Nomos Updates The Club Sport Neomatik Worldtimer; Seiko And Bamford's Seiko 5; Formex In Ceramic; Ochs Und Junior's Holiday Watch; Piaget's Khaki Green Ultra Thin Watches; A New Glashütte Original

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. Sorry everybody, I had a thing to take care of yesterday so we missed a day. Won’t happen again for the foreseeable future. Let’s go back to our regular scheduled programing. But, before we do, let’s all say happy third birthday to my dearest friends from The Real Time Show, one of the two best watch podcasts on the market. They’ve talked to hundreds of the most influential people in the watch industry and if you want to know more about how this whole game is played, there’s no better source.

KIND OF IMPORTANT: I’m looking for someone to help me out with building up the ad side of this newsletter. If you think this is you, drop me a note

In this issue

• Nomos Updates The Club Sport Neomatik Worldtimer With Night Navigation Colors

• Seiko And Bamford Team Up For A Really Interesting Take On The Seiko 5

• Formex Gives Us The Sporty Essence In A Ceramic Case And A Bunch Of Great Dials

• Ochs Und Junior Celebrates Day/Night Again With The Holiday Edition 2025

• Piaget Brings Khaki Green To Their Ultra Thin Altiplano Collection

• Glashütte Original Launches The Aventurine Dial PanoMaticLunar Anniversary Edition

• 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/

Nomos Updates The Club Sport Neomatik Worldtimer With Night Navigation Colors

Easily one of my favorite watches of this yeas is the Nomos Club Sport Neomatik Worldtimer. I was already a fan of the Club Sport from Nomos, but the addition of a really cleverly made and well integrated world timer function just put it over the top. Add to it some pretty incredible colors, and I was sold. Only, a lot of people had the same idea as me, so they sold out pretty quickly. I wasn’t that upset with it because it was obvious to everyone, including Nomos, that they stumbled on a huge hit and that more colors would be coming soon. Now, as Nomos held their Forum — a get together of partners, retailers and media — they introduced the first of the new colors with the Night Navigation series, inspired by nighttime travel.

The case remains the same, which means that it comes in a fully polished stainless steel case that measures 40mm wide and 9.9mm thick. Nomos is known for their extra long lugs, but on the Club, they aren’t as intense, so the watch measures 48mm from lug to lug. On top is a slightly domed sapphire crystal and water resistance is 100 meters.

The dial also keeps the most recognizable segment of the Club Sport — the combination of thick Arabic numerals and baton indices. There’s a small seconds sub-dial like on other Club watches, but this is where similarities stop. Around the periphery of the dial is a ring that displays a mix of airport codes and abbreviations of city names, with a red marking at 12 indicating which time zone is displayed, and there’s a new sub-dial at 3 o’clock which shows you your home time. The way the flyer-style GMT movement moves is just cool. Press the pusher at 2 o’clock and you advance the city ring, as well as the main hour hand of the watch, to tell the time around the world. Your local time remains fixed on the small sub-dial and you advance that by either adjusting the time through the crown or with a small inset pusher at 8 o’clock to jump just the hours. Very cool.

I was very much a fan of the original colors, and these new ones, while not for me, seem to have even more fans. All three versions have a black galvanised dials with a sunburst finish, which are then finished in various colors. The Worldtimer Trace colorway uses turquoise Super-LumiNova on the hands and hour indices, Worldtimer Grid features brown, yellow and orange SLN and the Worldtimer Vector gets black, olive and ecru lume.

Despite Nomos already having a world timer complication in the Zürich, this model got a brand new in-house movement at Watches and Wonders, the DUW 3202. And it’s super thin, especially for an automatic, at 4.8mm. You get 42 hours of power reserve and the movement is decorated with Glashütte ribbing, perlage, and sunburst finishes, as well as a golden globe on the rotor. The watches come on brushed and polished three-link stainless steel bracelets.

Just like part of the initial run of the Club Sport Neomatik Worldtimer, the Night Navigation collection is also limited to 175 pieces per color. Price remains the same at €3,940. See more on the Nomos website.

2/

Seiko And Bamford Team Up For A Really Interesting Take On The Seiko 5

I hardly ever write about sold out watches here. There’s not much of a point to it — why tell you about a new watch if you can’t buy it. Every now and again, a watch comes out and sells out so fast that my publish cycle doesn’t allow me to mention it. And even rarer are the occasions when I feel genuinely bad about it, because I love the limited watch. This is one of those watches. This is the Seiko 5 Sports x Bamford Limited Edition and it sold out in minutes yesterday. But I’m still writing about it because I will be catching this on the secondary, for sure.

