neomatik And Ludwig Models

• Dryden Updates Their Heartlander With Solar Movement For The Perfect Grab-And-Go Watch

• Mühle-Glashütte Pairs A Big Date With A Very Sporty Watch On The, Duh, Sportivo Big Date

• Chronoswiss Brings Back Their Jumping Hour Guichet Watch With The Neo Digiteur

• Capek Celebrates 10 Years With The Time Jumper, A Jumping Hour Guichet Watch Unlike Any Other

• The Breguet Classique Souscription 2025 Wins the GPHG 2025 Aiguille d’Or, Dennison Takes Challenge Prize

• FOR WATCH CLUB MEMBERS Your Next Watch, Week 59: A Smooth Rolex; A Duo Of UGs; A Strange Bulova; And A Super Sharp Porsche Design

• FOR WATCH CLUB MEMBERS Watch School Wednesday: The Watch Caseback, From Protection to Style

👂What’s new

1/

Grand Seiko Releases Two New GMT Watches In Their Elegance Collection

I’m not a Grand Seiko fan. There, I said it. Shoot me, if you will, but I just can’t get into them. I understand everything about them, the Spring Drive is cool, I’m a fan of HAQ movements, the dials are beautiful, but I just can’t think of anything else other than Toyota when looking at them. Again, there are many cool Toyotas (I have two Yaris GRs on my street and those are a hoot). But when I think Toyota or Grand Seiko, I think appliance, and I can’t help myself. Just like I find myself thinking I wouldn’t mind owning that Yaris GR, the same happens with the occasional Grand Seiko. That happened to me today, while looking at one of the two new GMT watches from the Elegance Collection. We’re getting the SBGM255 Snowdrop and SBGM257 Moondrop, and it’s the latter that’s catching my eye. Not that I would buy one. A GR or a Moondrop.

The two new watches are part of the GMT Elegance collection that launched with the SBGM221 in 2010 and they are quite faithful to the original on the outside. The fully Zaratsu polished stainless steel case measures 39.5mm wide, a significant 14mm thick, but with a surprisingly short lug-to-lug of 46.9mm. The case has a polished bezel on top, rounded flanks and curved lugs. On top is a box-shaped sapphire crystal, which might help make it look thinner. Water resistance is really not that great at 30 meters. This should truly be upgraded ASAP.

New are the dials, both textured with a spiral pattern. The Snowdrop gets a crisp white base with a blue 24h scale and tempered blue GMT hand. It also has bevelled and polished applied markers and there’s a date aperture at 3 o’clock. The Moondrop goes the opposite, with a deep blue color and gold accents on the scale and GMT hand. It, too, has the date aperture at 3 o’clock.

Inside, you’ll find the very familiar Calibre 9S66, an automatic beating at 4Hz with a 72 hour power reserve. It has a stated accuracy of +5 to -3 seconds per day and it’s a traveller’s style GMT, meaning that you independently set the local hour hand by one-hour increments. The watches come on black or blue crocodile leather strap, closed by a three-fold clasp with push-button release.

The new Grand Seiko Elegance GMT SBGM255 Snowdrop and SBGM257 Moondrop are both part of the regular collection and go on sale in December. The price is the same for both, €5,200. See more on the Grand Seiko website here for the Snowdrop and here on the Moondrop.

2/

Nomos Gets Serious About Gold With New Tangente Neomatik And Ludwig Models

Nomos is certainly best known for their subdued, elegant and design-mindful watches that often slip under the radar. They’re there for either watch or design nerds and we like it like that. But sometimes, we find ourselves in a situation in which it’s appropriate to show off a bit. And nothing is better at showing off than gold. Sure, Nomos does make a few gold watches, either in regular or limited editions, but not nearly as many as they could. They’ve been working on that lately, and the latest edition to the gold family are the Tangente Gold Neomatik and Ludwig Gold. Still very sleek, with a subtle glint and with an interesting price.

