Hamilton Releases New Divers, A Khaki Navy Scuba Duo And A Black Khaki Navy Frogman; Sinn Nods To Frankfurt Architecture; Certina's Matte Gold And Black Big Dates; Benrus Pays Homage To Steve McQueen

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. I haven’t really told you much about Geneva and Watches and Wonder, but Benrus just reminded me how good the fair was. I met with the brand there and they told me their whole history. It’s an incredibly cool story! I will write it up soon!

In this issue:

• Hamilton Releases New Divers, A Khaki Navy Scuba Duo And A Black Khaki Navy Frogman

• Sinn Celebrates 10 Years Of Frankfurt Shop With 1739 Römerberg That Nods To The City’s Architecture

• Certina Adds PVD Coated Black And Gold Cases To The DS-1 Big Date

• Benrus Pays Homage To Steve McQueen And His Legendary Bullitt Mustang

👂What’s new

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Hamilton Releases New Divers, A Khaki Navy Scuba Duo And A Black Khaki Navy Frogman

Field watches are certainly Hamilton’s bread and butter. But of course, they also make watches in other genres. Like, for example, their divers. From small(ish) retro divers, all the way to super rugged tool watches, they are trying to cover the wides possible lineup of diving tools. Now, the brand is introducing three new dive watch — two new Khaki Navy Scuba Auto GMT watches and a black Khaki Navy Frogman.

Let’s start with the more conventional Khaki Navy Scuba Auto GMT, an update to the model they released just four years ago. It looks like a diver of old, but measures way more modern. The case is available in either stainless steel or bronze, and measures 43mm wide and 13.9mm thick. On top is a bidirectional bezel with a black ceramic insert that has a simple and good looking 24 hour track. This is also a very rugged watch, with a sapphire crystal on top, large guards for the crown and a 300 meter water resistance.

There are two dials to choose from, one for each of the cases. The stainless steel version comes with a textured white dial, while the bronze version gets a black dial. They both feature applied dots and trapezoids at 3, 6, 9, and 12 for hour makers, with light green Super-LumiNova painted inside. The same lume can be found on the hands, while the GMT hands are done in red. There’s a date aperture at 3 o’clock.

Inside both watches is the H-14 automatic movement, which is based on the Powermatic 80, with a traveler style GMT module on top. That means you adjust the main hour hand in one hour increments as you travel. The movement beats at 3Hz and has an 80 hour power reserve. The steel watch comes on a 3-link stainless steel bracelet closed with a folding clasp, while the bronze one comes on a black textile NATO strap with golden stripes.

The new Khaki Navy Scuba Auto GMT duo is on sale now and priced at €1,445 for the steel version and €1,595 for the bronze version. You can see the steel version here and the bronze version here.

Then, we have the much bolder Khaki Navy Frogman, now available in a black PVD case. While there is a smaller 41mm option, this new version comes in only the oversized case that measures 46mm wide and 13.6mm thick. It’s made even larger with a bumper on the left side of the case and a huge protective cage around the crown at 3. On top is a sapphire crystal surrounded by a an all-black bezel that matches the black case and has a 60-minute scale in positive relief. Water resistance is 300 meters.

The dial is fairly simple, with a matte grained black base that has nickeled hour markers and hands, filled with white Super-LumiNova, above it. The minute and seconds hands get orange details, as we’ve seen before on these black Frogmans, and there’s more orange on the text above 6 o’clock.

Inside you’ll find the calibre H-10, which is essentially the Powermatic 80, which beats at 3Hz and has the 80 hour power reserve. The movement also has a Nivachron hairspring for resistance to magnetism and temperature fluctuations. The watch comes on a vented black rubber strap.

The new Khaki Navy Frogman doesn’t seem to be on the website just yet, but it will be priced at €1,445, which is in line with other black PVD versions. Keep an eye out on the Hamilton website to see when they show up.

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Sinn Celebrates 10 Years Of Frankfurt Shop With 1739 Römerberg That Nods To The City’s Architecture

For decades now Sinn has been synonymous with rugged, no nonsense, tool watches. These come in chunky cases, dials that could be described as quite plain and functional and with fantastic features. Very rarely will you see something resembling a dress watch from them. And yet… Here we are, with Sinn releasing one of their dressiest watches to date. It’s the Sinn 1739 Römerberg, a watch that not only pays tribute to Frankfurt’s historic architecture, but also marks the 10th anniversary of the opening of the SINN Römerberg Branch at the prestigious Rathausplatz in Frankfurt’s historic old town.

The 1739 Römerberg is a rather simple watch, a fully round case with short and slightly angular lugs, and a rather onion-like crown on the right side. The case is fully polished and has a super thin bezel on top, holding down a sapphire crystal. It measures 39mm wide and just 9.1mm thick. But despite the classy looks, it’s still Sinn, so the crystal and case have been made to resist low pressure environments. It’s also water resistant to 100 meters.

But it’s the dial that is most strikingly different than what you might expect from Sinn. It’s a sunray brushed crimson red base with a sunken central part. The crimson red color is supposed to represent the red Main sandstone that’s used on the outside of the Sinn boutique in the Rathausplatz. On the outer top part you get applied and long gold colored hour markers that extend into the sunken part. There’s not much more to the dial other than the very thin gold colored hands, a gold Sinn logo and a “Frankfurt am Main” text below it that might prove to be slightly controversial.

