Grand Seiko Shrinks Down The Flakes To 33mm; Brellum's Valentines Day Baby Blue MOP Duobox; New Acetate Bristons; A First Meteorite Gerald Charles Maestro 2.0; Hublot And Samuel Ross Team Up Again

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. No, your inbox isn’t broken, there wasn’t an issue yesterday. But no worries, things are on track. Two interesting releases today — the Brellum and the Bristons. I like them both.

In this issue

• Grand Seiko Shrinks Down The Flakes Down To 33mm With A New Slim Quartz Movement

• Brellum Gives Us A Baby Blue Mother-Of-Pearl Dial Smaller Duobox Chronometer For Valentines This Year

• Briston Continues Doing Great Stuff With Acetate Cases, Now Available In Three Streamliner Kennedy Variants

• Gerald Charles Releases First Maestro 2.0 With A Meteorite Dial And Small Seconds

• Hublot And Artist Samuel Ross Team Up For A Fourth Time, But Now With Way Less Holes

• FOR WATCH CLUB MEMBERS Historical Perspectives: The Great Factory Heist, Or How Seiko (Maybe) Stole Switzerland’s Edge

👂What’s new

1/

Grand Seiko Shrinks Down The Flakes Down To 33mm With A New Slim Quartz Movement

Grand Seikos are kind of starting to blend into one uninteresting watch to me, so it’s kind of hard to keep track of what’s new. The same could be said for the new SBGX359 “Snowflake” and SBGX361 “Skyflake,” the latest additions to the Heritage collection. Only, they just look the same as other releases in photos. In reality, these are quite different as they come in a 33mm case. To get their 9F quartz movement into such a small case, GS is also releasing a newly developed Caliber 9F51. This could be an interesting development

The new models come in stainless steel cases that measure 33mm wide and 9.1mm thick, which are interesting dimensions. While they could easily be unisex, they can also be marketed towards women and the fact that Grand Seiko didn’t launch them with a pink dial is commendable. The case has a finely brushed finish and Zaratsu polished edges that always look good. On top is a double domed sapphire crystal, surrounded by a polished unmarked bezel. The crown screws down and you get 100 meters of water resistance.

The dials are familiar, as the Snowflake and Skyflake dials are staples of Grand Seiko. The Snowflake has a texture that, not surprisingly, is made to look like freshly fallen snow and it’s rendered in fully white, while the Skyflake has the same texture, but with a pale blue color. Both dials have faceted applied hour markers and dauphine-style hands. A heat-blued steel seconds hand adds contrast against the textured background and there’s no date aperture.

Inside is the new Caliber 9F51, which is the smallest 9F quartz movement, measuring 26.40mm wide and just 2.2mm thick. There’s a lot of Grand Seiko technical details in the movement, stuff like the Twin Pulse Control Motor, which generates the torque required to drive the hands, and the Backlash Auto-Adjust Mechanism which makes sure that the seconds hand aligns cleanly with each index by eliminating vibration and minimizing any unwanted play. Annual accuracy is rated at ±10 seconds. The watches come on stainless steel bracelets closed with tri-folding clasps.

The new Grand Seiko SBGX359 “Snowflake” and SBGX361 “Skyflake” are part of the regular collection and go on sale in April. Price is set at €3,300 for either version. See more on the Grand Seiko website.

2/

Brellum Gives Us A Baby Blue Mother-Of-Pearl Dial Smaller Duobox Chronometer For Valentines This Year

Despite looking like they dropped right out of the 1960s, Brellum is actually a fairly new company, only about wight years old. So it makes perfect sense that they are still filling up their lineup. People fell in love with their Duobox, a very classic chronograph that was powered by a Valjoux 7750 COSC-certified movement. However, a few had issues with its case size of almost 42mm. This, of course, is a pretty standard size for chronographs, as sub 40mm ones are pretty rare. Brellum fixed this complaint last year when they introduced the 39mm version of the Duobox Chronometer. Now, just like last year for Valentine’s day, Brellum is releasing a limited mother-of-pearl dial Duobox Chronometer, but now in a baby blue instead of pink.

There’s a pretty good reason why so many chronographs are 40mm and larger, especially if they don’t use in-house chronograph movements. A chronograph, especially an off-the-shelf one, takes up a lot of vertical space. And if you go for a case smaller than 40mm, the ratios of proportions start feelign off. I haven’t seen this new Duobox live, but it could be the case here because it measures 39mm wide, with a fairly long 48mm lug-to-lug, but has a 15.3mm thickness to fit the movement. OK, to be fair, the case measures just 11.05mm thick, the rest is space used for the box-style sapphire crystals on top and bottom, so it could fit much better than the size suggests. The stainless steel case has satin finished surfaces with polished pushers and bezel. Water resistance is great at 100 meters.

The new very light blue dial is made even more delicate with the use of mother-of-pearl, which gives the dial a subtle shimmer in the light. You get the regular Duobox tri-compax layout with a 30 minute totaliser at 3, 12 hour totaliser at 6 with date aperture and small seconds at 9 o’clock. Around the periphery is a pulsometer scale. The hour markers are applied and diamond-cut, filled with lume, just like the hands.

