Seiko Redesigns The Marinemaster, With New Movement; New Merci Instruments; Beams And Timex Release Camper Ring Watch; Sternglas Adds A Moonphase To Naos; Marco Lang Builds Seven-Axis Tourbillon

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. OK, the ring watch trend clearly isn’t for everyone. But it would be fun to think what could be shrunk down to that size. Are we going to get a moonswatch chronograph on our fingers? What’s a good watch that could be ringified?

In this issue

• Seiko Redesigns The Marinemaster With Better Movement, Ceramic Bezel, and a New Limited Edition

• Merci Instruments Goes Wide With The Beaumarchais Collection

• Beams Turns Timex’s Legendary Camper Into A Quirky Ring Watch

• Sternglas Adds A Moonphase Complication To Their Popular And Affordable Naos Collection

• Marco Lang Builds A Seven-Axis Tourbillon That Has No Business Existing

👂What’s new

1/

Seiko Redesigns The Marinemaster With Better Movement, Ceramic Bezel, and a New Limited Edition

Last September, when the Prospex Marinemaster 1968 Heritage Diver SLA077 and SLA079 landed in the newsletter, I was kind of critical fo the package. You get Seiko’s chunky 300-meter diver with the 8L35 inside for €3,000. I wasn’t sure the value for money was there. Now, Seiko releases an evolution of the Marinemaster, with all the upgrades that count — a slight redesign, a new bezel, a better clasp and an overall improved movement. That’s great. But the problem is, the price doesn’t stay the same, so we’re facing the same dilemma again. These are the new Seiko Prospex Marinemaster 1968 Heritage Diver HBF001 And JAMSTEC Limited Edition HBF002.

The case remains largely unchanged at 42.6mm wide, and 49.3mm from lug to lug. It’s still made out of stainless steel, with the same super-hard coating, the same brushed surfaces and lateral polished bevels, the same crown at 4 o'clock and 300 meters of water resistance. The first change, one that you’ll only notice on wrist, is the thickness that has crept up to just over 14mm, a 0.7mm increase that lands mostly on the caseback, a direct consequence of the new movement inside. The change you’ll notice visually are the new bezels, which are now ceramic, polished black on the HBF001 and blue on the HBF002. The bezels surround double domed sapphire crystals with anti-reflective coating.

The two variants come with two very different dials. The HBF001 is the permanent collection version: it features a polished black dial that matches the ceramic bezel, lumed markers and chunky hands. That’s super classic. What’s way more interesting is the HBF002, made in collaboration with JAMSTEC, the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology. It pays tribute to Japan's first research icebreaker Mirai II, due to complete construction this year. The dial recreates the trail an icebreaker cuts through sea ice, stamped into the surface and finished with a thick clear polished coat. The color runs vertically from ice white at the edges to a deep blue in the middle. That’s paired with a white flange around the dial, the same hours and markers and a gold colored seconds hand. The change I like the most is the move of the date aperture from the 4:30 position to the correct 3 o’clock position.

Both watches run the calibre 8L45, an automatic movement based on Grand Seiko's 9S65 architecture that Seiko already uses in the SLA081 Marinemaster Professional Titanium and the King Seiko Vanac collection. It’s a welcome upgrade to the 8L35, with 72 hours of power reserve and an accuracy improved to +10/-5 seconds per day. You even get broad stripe finishing on plates, bridges, and rotor. The bracelet is the existing three-link design but now paired with a new folding clasp featuring a micro-adjustment sliding mechanism that allows up to 16mm of adjustment in 2mm increments. Finally

The Seiko Prospex Marinemaster 1968 Heritage Diver HBF001 And JAMSTEC Limited Edition HBF002 are slated to release in June, with the HBF001 being part of the regular collection and HBF002 being a limited edition of 1,000 pieces. Price is set at €3,800 for the HBF001 and €4,100 for the HBF002. That’s quite a jump. Is it worth it, though? See more on the Seiko website — the HBF001 here and the HBF002 here.