Inside, you’ll find a very familiar movement, the Sellita SW300. It beats at 4Hz, has a 56 hour power reserve and Sinn points out that it’s anti-magnetic as per DIN 8309. The watch comes with a black calfskin strap and a burgundy Alcantara one.

The new Sinn 1739 Römerberg is limited to 100 pieces and still available. The price is set at €2,150. See more on the Sinn website.

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Certina Adds PVD Coated Black And Gold Cases To The DS-1 Big Date

Certina is a brand that might be struggling a bit with their direction, and I don’t mean this in a bad way. If they’re not 100% sure where they are heading, they might end up making something immensely cool. But they also risk putting out something that’s a bit… not cool. I’ll leave you to decide what their new watch is — these are the new Certina DS-1 Big Date watches that come with two very different shades of matte PVD — a black and a gold.

These are not new watches, as we’ve seen the Big Date DS-1 models before. The news here are the new PVD coatings on the case, a matte gold and a matte black. The cases are fairly simple, with faceted lugs and a plain fixed bezel on top that holds down the sapphire crystal. They measure 41mm wide and 11.9mm thick, so nothing really remarkable here. Water resistance is also as expected, 100 meters.

Each of the models gets its own dial color — the matte black comes with a sunray brushed black dial, while the matte gold watch gets a sunray brushed blue dial. The watches share the rest of the details — they have faceted indices (silver colored on the black and gold on the blue), faceted dauphine-shaped hands and the big date double-opening at 6 o’clock that’s framed in either silver or gold. The large date wheels seen have a white background.

Inside, to no surprise, you’ll find Swatch Group’s Powermatic 80 movement. It features a Nivachron balance spring, beats at 3Hz and has that really nice 80 hour power reserve. The black watch comes on a matching black PVD bracelet, while the gold colored watch comes on a blue leather strap that matches the dial color.

The new Certina DS-1 Big Date duo is available now, as part of the regular collection, with price set at CHF 875 for the gold PVD version and CHF 895 for the black PVD version. See more on the Certina website.

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Benrus Pays Hommage To Steve McQueen And His Legendary Bullitt Mustang

The Benrus story is a really cool one, and I will likely tell it soon. But most people know Benrus as the maker of some of the best military watches in history, watches worn by U.S. soldiers during World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. But they’re not all about supplying soldiers with watches. They also had pretty well established relationships with celebrities. Charles Lindbergh wore a Benrus, as did Babe Ruth. So did Steve McQueen, in one of his most well known movies, Bullitt. And modern Benrus is now paying homage to that exact watch. This is the new Benrus 3061 GT.

Housed in a fairly traditional case, it measures 39.5mm wide and a pretty great 9.95mm thick. The stainless steel case has a combination of brushed and polished finishes and on top is a sapphire crystal. The onion-style crown screws down to give you 100 meters of water resistance.

But while the case is rather standard, the dial is very much a showpiece here. It’s painted in Highland Green, as an homage to the Ford Mustang GT Fastback that McQueen drove in Bullitt. More reference to the Mustang can be found on the seconds hand, which is styled to look like a speed indicator from the dashboard of the 1968 model, but here rendered in orange. The base of the dial also has a square grid patter, which hints at the grid pattern of San Francisco streets on which Bullitt chased the Dodge Charger R/T 440. It’s also of note that this is a California-style dial, meaning you get Roman numerals on the upper half and Arabic numerals on the lower half, with a smaller 24-hour scale towards the centre of the dial. At 6, you’ll find the very well integrated date aperture which has a green disc inside.

Inside, you’ll find the increasingly rare automatic ETA 2892 movement. It beats at 4Hz and has a 42 hour power reserve. The watch comes on an orange leather strap with a rubber lining, and the orange pairs with the green dial spectacularly.

The new Benrus 3061 GT is available now, and as far as I can tell, this isn’t a limited edition. Price is set at $1,800. See more on the Benrus website.

⏲️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

• A couple of months ago, a Russian crossed Croatia to enter Bosnia and Herzegovina where he was arrested under suspicion of coordinating acts of sabotage against Poland, the US, and other allies. As it turns out, he was hiding explosives in shipments of sex toys in order to bring down planes. The Guardian has a deep dive into this crazy story.

• Hounded by film censors, decried in the local press, David Cronenberg stuck to his perverse vision. Canada tried to shut him down, but he has now become the grand old man of cinema. Love to see it.

• I didn’t stop to watch it, but I recently saw that the movie Shattered Glass was on TV. It actually wasn’t a bad film, but the article was, arguably even better. And I feel that an article on journalistic integrity, deceit and acting to be something you’re not is very on point these days.

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

In this episode of Vox Almanac, Phil Edwards explores the history of Technicolor: both the technology and the company. Many people recognize Technicolor from The Wizard of Oz, but the technology existed long before then. Two strip Technicolor and three strip Technicolor both revolutionized the film industry and shaped the look of 20th century film.

Thanks for reading,
Vuk