Seiko Celebrates With Six Edo Purple Models; echo/neutra's Averau 42 Ceramic Sand Collection; A Pocket Watch From Bangalore Watch Company; Corum Quotes Hemingway On New Golden Book

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. Today is a casual day on the watch front, so no groundbreaking messages from me.

In this issue

• Seiko Continues 145th Anniversary Celebration With Six Different Models All In Edo Purple

• The echo/neutra Averau 42 Ceramic Sand Collection Is A Modern 80s Inspired Classic

• Bangalore Watch Company Keeps Pushing The Pocket Watch Idea With The New Forty-Seven

• Corum's New Golden Book Hides a Hemingway Quote Under The Cover

👂What’s new

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Seiko Continues 145th Anniversary Celebration With Six Different Models All In Edo Purple

Seiko's turning 145, and they’ve been celebrating in all sorts of ways. This one, however, might be the strangest. The picked a color, Edo Purple, and slapped it on a handful of watches. Six of them, that don’t really have anything in common. There's a mechanical Alpinist, a GPS Astron, a solar chronograph, a Cocktail Time, a digital throwback, and an SKX. This just might be the best illustration, even if it’s just a sliver, of how diverse the Seiko catalogue is, ranging from a €450 automatic to a €3,000 satellite-synced titanium monster.

I have a feeling that the Prospex Alpinist HBC006 might be the most popular of the bunch. The stainless steel case measures 39.50mm wide and 12.70mm thick, with a sapphire crystal on top, and 200 meters of water resistance. The dial has the most interesting purple of the group, with a sunray brushed finish and a bit lighter than what you might imagine when you hear purple. The numerals, indices and hands are done in silver, with a hint of gold on the Seiko name. Inside is the automatic calibre 6R55 beating at 3Hz, with a 72-hour power reserve. The watch comes on a black alligator-embossed leather strap with purple stitching and a steel folding clasp. The HBC006 is limited 7,000 pieces, priced at €980. See more here.

The Astron GPS Solar Dual-Time HAB011 is the technical flagship, but perhaps the one that doesn’t exactly fit in with the purple theme, as the dial is a bit overshadowed by everything else going on here. And by everything else, I mostly mean the many capabilities of the calibre 5X83: GPS sync, world time across 38 zones, dual-time, a chronograph, a perpetual calendar good to 2100, all solar powered. The spec sheet is absurd. The titanium case is 43.30mm wide and 13.40mm thick, with a black ceramic bezel on top, and 100 meters of water resistance. The deep purple dial has horizontal grooves and gets gold details on the seconds hand and logo. The watch comes on a titanium bracelet with ceramic center links. The HAB011 is limited to 2,000 pieces and priced at a pretty significant €3,000. See more on the Seiko website.

The Prospex Speedtimer Solar Chronograph HBJ005 could be the sportiest of the bunch. The stainless steel case is 41.10mm wide and 13mm thick, with 100 meters of water resistance, and a black tachymeter bezel with purple details. The dial is even lighter than the Alpinist, with three black sub-dials, gold-tone indexes and central hands, and a date at 4:30. Inside is the solar calibre V192 that powers the chronograph, a power reserve indicator and the silly 24-hour display. The watch comes on a steel bracelet with a three-fold clasp. This is also limited, but now at 8,000 pieces, with a price tag of €790. See more here.

The Presage Cocktail Time GMT HCB006 continues the theme of being inspired by cocktails at Tokyo's Star Bar. This one is styled after the “Edo Murasaki,” an original cocktail with a distinctive purple hue created in collaboration with Hisashi Kishi, owner of Star Bar. The stainless steel case measures 40.50mm wide and 12.80mm thick, there’s a box-shaped Hardlex crystal on top, and water resistance is 50 meters. The purple on the dial is stunning, there’s a date aperture at 3 o’clock and gold is used on the Seiko logo and GMT hand. Inside is the automatic calibre 4R34, which has a 41 hours of power reserve and a caller style GMT function. The watch comes on a steel bracelet with a folding clasp. Limited to 6,000 pieces, the HCB006 is priced at €620. See it here.

The Seiko 5 Sports SKX HDB003 might have the loudest purple of the lot, and I might like it the most. The stainless steel case is 42.50mm wide and 13.90mm thick, with 100 meters of water resistance. The purple sunray dial pairs gold branding with silver hands and LumiBrite-filled indexes. Inside is the automatic calibre 4R36 with 41 hours of power reserve, and the watch comes on a steel bracelet. This watch is also limited, but in Seiko’s world limited means 9,999 pieces. Price is set at €450. See more here.