The case that this collaboration comes in is inspired by the best of Seiko from the 1960s and 1980s, which means short and rounded lugs, as well as the protected crown at 4 o’clock. It’s made out go stainless steel and measures 42.5mm wide, 13.4mm thick and has a 46mm lug-to-lug. On top is a curved hardlex crystal surrounded by a unidirectional bezel with a very groovy black insert that has its full 60 minute graduation done with small white blocks at the foot of the ring. The first 20 minutes, however, have an orange highlight instead of white. Water resistance is 100 meters.

But white that detail on the bezel is cool, this is all about the dial. It’s a translucent crystal that’s tinted teal so you can see the entire day-date function inside, with twin discs showing the days of the week in both English and Japanese on the inner disc and a date on the outer track. That’s paired with an orange lollipop seconds hand, orange arrow minute hand and blue hour hand, as well as applied hour markers, all of which have plenty of lume. Very good looking thing.

Inside, you’ll find the 4R36 movement which beats at 3Hz and has a 41 hour power reserve. It won’t win any accuracy competitions, but it will tick for a while. The watch comes on a black nato strap with twin blue strips and an orange strip down the middle that’s also lumed, which is just too cool.

The new Seiko 5 Sports x Bamford Limited Edition was made in only 2,025 pieces, priced at £400 in the UK Seiko boutique. Like I said, these went fast, but I already set up alerts to see when one pops up in the secondary market. See more on the Seiko website.

3/

Formex Gives Us The Sporty Essence In A Ceramic Case And A Bunch Of Great Dials

I’m getting a bit boring with my fawning over Formex, but my 180 on the brand was just that strong at Watches and Wonders. It was the first time that I have had a chance to handle a Formex watch and it completely changed my impression of the entire brand. Before W&W, I thought of Formex as a decent looking, well built brand with a couple of interesting quirks, but it did little for me on the emotional level. The moment I held one in my hand, I realized how incredibly cool these watches are. I’m grateful for that. 2025 is a big year for the brand, as they are celebrating 25 years, and they recently introduced a new mid-sized 41mm case to the sporty Essence collection. Now, they’re moving the Essence to new territories with a 41mm Essence Ceramica in full ceramic with some groovy dials and a new bespoke movement.

The case the new models use the new 41mm wide case that wears much better than their dimensions would suggest. That’s thanks to the compact 46.2mm lug-to-lug and 11.2mm thickness. The case is made out of black zirconium oxide ceramic, which is supposed to be light and scratch resistant, and has a brushed finish with diamond-polished bevels. The case has their patented Case Suspension System which allows the centre of the case to flex a bit, for ultimate comfort. Water resistance is 100 meters.

This is not the first ceramic Essence we got. The previous version was a limited edition that featured a skeletonized dial. This new release gets full dials in four colors — Gamaret, Degradé, Blue and White — all featuring CNC-machined horizontal grooves and applied faceted indices. The hands are brushed on top and mirror polished on the bevels, and filled with BGW9 Super-LumiNova, just like the indices. At 6 o’clock is a date aperture.

Also new here is the movement, the Soprod Newton P092, developed by Soprod for Formex. It beats at 4Hz, a 44 hour power reserve, a construction that makes it more resistant to shocks and vibrations and it’s COSC certified. The watches come on matching ceramic bracelets which have a really, really cool micro-adjustment system that allows for adjustments without removing the watch.

The new Essence Ceramica watches are available for pre order right now and deliveries are expected at the end of October. Price is set at €4,100, with my high taxes of 25%. See more on the Formex website.

4/

Ochs Und Junior Celebrates Day/Night Again With The Holiday Edition 2025

Even watch enthusiasts, let alone the general public, will struggle to come up with names of great watch designers and watchmakers. Gerald Genta is a well known name in watch circles. But less people know who Emmanuel Gueit and Eric Giroud are. Konstantin Chaykin, Kari Voutilainen and Francois-Paul Journe are all well known watchmakers because they have eponymous brands. But if you come away from this newsletter with one name that you should know, then it’s Ludwig Oechslin. While his most famous work will certainly be the Ulysse Nardin Freak, Oechslin is best at taking hyper-complex complications and rendering them in a couple of wheels and cogs, leaving everyone scratching their heads and asking how the hell he pulled off a perpetual calendar with just nine parts. And his playground is Ochs und Junior, his brand that he’s been running since 2006. One of my favorites. Now, they’re releasing the Holiday Edition 2025, a watch that has become a tradition for the last seven or eight releases as we approach the end-of-year holidays. This year they based it on their day/night model.