2/

Merci Instruments Goes Wide With The Beaumarchais Collection

Back in June 2024, Merci Instruments released a limited Beaumarchais H02 in collaboration with Hodinkee, and I haven’t heard much from them since. Merci is a super interesting brand, as they aren’t necessarily just a watch brand, they also make household items and apparel. But that doesn’t mean they make bad watches. Quite the contrary. They make some of the most under the radar watches in term of design. And they won’t break the bank. Now, Merci is back with a full six-watch Beaumarchais collection at a lower price and without the limited-edition prestige of Hodinkee. It’s a great looking watch for a fair price.

The case is 36mm wide and 10mm thick, in 316L stainless steel with a screwed caseback, brushed and polished surfaces, and an octagonal bezel that gives it that distinctly 1970s geometry without leaning too hard on the era's nostalgia. What I really want to say is — this is an octagonal bezel watch that doesn’t look like it was designed by Gerald Genta. And if you know what I’m talking about, that’s a big deal. You getzß 100 meters of water resistance.

Six dials, and this is where it gets really interesting. Five of them use a raised center circle with an outer ring, while the sixth swaps the circular center for an octagonal one. Across the six, you get faceted applied indices, star-shaped markers (a callback to some of Rolex's most compelling historical dials), and grained textures. The "Cosmora" green with its grained surface and the "Æon Blue" with Arabic numerals are the standouts.

Inside is the Miyota calibre 9039, automatic, beating at 4Hz, with a 40 hours of power reserve. Each watch comes on a cordovan strap matched to the dial color.

The Merci Paris Beaumarchais collection is available now, priced at a pretty decent €470. This should be way more popular than it actually is. See more on the Merci website.

3/

Beams Turns Timex’s Legendary Camper Into A Quirky Ring Watch

Casio started this. OK, they didn’t actually start it, because we’ve had ring watches before, but they kind of got the modern ring watch trend rolling. First the CRW-001 stainless ring watch in late 2024, then the G-Shock DWN-5600 Nano last November, a fully functional shock-resistant version of the 5600 scaled to one-tenth its original size for $110. Both sold out almost immediately. Are two ring watches, especially from the same brand, enough to call a trend? Maybe. But three certainly are. The Japanese fashion brand BEAMS BOY has teamed up with Timex for a special version of their Camper watch, turning it into a ring. According to Timex, buyers had been asking BEAMS for a Camper ring watch for over a decade. The trend just finally caught up to the request.

The case is resin, same lightweight material as the full-size Camper, with an acrylic crystal on top. No dimensions have been published, but the G-Shock Nano gives you a reference point: that one measures 23.4mm wide. The Timex will be in that territory. Maybe a bit larger, by the way it looks in photos. The crown sits at three o'clock, pulled out to set the time and nothing else. Water resistance hasn't been stated, and given the construction you should assume none beyond casual splashes. Which, when you think about it, is kind of silly because you don’t want to be taking rings off every time you wash your hands. The cool thing is that it comes on an expansion band that stretches to fit a lot of fingers.

The dial carries the classic Camper layout: a 24-hour scale around the perimeter, clear Arabic numerals, high-contrast white on olive or black, shrunken down to something you wear on your finger. The Camper dial has always been about legibility first, and even miniaturized it keeps that intent. I just wonder what it looks like in real life. Inside is a Japanese quartz movement, of unspecified calibre.

Price is ¥19,140, roughly $120. It releases April 3, 2026 via BEAMS. International availability hasn't been confirmed, so non-Japan buyers may need to go through BEAMS' overseas web store. See more on the BEAMS website.

4/

Sternglas Adds A Moonphase Complication To Their Popular And Affordable Naos Collection

Hamburg's STERNGLAS has built its reputation on affordable, clean-dialed watches that punch above their price. The Naos has been one of their more popular options: a 38mm dress-casual watch that’s a good canvas for various variants and complications. Now, they’ve added a Moonphase version which gets more than just a moonphase complication — you also get a date at 3, and a day of the week at 9. Ambitious for a watch at this price.

The case is 38mm wide and just 8.0mm thick (excluding the crystal), with a lug-to-lug of 41mm. That's a genuinely slim profile for a watch with this much going on, and it makes the Naos Moonphase easy to wear. Sure, it’s easy to do with a quartz movement, but not all brands give us thin watches with quartz movements. The rest of the stats are a polished and brushed 316L stainless steel, double-domed sapphire with double AR coating, water resistance to 50 meters. Nothing exotic, but well-specified for the price.

