Oris Protects Oysters With New Aquis Date NY Harbor; Louis Erard Comes In An Incredible Hand Engraved Case; Depancel's Classy Green Dial In Série-R01; The Kurono Vermilion Will Be Your Lucky Charm

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. I really love project like the Billion Oyster Project. While difficult to achieve, it has a simple goal and they’re moving towards it with great success. And I love Oris for supporting it. And speaking of oysters, I’m heading out to the coast tomorrow, to get my Open Water certification. The newsletter should be sent out as expected, but don’t blame me if there are any gaps.

The Laco giveaway is going on for another 6 days, the rules are simple:

If you want to participate in the Laco giveaway, the rules are simple. Just scroll down to the end of the newsletter where you’ll find a large share button. Use that to invite your friends to subscribe to the newsletter and every referral gets you a ticket to enter the raffle. The more subscribers you bring, the higher the chance of winning is.

In this issue

• Oris Continues Supporting The Billion Oyster Project With The Aquis Date New York Harbor LE II

• Louis Erard Introduces The Gravée Main With, As The Name Suggests, An Incredible Hand Engraved Case

• Depancel Adds A Classy Green Dial To Their Série-R01 With The Cool Full Calendar Complication

• The New Kurono Tokyo Vermilion Chronograph 'SHU:朱' Will Be Your Lucky Charm

• Your Chance To Win This Absolute Bomb Of A Watch From Laco

👂What’s new

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Oris Continues Supporting The Billion Oyster Project With The Aquis Date New York Harbor LE II

Back in 2022, Oris released a really good looking 41.5mm Aquis Date that benefited the Billion Oyster Project. To date, that initiative has restored more than 150 million oysters across 17 reef sites thanks to 15,000 volunteers and 30,000 students and since oysters filter water, the result are cleaner waters in New York’s harbour than they have been in 110 years, attracting humpback whales and hundreds of other species. Now, the Billion Oyster Project and Oris are teaming up again, with the 43.5mm Aquis Date New York Harbor Limited Edition II, which will bring more support to the effort of restoring even more oysters.

While the previous version came in the 41.5mm Aquis Date, the new one comes in the larger 43.5mm. This is the new Aquis Date version, updated just a year ago, which means that it measures 13.1mm thick, with a 51mm lug-to-lug. The case has a brushed finish, with a sandblasted steel insert in the unidirectional rotating bezel that has a positive relief numerals and markers. The bezel surrounds a domed sapphire crystal, and on the caseback has a relief engraving of three oysters, the inscription “New York Harbor Limited Edition” and the limited edition number out of 2000. The crown is guarded and screws down, which gets you to that 300 meter water resistance.

The dial is really nice, made out of mother-of-pearl with an incredible aqua green color, and thanks to the MOP it has a very beautiful color shift all over. The watch has shield-shaped hour markers and Alpha hands, as you would expect from an Aquis Date, and there’s a date window at 6 o’clock with a white date disc inside.

Inside, you’ll find the Oris calibre 733, which is not their in-house movement, but rather the movement based on the Sellita SW 200. It’s nothing special, but it does its job, beating at 4Hz, with a 41 hour power reserve. The watch comes on a stainless steel bracelet and you get an additional aqua-green rubber strap with a steel folding clasp.

The new Oris New York Harbor Limited Edition II is not a limited edition and it’s on sale right now for CHF 2,550, with part of the proceeds going to benefit the Billion Oyster Project. See more on the Oris website.

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Louis Erard Introduces The Gravée Main With, As The Name Suggests, An Incredible Hand Engraved Case

Over the past year or so, Louis Erard has carved out an incredible niche for themselves. Mostly based on their Regulator model, they teamed up with a wide variety of watchmakers, artists and makeup-makers to show how versatile a watch can be. And it is super interesting, because you’ll get a very unique watch for a very acceptable price. Behind these releases, but also many releases over the past five or six years, Louis Erard employed a huge number of métiers d’art, often reserved for much more expensive watches — marquetry, enameling and hand-guilloché. Now, we’re getting an incredible expression of métiers d’art in their latest watch, the Gravée Main, which literally translates to engraved by hand. And boy, is it.

The Gravée Main comes in a pretty standard polished stainless steel case that measures 42mm wide, 12.25mm thick, with a 49.9mm lug-to-lug. On top is a domed sapphire crystal, and that’s pretty much where the regularities stop. The case is sent out to Ukrainian engraver Maksym Shavlak, who then takes 50 hours to engrave the case, bezel, lugs, crown and buckle with an incredibly intricate leaf pattern you might expect to see from an antique pocket watch or dagger hilt. Water resistance is 50 meters.