The case of the new day/nigh Holliday Edition is made out of gorgeous unfinished Grade 5 titanium that keeps its machining marks and has the characteristic Ochs und Junior round shape with super short lugs. It measures 40mm wide and a svelte 11mm thick, with a flat sapphire on top. The whole thing weighs just 61 grams, including the strap and buckle. Water resistance is 50 meters.

The dial is even better looking than the case. In the centre is a rhodium-plated dial that has blue markers and hands, sitting above a dial base done in brass on the upper half representing daytime and blue patina finish on the bottom representing nightime, with hand drilled brass stars. Rotating over that sunken daytime and nightime part are a hammered 24k gold sun and a platinum moon. Beautiful.

Powering all of this is an Ulysse Nardin UN-320 automatic calibre base with a 48 hour power reserve, on top of which is a module made by Oechslin that powers the day/night function. Only, like so many Oechslin watches, it’s way more than just a day/night indicator. With just the sun and the moon, two hands and a date aperture it shows sunrise and sunset times, the length of day and night for a selected location in either hemisphere, solar noon, the position of the sun and moon, the moon phase, as well as the date, hour and minute. I love that. The watch comes on a Swiss sturgeon or Ecopell calf leather strap.

The new Ochs und Junior Day/Night Holiday Edition 2025 is available now until January 6, 2026 and orders placed by November 1 will be delivered by December 24. Price is set at CHF 11,000, without tax. See more on the Ochs und Junior website.

5/

Piaget Brings Khaki Green To Their Ultra Thin Altiplano Collection

Going for the thinnest watch in the world is one of the more irrelevant-yet-incredibly-fun efforts in the watch world. Every few months, or years, a brand will come out with the thinnest watch in the world. Only to be knocked off the throne for a few months, before they come back. If Bulgari is the undisputed king of thing watches, then Piaget is the hungry challenger. Last year at Watches and Wonders, Piaget introduced the 2mm thin Altiplano Ultimate Concept Tourbillon, the thinnest tourbillon in the world, taking the crown from Bulgari, a title that Bulgari quickly regained by shaving 1.5mm of Piaget’s already impossibly thin 2mm case. Well, Bulgari is still sitting pretty on that throne, but that doesn’t mean that Piaget isn’t busy with its thin watches. Just recently, they introduced new green colorways of the the slightly thicker Altiplano 910P and the Altiplano Ultimate Concept Tourbillon

Starting with the more conventional of the two, we have a new version of the Altiplano 910P. It’s a thin watch, just not the thinnest in the world. It measures 41mm wide and 4.3mm thick, with this new version being made out of yellow gold. From previous editions it keeps the very cool construction method, where the caseback serves as a main plate for the movement, and it uses a peripheral rotor to cut down on thickness.

There is no traditional dial on this watch, as it cuts down on thickness. Instead, parts of the movement is exposed in the front, while off-centre to the left is a recessed sector dial. The movement and the dial are all done in the new khaki green color, paired with yellow gold hands. Inside is the calibre 910P, an automatic movement that beats at 3Hz and has a 50 hour power reserve. The watch comes on a green alligator strap. Price is set at €39,000. See more on the Piaget website.

Moving on to the really cool watch, the Altiplano Ultimate Concept Tourbillon. The case is made out of cobalt alloy, needed to make the case strong enough to act as a baseplate for the movement. It measures 41.5mm wide and a ridiculous 2mm thick. It takes on the same color as the 910P, the khaki green, which is applied here to parts of the movement, while the rest is done in silver tones and gold accents around the tourbillon cage and on the hands. The movement you see on full display has a 4Hz one-minute tourbillon and a 35 hour power reserve. The watch comes on a textured calfskin strap with Kevlar inserts and price is on request. See more on the website.

6/

Glashütte Original Launches The Aventurine Dial PanoMaticLunar Anniversary Edition

Glashütte Original is not a brand that’s here to blow your hair back with their radical new releases. They are more a brand that iterates not through years, but rather through decades. Some of their models have been in development for more than 40 years in a region that has been making watches for 180 years. To celebrate that milestone of the Glashütte region, Glashütte Original is releasing a very special edition of the PanoMaticLunar. This is the new platinum PanoMaticLunar Anniversary Edition with an aventurine dial and limited to 180 pieces.

The case is very well known. Or, to be more precise, it has well known proportions, measuring 40mm wide, 12.8mm thick, with a 47mm lug-to-lug. What’s new here is the material, as this is the first PanoMaticLunar in platinum. Regardless of the new material, you still get a domed sapphire crystal on both top and bottom, as well as 50 meters of water resistance.