Starting with perhaps the most iconic of the Nomos models, the Tangente, it comes in a 3N yellow polished gold case that measures a compact 35mm wide and a svelte 6.9mm thick. On top, the sapphire crystal extends all the way to the edges, and you get the iconic long and angled lugs. You get 50 meters of water resistance, which is great for such a watch. There are three versions of the watch, all differentiated in the colors of the dials. Two have galvanised silver-plated dials, one with blued steel hands and the other gold hands, while the third has a dark grey ruthenium-plated dial, paired with gold hands. All of them have the small seconds display at 6 o’clock. Inside, you’ll find the familiar Neomatik calibre DUW 3001, beating at 3Hz, with a 43 hour power reserve. The watches come on Shell Cordovan straps, in brown and black. The new Nomos Tangente Gold Neomatik is part of the regular collection and priced at €9,800. Yes, it’s expensive, but it’s kind of a good price for a gold watch. See more here.

Moving on to the Ludwig Gold, you might for a second think you’re seeing double, seeing how similar the Ludwig is to the Tangente. The case is made out of gold once again, measuring the same 35mm wide and a bit thinner at 6.3mm. The thinness compliments the straight lugs and the domed sapphire crystal quite well. Water resistance is a bit lower at 30mm. Two versions are available, both with a silver-plated dial. The difference is either gold or blued steel hands that point to Roman numerals and a railroad minute track, which is also the biggest difference from the Tangente. Inside is the calibre DUW 4001, a newer version of the Peseux 7001 based Calibre Alpha, that beats at 3Hz and has a 53 hour power reserve. The shell cordovan straps come in either brown on black, with the price set at €8,700. See more on the Nomos website.

3/

Dryden Updates Their Heartlander With Solar Movement For The Perfect Grab-And-Go Watch

I really need to write more about Dryden watches. In fact, I have one of their watches that I still have to write up for a review. Dryden doesn’t complicate things, and I appreciate that very much. Their watches are very well made, have some very cool designs and their color choices are always solid. In general, I dig their Heartlander field watch, but they just went ahead and made it into one of the more compelling releases of this year. This is the new Dryden Heartlander Solar, available in four colors, with a solar movement and a pretty great price.

The Dryden Heartlander has always been inspired by the most classic of field watches and it’s visible in its size and construction. The stainless steel case measures 38mm wide, 10.8mm thick and has a 46mm lug-to-lug. It doesn’t get much better than this. The case has a pleasant satin finish, polished bevels and a screw down crown. On top is a smooth, brushed bezel that holds down a flat sapphire crystal. On the back is an engraving on a sunflower, which would be a nice touch byt itself, but it also has special meaning for the owner, Jerry. He grew up in Kansas, where he was surrounded by sunflowers, which depend a lot on sunlight, just like he does as a photographer. Water resistance is 100 meters.

The Heartlander Solar gets a new dial design, with a very dense minute scale on the periphery, very clear hour markers and Arabic numerals, as well as simple white hands, all filled with lume. There are four options available — Dockside Blue with an orange tip seconds hand, Forest Green and Slate Grey, both with yellow tip seconds hand, and Nightfall Black with a black dial and a black PVD coated case. All of the dials have date apertures at 3 o’clock.

Inside, you’ll find the Epson Solar VS42 movement, a wholesale version of solar movements used by Orient. There’s not much special about it, apart from it being charged by the sun and having a six-month power reserve in the dark. And it’s a perfect movement for a field watch, making sure it’s always accurate and running. The watches come on FKM rubber straps in various colors, with an optional stainless steel bracelet arriving in December.

The new Dryden Heartlander Solar is available now, priced at a cool $279. See more on the Dryden website.

4/

Mühle-Glashütte Pairs A Big Date With A Very Sporty Watch On The, Duh, Sportivo Big Date

Glashütte is a tiny town just south of Dresden in Germany with a bit more than 7,000 people living in it. And despite its small size, the town’s name has become synonymous with German watchmaking. Which is not really surprising, seeing as how ten major watchmaking brands make their watches there - A. Lange & Söhne, Bruno Söhnle Uhrenatelier Glashütte, C. H. Wolf, Glashütte Original, NOMOS Glashütte, Wempe Chronometerwerke, Tutima, Union Glashütte, Moritz Grossmann and Mühle-Glashütte. An impressive lineup for a small town. And that last one, Mühle-Glashütte, is one of the more underrated of the bunch. Last year, they introduced a brand new sport collection to the lineup and it was a very cool bunch of sporty watches that included all the necessary complications — from GMT to chronograph. Now, they are doing what best makes sense — pairing their sportiness with their signature legibility. They come together in the Sportivo Big Date.