While most Louis Erard watches show off their métiers d’art on the dial side, this one keeps the dial relatively simple. I mean, can you imagine if they engraved the dial as well… I can! Instead, we get a glossy black lacquer base with anthracite Roman numerals, each held in its own 3D grid, and pear-shaped rhodium-plated hands. At 6 o’clock is a small seconds and that’s pretty much it.

One way in which Louis Erard can sell métiers d’art at a fraction of the price they cost on other Swiss watches is with their choice of movement. It’s the relatively pedestrian Sellita SW200. More precisely, the Sellita SW261-1 variant that has the 6 o’clock small seconds. It beats at 4Hz, has a 38 hour power reserve and comes in the elaboré-grade which has an openworked oscillating weight with a black lacquered Louis Erard symbol. The watch comes on a black grained calfskin strap, closed with the aforementioned hand-engraved pin buckle.

The new Louis Erard Gravée Main is limited to 99 pieces and priced at CHF 5,450, without tax. See more on the Louis Erard website.

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Depancel Adds A Classy Green Dial To Their Série-R01 With The Cool Full Calendar Complication

There’s something liberating in setting very strict boundaries to your work. If you were to start a watch brand that makes cool watches, you would have no idea where to start and where to end. If, on the other hand, you decided to make automotive-themed watches, then things get much clearer. Depancel is a brand that did just that - focused on cars and racing, which led them to a whole range of interesting watches. Like, for example, their rectangular Série-R. It’s a great looking watch and just a few weeks ago Depancel paired it with a very cool calendar movement that got two PVD covered dials. Now, we’re getting a classic green dial with the same cool complication.

The case of the Série-R might look familiar, almost like the TAG Heuer Monaco with its slab sides, but there are some obvious differences. First, this is a rectangle, one that’s supposed to mimic the look of a radiator grille (hence the curved top of the case and the straight bottom). Somebody will, however, have to help me out with the size of the watch. Depancel says the size is 43mm x 36mm, which I would interpret as being 36mm wide and 43mm long. But this seems to be a measurement without the lugs, as they state the lug-to-lug to be 50mm and the thickness is 12.9mm. The finishing on the steel case is brushed with nicely polished facets and a beautiful rectangular sapphire crystal sits on top. "Water resistance is 50 meters.

The dial gets the familiar Série-R tri-compax layout, but the three sub-dials are now used to display the day, month and 24-hour indicator, with a date indicator between four and five. The base of the dial is dark green, with a sunray finish in the interior circular section and vertical ridges outside. On the left side of the dial are a white and yellow stripe, with more yellow details on the dial.

Inside, you’ll find the Miyota 9120, which is not a movement we see all that often, which is a shame because it’s super interesting to have this calendar setup. It still beats at 4hz and has 40 hours of power reserve, just like all 9-series Miyota movements. The watches come on a choice of brown or black leather straps, which can have either a perforated look or a more interesting horizontal striping, with a choice of a pin buckle or a deployant.

The new Depancel Série-R01 in green is available now, priced at €850, which is a fantastic price for such a unique looking watch. See more on the Depancel website.

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The New Kurono Tokyo Vermilion Chronograph 'SHU:朱' Will Be Your Lucky Charm

Some people in the online watch community will attempt to tell you that the fervour that watch fans felt for the Japanese independent brand Kurono Tokyo has died down. That they can now release watches without everyone having a complete meltdown and crashing their site. True, the site will indeed not crash, but not because interest in Kurono has waned, it’s because Kurono owner Hajime Asaoka is getting better at supplying watch fans with fantastic watches at great prices. This simple brand has become the face of indie Japanese watchmaking, representing everything we love about it - high quality minimalist pieces that would have looked good 50 years ago, look good now and will look good in 50 years. But seeing as how getting a Kurono watch has always been very difficult, it’s nice to see that they can make it even more difficult. This is the new Kurono Tokyo Vermilion Chronograph 'SHU:朱', which is not just limited in numbers, you will only be able to buy in Kurono’s showroom.

Like so many models before it, this one comes in just a beautiful case. Made out of highly polished stainless steel, it measures 38mm wide and 11.7mm thick. Even if you take into account the quite pronounced sapphire box crystal on top, the thickness goes up to 13.5mm, which is quite decent for a chronograph, especially one that uses an off-the-shelf movement. The lug-to-lug measurement is decent at 46.8mm, maybe a bit long for that width, but that’s the tradeoff for those beautiful lugs. You get 30 meters of water resistance, which is not great, but also not surprising for a chronograph.