Last, we have the Rotocall HFL001, which might be the most interesting of the bunch to me. I love the revival of Seiko's 1982 multifunction digital watch. And while I don’t like black cased watches in general, I’m really digging this one. It measures 37mm wide and 10.60mm thick, with the rotating bezel serving as the interface for the digital functions done in black and purple. Water resistance is 100 meters, there’s gold printing on the LCD and inside is the quartz calibre A824 which has a calendar, alarm, and stopwatch. The watch comes on a black coated bracelet. Limited to 4,000 pieces, the watch is priced at €670. See more on the Seiko website.

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The echo/neutra Averau 42 Ceramic Sand Collection Is A Modern 80s Inspired Classic

Most recently, echo/neutra has been making waves with their rectangular dress watches. That’s how the majority of their current fans know them. But if you, like me, are the annoying type that knew a b(r)and before they were cool, then you know that echo/neutra makes some pretty dope sports and field watches. The Averau field collection in particular has been super interesting, and we’re now getting a new Ceramic Sand variant with a sand colored dial and a black case, like something that Porsche Design might have released in the 1980s, in two variants — a three hander and a chrongoraph.

Both cases pair a matte black ceramic shell with what echo/neutra calls TiFrame, an internal grade 2 titanium structure that holds the movement. Ceramic resists scratches and has a nice satin finish but tends to crack at the lugs under impact, so titanium reinforcement solves that weakness. The Automatic is 42mm wide, 10.5mm thick, with a lug-to-lug of 51.5mm. The Chronograph has the same width and lug-to-lug but is a bit thicker at 14.6mm, as you would expect from a chronograph. Both watch get sapphire crystals and 100 meters of water resistance.

Both versions share the black case and both have a sand colored dial, which is such a good contrast against the case. On the Automatic, black applied baton markers and broad black hands leave the sand surface room to breathe, with a red tip on the seconds hand as the only color. The Chronograph is busier by nature but still pretty balanced. The sub-dials are charcoal colored and you get the same red on the central seconds.

Continuing the similarities, both variants have proven Sellita calibres in Elaboré grade, adjusted in three positions to a +/-7 to +/-20 seconds per day tolerance. The Automatic uses the SW200-1 beating at 4Hz with a 41-hour reserve, the industry's default workhorse. The Chronograph gets the SW510B, with the same 4Hz beat rate, but a longer 56-hour reserve and a traditional automatic chronograph layout. Both come on black textile straps with dark hardware.

The echo/neutra Averau 42 Ceramic Sand, is available now, priced at €970 for the three-hand Automatic, and €1,970 for the Chronograph. See more on the echo/neutra website.

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Bangalore Watch Company Keeps Pushing The Pocket Watch Idea With The New Forty-Seven

Bangalore Watch Company made a name for itself outside of India by making good looking, fairly affordable and well built watches that had one significant twist — they all paid homage to modern Indian culture. Whether it was watches themed after the various branches of the Indian military, their efforts in space exploration, or the national infatuation with cricket, their watches were uniquely Indian. Now, however, some will say they are jumping on to the pocket watch bandwagon, following in the footsteps of the Swatch collaboration with AP. However, watch development doesn’t work like that, as it takes months and months to develop, test and produce a watch, much longer than the AP x Swatch has been out. This is more Bangalore Watch Company grasping at the zeitgeist, while keeping with the India theme. Only this is not modern India. With the Forty-Seven BWC goes back to the mid-century years when the country was still struggling with brutal colonialism and its effects, poor, in debt, with few things holding it together. At the time, India had few things that led it to a brighter future, and the rail system was one of them. A rail system run on, among other things, pocket watches. You’re getting it now, right?

The case is 46mm wide and 12mm thick, made out of 316L steel finished in rose gold PVD. That's a large object by wristwatch standards and a normal one for a pocket watch. A K1 hardened mineral crystal covers the dial, water resistance is 30 meters, and the crown on the right side of the case is a push-pull design stamped with the BWC logo. The caseback is closed and can be engraved to order, which is just perfectly nostalgic. At 12 o’clock is a large and slightly dramatic buckle, for a bit of flourish.