This is a chunky watch but, surprisingly to some, not even close to being the chunkiest that Mühle-Glashütte makes. The stainless steel case measures 42.5mm wide, a relatively reasonable 12.5mm thick and has a 50.3mm lug-to-lug. On top is a flat sapphire crystal and the case overall has a square look and a matte finish. The stainless steel serrated bezel has a black insert with discreet markings. Water resistance is as you would expect from the brand, pretty awesome at 300 meters.

The dial simplifies things even further, with a black base that has a very slight gradient. The sharp hands as well as applied indices are filled with plenty of lume and the writing is very discreet. Almost equally as well hidden is the Big Date feature that’s perfectly matched to black at 6 o’clock.

Inside is the MU9424-GD movement, the first Mühle movement featuring an in-house developed big date module. It features the Mühle woodpecker neck regulation and a special-edition rotor with a gold-coloured 30-year-anniversary logo, while offering 41 hours of power reserve. The watch can be had on one of three carrying options, a textile strap, a hybrid leather and rubber or a stainless steel bracelet with an adjustable safety folding clasp.

The new Sportivo Big Date is avaialble now, as part of the regular collection, priced at €2,990 on the leather and rubber, and €3,240 on steel. See more on the Mühle-Glashütte website.

5/

Chronoswiss Brings Back Their Jumping Hour Guichet Watch With The Neo Digiteur

God, I love Chronoswiss. While sure, they might step onto a vougue trend, as we’ll see in a moment, they just go ahead and make whatever they want. And they love weird stuff. They’ve been making regulators for decades, they’ve been playing with wild colors and various powdered color depositions. Unusual shapes, intricate engravings, they’ve done them all, and a lot of those they did among the first. So it would be a bit disappointing to see them jump on a trend bandwagon, like on a mechanical digital wristwatches — a montres à guichets — that so many brands are doing now. And this is exactly what they’re releasing right now, the Neo Digiteur, a guichet watch with a jumping hours. Only, this isn’t so much of a trend thing, but more a revival. That’s because in 2005, Chronoswiss releases the Digiteur MSA, a montres à guichets. The Neo Digiteur is just a thoroughly updated legend.

The dimensions here are interesting. The stainless steel case measures 30mm wide and 48mm long. It’s also just 9.7mm thick. But looking at photos of the watch from the side, it looks much thicker. I’m sure it’s more slender in real life, especially thanks to the polished edges and sandblasted sides. For a bit of Chronoswiss classicism you get screwed in lugs and the signature onion-shaped crown that’s now flatter. On top is a sapphire crystal. It even gets a decent 50 meter water resistance.

Being a montres à guichets, there’s no dial on this watch. Instead, there are two versions of metal covers available. First is Granit, that has a anthracite vertically satin-finished plate and the other is Sand, with a 4N gold colored sandblasted finish. There are three openings on the covers — a jumping hours at 12 o’clock, dragging digital minutes at the centre, and sweeping seconds at 6 o’clock. The Granit comes with deep blue colors on the numerals, while Sand has a lighter navy.

Inside, you’ll find a new movement, the calibre C.85757. It’s a hand-wound movement built on the Peseux architecture, beating at 21,600vph, with a 48 hour power reserve. The movement has hand-guilloché on the wheel bridge and radial Côtes de Genève on rhodium-plated bridges. The watch come son a black nubuck leather strap.

The new Chronoswiss Neo Digiteur is limited to 99 pieces per color, priced at €13,800. See more on the Chronoswiss website.

6/

Capek Celebrates 10 Years With The Time Jumper, A Jumping Hour Guichet Watch Unlike Any Other

Czapek, the company that we know today, is curiously young. It was only revived in 2015, but it reaches back into a long history of watchmaking influenced by its namesake, François Czapek. Over the years they’ve made some extremely interesting watches, but their 10-year celebratory one might just take the cake. Drawing inspiration from pocket watches, with a fair bit of very modern design hidden just under the surface, the new Czapek Time Jumper comes with a patent-pending 24-hour jumping hours and dragging minutes display, and it’s a montre à guichets, with a guilloche pattern lid that has one of the coolest party tricks you’ll see in a while.