But while the watch case is beautiful, things get really nice on the dial. It’s equally as complex as it is simple. The base is painted in a beautiful vermillon orange-red color, a color often associated with power nobility, warding off evil and ushering good luck. Around the perimeter is a black tachymeter scale that also holds the minute scale. You get two black sub-dials, a small seconds at 3 and a 30 minute totalizer at 9 o’clock. At 12 is an Arabic numeral and at 6 is a date aperture. The hands are signature Kurono, high-polish leaf-shaped, with the tips of minute and chronograph seconds hands bent by hand to match the curves of the dial and glass.

Inside is the NE86, which is actually the Seiko 8R46A. The NE86 is a higher-end Seiko chronograph with a vertical clutch and column wheel and it beats at 4Hz, with a 45 hour power reserve. The watch comes on a black calf leather strap.

You already know that this is a limited edition. Only, Kurono doesn’t say how many they will make. All they say is that this is a “once-off small batch release and will not be reintroduced”. However, the only way to get one will be in person in the Kurono salons in Tokyo and Shanghai starting 22 August 2025. Price is set at JPY 598,950 in Japan and RMB 29,300 in China, which translates to about €3,480. See more on the Kurono website.

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Your Chance To Win This Absolute Bomb Of A Watch From Laco

Here we go. Like I promised you last month, I’m teaming up with Laco to celebrate their 100th year anniversary. As part of their celebration, they showed a very special watch, the Laco Frieda. There’s only one catch. You can’t buy one. Instead, Laco is giving away 100 pieces of this special edition watch in their “100 Years – 100 Days – 100 Watches” campaign. And you can get one here. The rules are simple — scroll down to the end of the newsletter, where you’ll find a referral window that says “Share It’s About Time”. Invite your friends to subscribe to the newsletter and for every subscriber you bring, you’ll get a “ticket” that enters you in a draw to win the watch.

This is the first time I’m doing a giveaway with this referral program, so if there are any hiccups and something doesn’t work, let me know and we’ll sort it out asap. The giveaway is open until August 25th, after which I’ll use a random email selector to find the winner and Laco will ship your brand new watch to you! Good luck.

Now, for a bit of info on thw atch. Laco typically names its models after cities or geographical features, but this model breaks tradition. For a good reason, as it’s named after the co-founder, Frieda Lacher. It’s a familiar watch but with a dial that makes it extremely beautiful. The watch comes in a stainless steel case that measure 39mm wide, 11.55mm thick and with a 46.5mm lug-to-lug. The case has a beautiful matte finish and on the side, you’ll find an engraving that reads “Laco 1925-2025”, while the caseback has an engraving of its unique number out of 100. On the opposite side you’ll find the signature deeply grooved onion-shaped crown. Water resistance is 50 meters.

Then, there’s the dial. It’s a classic Type A flieger, which has just the minute track along the edge of the dial and big numerals for the hours. The minute track and numerals are printed in white lume, while the sword-shaped hands are done in black, with white lume inside. But the star here is the base of the dial. Rendered in Laco’s signature red color, it has a sandy texture which makes it very special.

Inside, you’ll find the Laco S2 movement, which is essentially the Miyota 82S0. The movement beats at 21,600vph and has a 42 hour power reserve. The watch comes on a grey leather strap with red stitching.

Again, scroll down to the end of the email where you’ll find the share button and get to sharing!

⏲️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

• In the most righteously angry book review you’ll read this week—year?—Grayson Scott considers two new releases about the legacy of America’s 21st-century wars, with a focus on the role of special operators.

• On the streets of Cuba, collectors take bets and hand them off to messengers, who bring the money to the bankers—those who bankroll La Bolita, an underground, illegal, three-number lottery game played by people around the island twice a day, every day. This essay, excerpted from The Hidden Island by Abraham Jiménez Enoa and translated by Lily Meyer, takes us behind the scenes of the game and direct to those who play.

• In The Disaster Economy, a new series in partnership with Honolulu Civil Beat, Grist explores the exploitative disaster recovery industry. In this story, Anita Hofschneider writes about Mikey Burke, a Native Hawaiian woman who lost her Lāhainā home in the 2023 wildfires. On Maui, a third of residents who were homeowners before the fires no longer own their homes. In mortgage limbo, Burke continues to fight to keep her family in Hawaiʻi despite the high costs of rebuilding and the greedy investors who are eager to buy up land.

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

We live in weird times. And weird times kind of require weird cultural guides. The Elephant Graveyard might be the weirdest, but I can’t get enough of him.

Thanks for reading,
Vuk