There are two dial options: Moonsilver and Midnight Blue, both with a sunburst finish. The layout is pretty simple and expected — date and day of the week sub-dials at 3 and 9 o’clock, and an opening for the moonphase at 6 o’clock. The silver moon sits on a dark blue background, surrounded by stars, and the dial is rounded out with thin silver hands and applied hour markers with lume in both.

Inside is the Miyota 6P20 quartz with a three-year battery life — accurate to ±20 seconds per month. There’s not much more to this movement. Strap options include a Milanese mesh or an English waxed Bridle leather in black or dark brown, all on a quick-release system.

The Naos Moonphase is, unsurprisingly, currently sold out, but Sternglas brings out of stock watches back into stock pretty fast. However, I assume it will sell out soon quite quickly with a €299 price tag. See more on the Sternglas website.

5/

Marco Lang Builds A Seven-Axis Tourbillon That Has No Business Existing

While certainly not yet an instantly recognized name by casual watch fans, Marco Lang is one of the most respected independent German watchmakers alive, and a co-founder of Lang & Heyne, the Dresden manufacture he left in 2019. He launched his own eponymous brand in 2020 with the Zweigesicht, a two-faced watch that showed both a classical Saxon sensibility and a deeply technical one. The Seven Spheres is his second watch under his own name, and it is one of the most mechanically extreme objects in the watch industry right now. Correct me if I’m wrong, but seven-axis tourbillons don't exist yet, or didn't until now. The record before this was four.

The case is 42mm wide and 18mm thick, made from 950 platinum, with sloping lugs, screw-head details, and a discreet crown guard. The high-domed sapphire crystal accounts for much of that thickness — the case itself is 10mm without the crystal. Out back is a sapphire caseback and water resistance is 50 meters. While the case might look a bit plain, Lang offers ornamental hand engraving on the case which is super cool.

The dial, if you can call it that, is a fully exposed ring display. Two almost comically arrow-shaped hands in heat-blued steel appear to float above the movement, showing the time on an engine-turned peripheral ring integrated into the movement architecture itself. The entire center of the watch is given over to the regulating organ — a nested cage of seven titanium rings, each offset by 30 degrees, with the balance wheel at the heart. It is genuinely unlike anything else you can look at on a wrist.

The movement you see through the lack of dial is the calibre ml-02/7sp, Marco Lang's own creation. The balance beats at 3Hz, and the seven titanium rings rotate at different speeds, with the outermost completing one revolution per hour and the innermost once every 50 seconds. Six planetary gears run at a 1:2 ratio and one at 1:2.25. Since the central module is so huge, there’s no room for a conventional barrel layout. But don’t worry, there’s a cool solution to that problem: four mainspring barrels in parallel whcih give you 55 hours of power reserve. On the back, nine gears connect the crown to the four barrels, and swan-neck winding clicks carry decorative diamond settings. The plates are finely grained, gilded, and hand-engraved. The strap is blue alligator with shark leather lining.

The Marco Lang Seven Spheres is a limited edition of 18 pieces priced at €250,000 before taxes. Even if you have enough money for one, and manage to get one of the 18, don’t expect this watch to be delivered any time soon, because everything is done by hand, by one watchmaker. See more on the Marco Lang 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

• Iain Treloar throws himself headfirst into retrieving a stolen bike from “a gun-licensed outlaw” in this piece for Escape. After responding to a Facebook Marketplace ad, Treloar drives to a gritty industrial suburb of Melbourne to meet “Jack” and embark on a terrifying ride that reveals the workings of a criminal mind. A knife-edge read with a twist ending.

• In addition to the many books Oliver Sacks wrote, according to the late neuroscientist’s partner Bill Hayes, were the hundreds of handwritten journals he filled over the course of his life. But those represented only the latter two stages of Sacks’s generative thinking; earlier in the process came the voluminous annotations he made to books he was reading. For The American Scholar, Hayes writes about the process of going through all those notes upon Sacks’s death, and meeting an entirely new side of his departed love.

• In this eerie essay, the poet laureate of Kansas visits a cemetery where legend has it the devil ascends a staircase to visit the grave of his son. She goes not once but three times, drawn, in seems, by the space it allows for pondering grief’s sharpest edges.

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

The new Black Keys album could be decent.

Thanks for reading,
Vuk