Seiko Updates SKX-Inspired Seiko 5 Sports; Squalle Digs Up 1980s NOS Cases For New Corallo; Junghans And Wempe Release Light Blue Meister Chronoscope; Louis Vuitton Shows What They Can Really Do

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. Sorry for the late one today, but I have some pretty good news. Not that it’s life altering to you, but it seems that I am on the path to fix the pinched nerve that has cause me near 24-hour pain since the start of April. For the first time since then, I feel better. So, expect more from me very soon.

In this issue:

• Seiko Updates The SKX-Inspired Seiko 5 Sports Series With New Bezels And Design Tweaks

• Squalle Digs Up New Old Stock Cases From The 1980s For Their New Corallo NOS 2008

• Junghans Teams Up With Wempe For A Light Blue Meister Chronoscope

• Louis Vuitton Shows What They Can Really Do With The New Tambour Bushido Automata

👂What’s new

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Seiko Updates The SKX-Inspired Seiko 5 Sports Series With New Bezels And Design Tweaks

The Seiko SKX007 is one of those classic watches that everyone should own in their life. Unfortunately, Seiko doesn’t make one any more. Sure, you could go out and get a vintage one, there are plenty in very good condition. Or, you could go for a modern interpretation of the classic, the Seiko 5 Sports SKX Series. This particular series was introduced in 2019. Now, Seiko is updating that collection with four new watches — SRPL83, SRPL85, SRPL87 and SRPL89 — with new bezels, dials and a slightly modified bracelet.

Nothing has changed with the dimensions of the watch. The stainless steel case measures 42.5mm wide, 13.9mm thick and has a thanks to the broad and short lugs, you get a very comfortable 46mm lug-to-lug. On top, you still get the Hardlex crystal, which is not ideal. Surrounding the crystal is a slightly thinner bezel that no longer has a metal insert. Instead, it gets a glass insert with a 60-minute scale printed on the underside. Looks great. The case has a combination of brushed and polished finishes and the crown still sits at 4 o’clock. It’s also still a push-pull crown, which is cool since you still get 100 meters of water resistance.

Mode dials can be seen on the dials. These new watches get rectangles for hour markers, instead of round ones, with a double marker at 12 o’clock. These look much more like the markers they use on the Prospex divers. The hands have also been redesigned to loose the needle tip, but the day-date window remains the same. Like I said, there are four colors to choose from — the SRPL85 is the most classic flat black, paired with a black bezel; the SRPL83 has a blue bezel and a blue sunray brushed dial; the SRPL87 comes with a bright yellow dial and black bezel; and the SRPL89 gets an orange dial with a black bezel.

Inside the watches, there is no change. You still get the 4R36 automatic that beats at 3Hz and has a 41 hour power reserve. The watches come on either a slightly redesigned three-link stainless steel bracelet with slightly rounded links (the SRPL83 and SRPL85) or a black silicone strap (SRPL87 and SRPL89).

The new Seiko 5 Sports SKX Series is part of the permanent collection and goes on sale in June. The yellow SRPL87 and orange SRPL89 are priced at €400, while the blue SRPL83 and black SRPL85 come in at €440 because of the bracelet. See more on the Seiko website.

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Squalle Digs Up New Old Stock Cases From The 1980s For Their New Corallo NOS 2008

Over the past several years especially, we’ve seen quite a few brands — from small to large — discover new old stock, or NOS, movements in their storage rooms, which they then refurbish and use in new watches. What we don’t see that often is the other way around — the brands finding old watches and equipping them with new internals. And that’s exactly what Squale is doing with their new Corallo NOS 2008. OK, technically, this isn’t based on an old watch, but rather on an old case. That story is perfectly fitting as Squale started out as a case manufacturer.

The cases used for the Corallo NOS 2008 aren’t as old as 1959, when the company was founded, but rather date from the 1980s. Squale found 300 of these cases in their archives three years ago. It has some interesting proportions — 36.8mm wide, 10.5mm thick and has a 44mm lug-to-lug, with long and skinny lugs. The name means “coral” in Italian, supposedly chosen for the eight rounded humps that form the bezel of the watch, giving it a shape reminiscent of the aquatic life form. The bezel is made out of aluminum and perfectly matches the curve of the domed sapphire crystal for a very cool profile. Being a dive watch company, you can expect 200 meters of water resistance.

The colors on the watch are sensational. There are three dials options, each with its own combination of bezel colors. The black dial comes with a black and sky blue bezel, the dark blue sunray brushed dial gets a matching blue bezel and the light blue called sky gets a sky blue bezel. All of them feature the cool Squale logo, simple hands with an orange outline on the minute hand, circular hour markers full of lume and a date aperture at 3 o’clock.

Inside, you’ll find the familiar ETA 2892/A2 automatic which beats at 4Hz and has a 42 hour power reserve. The blue and black versions get a perforated rubber strap by Bonetto Cinturini, while the sky version comes on an original NOS steel bracelet, 100 of which have been found.

The new Corallo NOS 2008 is available now, with shipments starting next week, and they are limited to 300 pieces in total. The website is showing the price to be €2,160, but that’s with my crazy 25% VAT rate. See more on the Squale website.