The smaller Duobox models no longer have the Valjoux cam-and-lever chronograph. Instead, you get the La Joux-Perret L110 automatic with a column wheel. It beats at 4Hz and has a 60 hour power reserve. It has a rose gold-coated rotor and the column wheel is blued. The watch comes with two straps, a stainless steel bracelet and a white leather strap.

The new Brellum Duobox 39 Mother-of-Pearl Chronometer Blue is a limited edition, but not as limited as the pink one. The pink was made in just 17 pieces, but the blue comes in 46 pieces. Price is set at CHF 3,190, with included taxes. See more on the Brellum website.

3/

Briston Continues Doing Great Stuff With Acetate Cases, Now Available In Three Streamliner Kennedy Variants

There’s only so many ways one can design a watch, right? It’s a square or circle on your wrist and that’s pretty much it. You could experiment with shapes, colors, positioning of elements, but they all kind of end up looking the same. Well, it seems that Briston, an independent French brand, it’s doing its hardest to give their watches — at least on the outside — a unique look. Very few watches managed to drop my jaw, and stuff that Briston has been doing has been doing exactly that. And even fewer watches out there manage to impress me with their material, just like Briston did with their watches made out of tortoise-shell acetate. Yeah, that stuff your glasses are made out of. It’s an incredibly cool look. Now, they’re updating their Streamliner Kennedy collection with three different models, each available in four colors.

Starting with the Streamliner Kennedy automatic, it’s the most classic of the trio of models. The case is made out of 316L stainless steel and just like the other two releases, it features side flanks in Italian-made tortoiseshell acetate that are hand polished for a very unique setup. The case is square, meaning that it measures 36 x 36mm, with very minimal lugs and a thickness of just 10mm. On top is a sapphire crystal and the crown sits at 12 o’clock with a lapis lazuli or a malachite cabochon. Water resistance is 50 meters. The dials have a sandwich construction, with sunray finishes on the top part, with cutouts for the Roman numerals at 3, 6, 9 and 12, and cutouts for the Arabic numerals at the other positions. The available colors are blue, green, white and black. The central section is set lower than the rest, with a railway minute track and guilloché pattern. Time is indicated with dauphine-style brushed hands. Inside, you’ll find the well known Miyota 9039 automatic movement which beats at 4Hz and has a 42 hour power reserve. The blue and green watches come with color matched calfskin leather straps with an alligator pattern, while the white and black come on steel bracelets. Price is set at €850 on leather and €915 on the bracelet. See more here.

Then, we have the smaller HM medium model. The case is almost exactly the same, with the side flanks in Italian-made tortoiseshell acetate and the crown at 12 o’clock, but now in a smaller size — 30 x 30mm, with a thickness of 8mm. The one major change is the switch from sapphire crystal to a mineral crystal. The dials are also exactly the same, save for a smaller size. Inside, you’ll find the Swiss Ronda Normtech 751 quartz movement that has a battery life of 7 years. You can get the watches on color matched nylon NATO straps or steel bracelets. . Price is set at €420 on NATO and €525 on the bracelet. See the watches here.

Last, there’s a chronograph version of the Streamliner Kennedy. The case now measures 38.5 x 38.5mm, with a thickness of 11.25mm. this one, obviously, gets a lot of change. The tortoiseshell acetate sides remain the same, but now the crown moves from 12 to 3 o’clock, flanked by two flat pushers. The crown still has the lapis lazuli or malachite cabochon and on top you’ll still find a mineral crystal. Water resistance remains the same. The dials are also familiar, but now with added beveled chronograph counters. Inside, you’ll find the Miyota JS20 quartz movement which has a 60-minute counter at 9 o'clock, chronograph second counter at 6 o'clock /24-hour indicator at 3 o'clock. The watches come on either vulcanized FKM rubber straps or metal bracelets. Price is set at €500 on rubber and €525 on steel. See more on the Briston website.

4/

Gerald Charles Releases First Maestro 2.0 With A Meteorite Dial And Small Seconds

Gérald Charles has an interesting history behind it. It was founded in 2000 by the legend of the industry, Gérald Genta. But a lot has happened since that time. The brand changed names and, it seems, philosophies. It’s never a good look when there are multiple articles out there with the title “is Gérald Charles a scam”. But that’s a much broader discussion on modern brand revivals, one best left for another time. However, about a month ago and without me noticing, Gérald Charles came out with a meteorite dial/small seconds Maestro 2.0 that i kind of like.

The case of the Maestro remains kind of unchanged, at least in size. The case is still made out of 35 pieces of steel, with the recognizable stepped bezel and rounded octagonal shape, and it measures 39mm wide, 9mm thick and has a 41mm length. There are two case finishes available: the Silver model comes with a polished steel case, while the Black model has a blasted finished case that has a dark grey appearance. Despite the dressy-look, it has a 100 meters of water resistance, which is a pleasant surprise.