The dial is off-white with a linen texture, a reference to something much more important than it might appear at first glance. The texture is a reference to the Swadeshi movement, the push to boycott British-made goods and produce domestically that ran through the independence struggle and carried into the early republic. Khadi, the hand-spun, handwoven cotton cloth, was the physical symbol of that idea, and Gandhi's spinning wheel became its emblem for a reason: cloth you made yourself was economic independence you could rely on. At 6 o’clock is a small seconds display. Overall, the dial has a vintage look with old-radium tone of Super-LumiNova on cathedral style hands. It’s a good look.

Inside is a Swiss Ronda 6004.D quartz movement with roughly 40 months of battery life. Quartz is a peculiar choice for a pocket watch, but I can’t say that I mind it in modern context. A pocket watch will most likely not be a daily carry, so making sure it’s always running and accurate is a good thing. It comes on a lanyard-style strap in oil-pulled leather with a matching rose gold clip.

The Bangalore Watch Company Forty-Seven is available for pre-order right now, with deliveries starting October 15. Price is set at about €1,090. See more on the BWC website.

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Corum's New Golden Book Hides a Hemingway Quote Under The Cover

For some unfortunate reason, Corum watches were extremely popular where I live back in the late 90s and early 00s. I say unfortunate, because they were popular among the exact crowd that can kill a reputation of a watch brand. For that reason, every time I see a Corum, I cringe. But I’ve been fighting this urge over the past few months, ever since Corum got a kind of soft relaunch. I’ll come back with more details on that, but in the meantime, this is Corum bringing back something I didn’t know about the old Corum and that I would have loved. This is the new Golden Book, a recreation of a watch Corum has been making since 1996, and it’s exactly what it says on the tin — a book that sits on your wrist, with a hinged cover to reveal the dial. It’s a very fun thing and I love it.

If you don’t love it just yet, just listen to the dimensions of the case — 29mm wide, 36mm long, and a pretty incredible 7.6mm thick. You see, this isn’t a chunky book, it’s a delicate miniature. The case is made out of grade 5 titanium and it’s covered in 18K 5N rose gold. The hinged cover hides the majority of the dial, but also has a cutout in the center so you can glance at the time without opening the cover. The most interesting stat, I’ll have to say, is the water resistance. This thing is resistant to 30 meters. Pretty wild.

Under the cover, the dial is white lacquered brass, glossy and plain. Plain, except for the quote written in as if it was a page in a real book, attributed to Ernest Hemingway: “Now is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you can do with what you have.” Black baton hands for the hours and minutes, and that's all.

The movement is the hand-wound Calibre CO157, 17 jewels, running at 21,600 vph with a 46-hour reserve. The strap is black vulcanised rubber with a leather-textured finish, 22mm at the lugs down to 18mm at the rose gold buckle.

The new Corum Golden Book doesn’t seem to be a limited edition and it’s priced at CHF 28,000. See more on the Corum website.

⏲️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

• Midway through Boyce Upholt’s mind-boggling dispatch, one of his sources sums up the central challenge of the Gulf Coast canid: “Why is there not just a simple explanation for what this thing is?” The “wolfy coyotes” of southeastern Texas hold genetic traces that may link them to red wolves, which were declared extinct in the wild in 1980. But a lack of data makes it challenging to define the species—or, for that matter, to determine whether a private company has cloned the red wolf or something else entirely. Upholt doesn’t deal in simple explanations; the pleasure, here, is in the complexity.

• You don’t have to live in El Cerrito, California, or have ever used Nextdoor, for this essay to resonate. For Oakland Review of Books, Amy Brown recounts buying her first home in the East Bay city and swiftly becoming the villain of her local Nextdoor—after her uncharitable Bluesky posts about the seniors opposing a library tax made their way back to her neighbors. Honest and funny, Brown’s essay explores being locally online—that weird, often uncomfortable place between online and IRL—and shows how (not) to talk to people you’ll run into at the grocery store.

• When Saeed Jones gets a Lyft ride with Mister Anthony in New Orleans, he has no idea he’s in for brief but deep connection that will occupy his mind long after the trip is over. Anthony is a Black elder originally from Mississippi, “old enough to be retired but still taking gigs.” As the man recalls the racism he experienced in the Magnolia State, Jones is reminded of his own experiences, his own trepidation. In all his travels, Jones reveals that Mississippi is the only place he has ever felt scared for his safety as a Black man.

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

I had no idea that Regular Car Reviews, my favorite sardonic car review channel, also did documentaries. And boy, what a surprise it was!

Thanks for reading,
Vuk