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Junghans Teams Up With Wempe For A Light Blue Meister Chronoscope

As a kid, I spent a lot of time in Germany. And as a kid who liked watches, that meant I spent most of my time in Germany glued to a window of a Wempe jewelry store. That’s because the Wempe family has been selling jewels and watches since 1878. Along the way, they worked with a lot of watch brands to put out special editions. Their latest one comes from Junghans, to celebrate 100 years of partnership between the two brands. And it’s based on the Meister Chronoscope.

On the outside, this is a regular Meister Chronoscope, one made out of stainless steel that measures 40.7mm wide and 13.9mm thick. The case is polished and has the tiniest of bezels. That holds down the convex anti-reflective sapphire crystal that gives off a very nostalgic look. Water resistance is 50 meters.

The new dial gets a stunning light blue hue, a satin texture and the dial is also wonderfully domed. It’s a classic tri-compax setup with bowl-shaped sub-dials - 30-minute counter at 12 o’clock, the 12-hour counter at 6 o’clock, and the running seconds at 9 o’clock. The indices are applied and follow the curve of the dial. At 3 o’clock is the day and date window, and right below it is the Wempe logo.

Inside is the calibre J880.1, which is based on the Sellita SW500. It beats at 28,800vph and has a rather modest power reserve of 48 hours. It’s a nice looking movement with rhodium-plated components, perlage on the base plates, Côtes de Genève stripes on the rotor and cover plate, and blued screws. The watch comes on a blue alligator strap.

The new Junghans x Wempe Meister Chronoscope is limited to 100 pieces and is for sale right now in all Wempe showrooms with a Junghans concession. Price is set at €2,590. See more on the Wempe website.

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Louis Vuitton Shows What They Can Really Do With The New Tambour Bushido Automata

Forget, for a moment, what you personally might think about fashion brands making watches. You might have been convinced to lump all of them into one box and think that they sell Chinese-made garbage at 10x the price. But that would be wrong, because so many luxury fashion brands make such amazing watches. Sometimes, we need to be reminded of it. And that’s exactly what Louis Vuitton does at least once a year, by letting their haute horlogerie division, La Fabrique du Temps, create the best thing they can. Previously, we got the Carpe Diem and Opera Automata, only to now be followed by the Tambour Bushido Automata, a jaw dropping display of artistry and engineering.

Everything is bespoke here, of course, and so is the case. It’s made out of 18k pink gold and measures 46.8mm wide and 14.4mm thick. Everything is gold here, even the crown and automaton pusher, carved by hand and with two rubies on the pusher. On top is a domed sapphire crystal and out back is a flat one to let you see the movement.

Then, there’s the dial. It’s a combination of all the métiers d’art that La Fabrique du Temps has to offer — cloisonné, paillonné, and miniature enamel techniques. The dial features a Samurai mask, made from white gold and coated in two layers of red enamel – a notoriously difficult hue to execute. Its eye combines cloisonné enamel with a central highlight of gold-set paillonné, and a bit of blue enamel. The Samurai’s neck armour, is enamelled in black and red, with tiny Louis Vuitton’s Monogram Flowers. Engraved elements – mask, helmet, katana, bow, and knot – are all handcrafted, accounting for 140 hours of engraving work.

Press the pusher, and the yokai on the Samurai’s helmet rises and swings aside to reveal the jumping hour. A katana blade arcs at the bottom left of the dial in a retrograde motion to display the minutes. The pusher also moves other parts of the dial. One eye, designed after Louis Vuitton’s Monogram Flower, shifts shape, and the jaw opens to reveal the word “Bushido” in red Japanese characters, surrounded by sculpted mother-of-pearl teeth.

All of this is powered by the manually wound LV 525 calibre, a proprietary movement developed by master watchmakers Michel Navas and Enrico Barbasini that we’ve seen in LV’s automata before. It has 426 components, 50 jewels, and two patents, all there to tell the time and drive five animations on the dial. It beats at 21,600vph and has a 100 hour power reserve. The movement includes decorations like perlage and Côtes de Genève, framing a lacquered red yokai — a supernatural entity from Japanese folklore — mirrors the one on the dial. The watch comes on a red calf leather strap, closed by an 18k pink gold double folding buckle.

The new Louis Vuitton Tambour Bushido Automata is a unique piece and if you want it, it will set you back €835,000. See more on the Louis Vuitton 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

• This short piece in the Guardian is a true love letter to the glory years of Casio video game watches. Their tech may have been primitive, but for 80s schoolchildren of a certain kind they had a glamour to equal any modern iPhone.

• For Politico, Will McCarthy reports from the rural outskirts of unincorporated Boca Chica Village, a small South Texas community where Elon Musk is attempting to build his own city: Starbase. McCarthy vividly captures the strangeness and uncertainty of the moment with sharp details—a road off the highway that reads Mars-a-Lago, a vandalized nine-foot tall bust of Musk bearing a pink bandage over a gashed cheek. Some locals are frustrated that SpaceX has failed to deliver on its promises of jobs, opportunity, and a better future. Instead, as one environmental activist puts it, they’re witnessing “the slow colonization of her hometown by the tech oligarchy.”

• LLMs will change a lot of things in our lives. This article from New York Mag makes a very bold claim that Chat GPT has unraveled the entire academic project. Turns out, everyone is using it to cheat.

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

I’ve felt like re-watching The Force Awakens for the past several weeks. Turns out, this video review of the movie was a much better experience.

Thanks for reading,
Vuk