Both versions of the dial feature are made out of slivers of the Muonionalusta meteorite, each matching the theme of the watch — the Silver model gets a white meteorite dial, while the Black gets an anthracite dial. Both of them have a cut-out exploding star shape at 6 o’clock that shows parts of the lower aluminium baseplate, red anodised on the Black and rhodium-finished opaline on the Silver. These look like impact points for a meteor on the dial. Both versions have a railroad track for the minutes around the edge of the dial, as well as Roman numerals and baton indexes that are knocked off their axis, playing more into the meteor impact look.

Inside, you’ll find the GCA2011 automatic. The movement is made by Vaucher Manufacture Fleurier, beats at 4Hz and has a 50 hour power reserve. The movement is decorated with circular graining, Côtes de Genève, colimaçon finishing, and yellow gold engravings. The watches come with two straps each: one rubber and one fabric with a Velcro closure, matching the colors of the dials.

The new Maestro 2.0 Meteorite is limited to 100 pieces per colorway and priced at €21,000 for the Silver and €22,000 for the Black. See more on the Gérald Charles website.

5/

Hublot And Artist Samuel Ross Team Up For A Fourth Time, But Now With Way Less Holes

Hublot is very well known for their collaborations with extremely popular artists. Very often, these artists have made a name for themselves more as marketers than skilled artists that have something to say. Kind of ironic, that is, especially when you know that Hublot is accused of the same thing. But that aside, three years ago Hublot released a collection with artist and designer Samuel Ross that looked unlike anything else that Hublot made. Hublot has been known for their huge, bold and distinctive watches and yet, Ross seemed to be able to make them even crazier with a lot of skeletonization, honeycomb patterns and bright orange colors. Two years ago they did the same in lime green. Last year, they did the same in blue. Now, however, the duo is releasing the Big Bang Unico SR_A, which is an entirely different watch — gone are the honeycomb patterns, the wild colors and the tourbillon movement, replaced by an all black skeletonized look.

While the overall shape remains very familiar, with the lateral bumpers, it’s actually a smaller watch than previous releases. But not by much. The case is now fully made out of black high-tech ceramic, with satin brushed finishes and black plated titanium screws on the bezel, lateral bumpers and lug attachment. It now measures 42mm wide and a significant 14.5mm thick. On the right side are the rounded pushers you know from the Unico, and an oversized black crown. Water resistance is 100 meters.

The dial is skeletonized and matte black, familiar from other Unico chronographs. There’s a flange on the perimeter that holds not just the grey minute track, but also the black dots that act as hour markers. The dial is mostly made up of two large skeletonized sub-dials, a 60-minute chronograph register at 3 o’clock and a smaller sub-dial at 9 o’clock for the running seconds. You also see the full calendar disc, with a frame within the 3 o’clock aperture. The hour and minute hands, as well as the two hands in the counter, have rounded tips.

Inside the watch is the self-winding Caliber HUB1280 Unico Manufacture flyback chronograph movement that can be found inside other models from the current-production series. Running at a frequency of 28,800 (4 Hz) and offering users a power reserve of 72 hours, the 43-jewel Hublot Cal. HUB1280 is a 354-component column wheel-controlled flyback chronograph that places its column wheel on the dial side of its structure to allow users to view its operation through the skeletonized dial. The watch comes on a black rubber strap that has the Samuel Ross honeycomb motif we saw make the case in previous versions.

The new Hublot Big Bang Unico SR_A is available now, limited to 200 pieces and priced at €30,600. See more on the Hublot website.

FOR WATCH CLUB MEMBERS Your Next Watch, Week 67: A Great Deal On A Piaget; A Duo Of Vintage Chronographs; A Fantastic Ana-Digi Omega; And A Stunning Rolex Dial

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

• These days, watching TV—shows, sports, and special events—means juggling and paying for multiple streaming subscriptions. Writing for The Verge, Janko Roettgers reports on the growing popularity of rogue streaming boxes like SuperBox and vSeeBox, which are showing up in more and more households across the US. The boxes operate in a legal gray area, but many consumers, fed up with being nickel and dimed, don’t seem to care. Instead, they’re willing to pay several hundred dollars upfront for the promise of never paying for cable or streaming subscriptions again. But what are the real risks — for resellers and for consumers?

• One Wednesday morning, The Washington Post laid off roughly one-third of its staff, or about 300 people. It was nothing short of a bloodbath, inflicted by the Post‘s owner, Jeff Bezos, the fourth-richest person in the world. And for what? To what end? Here, Ashley Parker, a lifelong Post reader and former staffer, reflects on what’s being destroyed.

• The southern rockhopper penguins are as fascinating as they are feisty. These little birds are both extreme athletes and extremely vocal—not afraid to pick a fight in their colonies perched high on the rocky coastline of the Falkland Islands. Cheryl Katz spends time with the researchers monitoring two of these colonies to discover how these big‑personality birds are faring in a rapidly changing world.

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

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Thanks for reading,
Vuk