Also new is the dial, this time made out of deep, deep blue aventurine glass. The same material is used for the moon-phase disc at two o’clock, with a moon made out of mother-of-pearl. Other than the new materials, the layout remains the same. That means that you get a hour and minute dial moved to the left of the dial, with a small seconds right below it. At 5 o’clock you’ll find the big date complication, framed with a white gold frame. The hands and applied markers are also made out of white gold, filled with touches of Super-LumiNova.

Inside, you’ll find a brand new movement, the calibre 92-14. Ok, it’s not brand new built from the ground up, but rather based on the outgoing calibre 90-02. The new movement ups the beat rate to 4Hz and the power reserve to 100 hours. While you might not notice the faster beat rate, you will notice the new power reserve, as the previous movement had just 42 hours. Finishings are exactly what you would expect from a brand from Glashütte — a three-quarter plate, blued screws, and hand-finishing. The watch comes on a blue Louisiana alligator leather strap or a blue synthetic strap, both closed with a platinum folding clasp.

The new Glashütte Original PanoMaticLunar Anniversary Edition is limited to 180 pieces and priced at €39,000. See more on the Glashütte Original website.

SPECIAL FEATURE: The Serica 6190 Field Chronometer: Crafting Legacy Through Adventure and Precision

The dawn breaks over a rugged ridge, a spill of amber light softening the sharp contours of an ancient forest and the narrow path threading between wild ferns and moss. A solitary figure kneels on dew-misted grass, fingers deft and steady closing the flap of a weathered journal. On her wrist sits a modest yet compelling timepiece, its matte enamel dial catching the early light, luminous markers glowing faintly after a night beneath the stars. The watch is the Serica 6190 Field Chronometer.

This watch, with its crisp edges and purposeful design, is a living artifact of contemporary culture’s intricate dance with heritage, exploration, and craft. In the quiet of that morning wilderness, it stands at a crossroads where three powerful but distinct cultural threads converge today: the adventurous spirit demanding raw, self-defining experiences; the indelible imprint of military heritage shaping ideals and aesthetics; and a vigorous revival of craftsmanship deeply skeptical of the disposable, digital age.

Adventure culture is far more than just thrill-seeking or travel; it is a way of knowing oneself and the world, an ethos that indicts the mundane and celebrates the unknown. Its roots extend into the human psyche’s quest for meaning through challenge and transformation. Once the realm of heroic explorers and elite adventurers, today’s adventure culture has democratized, propelled by global connectivity, social media, and growing environmental consciousness. More people than ever seek experiences that transcend tourism, pursuing a deeper engagement with nature and themselves—a phenomenon that scholars have described as involving “cross-boundary learners who discover new selves through serendipitous encounters.” This is not mere escapism but a cultural imperative to live fully, authentically, and consciously.

The accessibility of adventure today owes much to technological advances and shifting societal values. High-performance gear once reserved for specialists now reaches broad audiences, while micro-adventures in urban or semi-remote settings supplement longer expeditions. The rise of “coolcations,” where experience supplants excess, and social media platforms showcasing raw, unfiltered personal narratives have embedded adventure deeply within contemporary identity and aspiration. Adventure culture is increasingly seen as a lens on life, a way to cultivate resilience and presence.

Read the rest of this essay here.

FOR WATCH CLUB MEMBERS: Watch School Wednesday: A very basic one - how does watch winding actually work?

From crown to barrel, this is how we power our watches. 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

• The 2014 “Slenderman stabbing” case returns to the headlines as Morgan Geyser—once a 12-year-old remanded to an adult psychiatric hospital—secures her conditional release in 2025. Her journey, from a deeply troubled childhood through years in confinement, mirrors both the failures and evolving landscape of juvenile justice, mental health, and the American thirst for redemption.

• Ten horses had to be put down at Woodbine Racetrack in Toronto in the fall of 2024, a horrific number of catastrophic breakdowns blamed on bad weather and inadequate track maintenance. For The Local, Nicholas Hune-Brown reports on the racing industry in Ontario, where proponents maintain horses receive excellent care, and critics say that the sport of kings is anachronistic and must come to an end.

• Russell T. Vought, now Trump’s budget director, is reshaping the federal government with aggressive spending cuts and deregulatory zeal—pursuing executive power to withhold funds from any policy he and the president oppose, regardless of Congress. His controversial maneuvers signal a historic shift in presidential authority and a calculated assault on the administrative state and its checks and balances.

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

Haven’t found any super cool videos today, so here’s some good music.

Thanks for reading,
Vuk