The most basic of things to say about the watch is that you get a choice of case materials, either stainless steel or 18k yellow 3N gold. The case measures 40.5mm wide and 12.35mm thick. And then things get weird, in the most wonderful way possible. The watch is pebble shaped, with a cover over the entire front that has a guilloche insert done in white or yellow gold . The pattern is an evolution of the vortex-like Singularité guilloché created for the Antarctique Tourbillon, creating an optical illusion that spirals towards the center. That’s because the center has a bubble-shaped opening that reveals the jumping hours, with below that is an arched opening for the minute disc. The cool thing happens when you hit the pusher between the lugs, which springs open the cover, revealing a full box sapphire crystal. Looks amazing. Water resistance is 30 meters.

There’s no dial to speak of, just a series of incredible sapphire crystal. The hours use two sapphire discs, while the minutes are laser-engraved on the bigger sapphire crystal that have a transparent blue background. Both minutes and hours are filled with lume and it looks like a spaceship inside.

Inside, you’ll find a brand new in-house movement called the calibre 10.01, which is an automatic developed to have an adaptable architecture that will serve as a base for future variants. It beats at 4Hz and has a 60 hour power reserve, but there’s so much more to it. For example, to ensure no bounce on the jump hour, Czapek developed a patent pending solution of driving the 24-hour display on two discs, a simple solution that nobody really uses. The watch comes on a blue rubber strap closed with a steel pin buckle.

The new Czapek Time Jumper will be limited to 100 pieces in steel, priced at CHF 42,000, and 30 pieces in gold, priced at CHF 64,000. Both of these prices are without tax. See more on the Czapek website.

7/

The Breguet Classique Souscription 2025 Wins the GPHG 2025 Aiguille d’Or, Dennison Takes Challenge Prize

Last night we saw the 2025 edition of the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève, the Oscars of the watch industry. Before I tell you anything else, I’ll just boast and say that I tied for first place with two gentlemen with excellent taste in The Real Time Show WhatsApp group for who will win what category.

The top prize, the prestigious Aiguille d’Or, was awarded to the Breguet Classique Souscription 2025, a fitting homage to both the brand’s 250th anniversary and the legacy of Abraham-Louis Breguet himself. Eschewing the recent trend of ultra-thin feats and hyper-complications, the jury selected a deceptively simple, single-hand timepiece that distills Breguet’s DNA into its purest form.

On a more personal note, one of the most exciting highlights of the evening came from the Petite Aiguille Prize, where M.A.D. Editions won with the M.A.D.2 Green. Max Büsser’s playful, democratic approach to watchmaking continues to resonate strongly, and seeing M.A.D. Editions triumph underlines how much enthusiasm there is for accessible high-creativity watch design.

Equally gratifying was the win in the Challenge Watch Prize category: Dennison’s Natural Stone Tiger Eye . This was an especially heartwarming moment. The folks over at Dennison make fantastic stuff and I love that they won. For the full prize list, head on over to the GPHG website.

FOR WATCH CLUB MEMBERS Your Next Watch, Week 59: A Smooth Rolex; A Duo Of UGs; A Strange Bulova; And A Super Sharp Porsche Design

We continue with our exploration of watches we shouldn't spend our money on, but most likely will. Read it here.

FOR WATCH CLUB MEMBERS Watch School Wednesday: The Watch Caseback, From Protection to Style

A dive into how watch casebacks safeguard delicate movements. 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

• The Riyadh Comedy Festival 2025, Saudi Arabia’s first major international comedy event, combined big-name comedians like Louis C.K., Bill Burr, and Jimmy Carr with strict censorship and a controlled political environment. Part of the kingdom’s Vision 2030 to modernize and attract global attention, the festival offered a surreal glimpse into a society balancing tradition with emerging cultural openness amid ongoing human rights controversies and state control.

• Celebrating a century of Americana, "100 Years of the Motel" shines a neon-lit spotlight on the evolution of roadside motels from their 1925 debut as the Milestone Mo-Tel. With their signature glowing signs, inviting swimming pools, and vivid kitsch, motels became icons of freedom, adventure, and the enduring American dream of hitting the open road.

• Stavros Halkias, a self-deprecating comedian known for his raw humor and crowd work, is emerging from his origins as a co-host of the cult-favorite podcast "Cum Town" to mainstream success with stand-up specials and TV roles. Balancing provocative, sometimes divisive comedy with unflinching self-awareness, Halkias explores fame, identity, and resilience while expanding his reach and reshaping his career.

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

Continuing with the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame theme from the other day, and knowing my love of Warren Zevon, this one hits in the feels.

Thanks for reading,
Vuk