TAG Heuer's Carrera For Goodwood; Breitling Redesigns Entire Superocean Heritage Collection; Citizen Teams Up With The Snowbirds; Kollokium's Purple Lume; ArtyA Introduces Another New Collection

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. While it’s good to see the Superocean Heritage come in smaller cases, I’m not sold on the overall design just yet. But what I am sold on is the Kollokium.

In this issue:

• TAG Heuer Creates A Vintage Racer’s Dream Carrera For The Goodwood Festival Of Speed

• Breitling Redesigns Entire Vintage-Inspired Superocean Heritage Collection, Now With Smaller Options

• Citizen Teams Up With The Snowbirds, Royal Canadian Air Force’s Demonstration Team, For A Cool Navihawk

• Kollokium Introduces The Projekt 01 Variant F, Their Best Take On Lume To Date

• ArtyA Introduces Another New Collection, The Luminity Wavy Micro-Rotor

👂What’s new

1/

TAG Heuer Creates A Vintage Racer’s Dream Carrera For The Goodwood Festival Of Speed

We knew that TAG Heuer was going to be all over the Formula 1 partnership this year, from sponsoring the overall series to honoring individual races. What I didn’t expect, however, is that they would expand their F1 sponsorship even beyond the Formula 1 official organization events. This year they teamed up with the Goodwood Festival of Speed, one of the most prestigious motorsport events in the world, to create a watch with them. Why? Because the theme of this year’s Festival is marking the 75th anniversary of Formula 1. And the watch they did it with is the stunning Tag Heuer Carrera Chronograph x Festival of Speed Limited Edition.

While all eyes have been on the Glassbox Carrera over the past few months, TAG didn’t forge their regular Carrera Chronograph. The case remains the same, made out of stainless steel and measuring 42mm wide and 14.5mm thick. It sounds like a substantial watch, and it obviously is, but it has a surprisingly short (at least when considering the width) lug-to-lug measurement of 48.2mm. The case is brushed on the sides and polished on top. The sapphire crystal on top is slightly domed and out back is flat one. Water resistance is 100 meters.

While the case is rather plain, the dial is anything but. It gets a spectacular hobnail pattern on a a wonderful green base that uses a color called Goodwood Green. This is paired with snailed green sub-dials, a silver ring that divides the center from the outer perimeter that holds a 60 minute scale with printed circular pattern. The hour and minute hands are partially skeletonized, silver and filled with lume, while the central chronograph hand and the two sub-dial hands are bright red. At 6 o’clock is a running seconds display which is made up of just a hand and crosshairs-like lines, and a date aperture.

Inside, you’ll find the TH20-00 movement, which is an updated Heuer 02, a column-wheel chronograph that beats at 4Hz and has a great power reserve of 80 hours. The watch comes on a brown 1970s style perforated racing leather strap.

The new Tag Heuer Carrera Chronograph x Festival of Speed is a limited edition of only 100 pieces. It will be first offered to members of the Goodwood Road Racing Club, after which the general public will be able to get one during the Goodwood Festival, which takes place between July 10th and 13th. Price is set at £6,450. The watch is not yet displayed on the TAG Heuer website, or the Goodwood website, but check those occasionally to see if they are live.

2/

Breitling Redesigns Entire Vintage-Inspired Superocean Heritage Collection, Now With Smaller Options

The Breitling Superocean Heritage has been around since 2007 and since then I have to say it’s the one Breitling I saw most on people’s wrists in real life. People really liked the vintage design, it seems. The watch was redesigned in 2017 and now we’re getting a third version, six variants, in both time-and-date versions and chronographs, including the introduction of a long awaited 40mm version.

Since the watches come in a variety of cases and with different movements, there are a few common points that they all share, and they are on the dial side. You get a new 12 o’clock marker, which has a circle with a sharp index cutting through it. In fact, all of the hour marker indexes are much sharper on all the models. Also new are the printed seconds track on the outer circumference, more retro hour and minutes hands, and a lollipop seconds hand, paired with overall less text on the dial to give an even more retro look. The case profiles all get new lugs, which are now more curved, giving the bracelets a tighter fit against the watch.

Now, on to the new models. Starting with the Superocean Heritage time-and-date models, they come in three seizes. We still get the 42mm model (measuring 42mm wide and 12.03mm thick with a 49.55 lug-to-lug) and the 44mm model (which measures 44mm wide and 12.17mm thick with a 52.44mm lug-to-lug), but new is the 40mm version which measures 40mm wide, 11.73mm thick, with a 48.2mm lug-to-lug. While these still read like large watches, these are a fair bit thinner than the outgoing models. The Breitling Superocean Heritage B31 40 is available in either black with a matching black bezel or green with a matching green bezel, both available on a rubber strap or mesh bracelet. The Superocean Heritage B31 42 is available in black, blue, green, and black with red gold accents on rubber strap or mesh bracelet. And the Superocean Heritage 44 is available in black, green, or blue with red gold accents on rubber strap or mesh bracelet.

A major contributor to the thinner profile is the new B31 movement, developed by Breitlign with AMT, Sellita’s high-end division. It beats at 4Hz, has a 78 hour pwoer reserve and has an accuracy of -4 to +6 seconds/day. The Superocean Heritage B31 40, 42, and 44 are all priced at $6,200 on strap and $6,500 on bracelet, the black and red-gold 42 is priced at $7,700 on strap and $8,000 on bracelet, and the blue and red-gold 44 is priced at $7,900 on strap and $8,200 on bracelet.

There’s another version of the Superocean Heritage B31, and that’s the 40mm version made with Kelly Slater, the legendary surfer and Breitling ambassador. It keeps the same case as the 40mm model, but gets a beautiful blue dial stamped with a pattern that looks like jungle foliage. It’s limited to 500 pieces and priced at $6,450 on strap and $6,750 on bracelet.

Then, there’s the smallest of the Breitling Superocean Heritage watches, one measuring 36mm wide, 10.42mm thick and with a 42.84mm lug-to-lug. It comes with either a blue or mint colored dial, with matching rubber straps or a mesh bracelet. Inside, you’ll find the Breitling Caliber 10 which beats at 4Hz and has a 42 hour power reserve. Price is set at $5,250 on strap and $5,500 on bracelet.

Last, we have the Superocean Heritage Chronographs, which has shrunk down from 44 to 42, which means that it measures 2mm wide, 14.55mm thick, with a 49.56mm lug-to-lug. It’s a bi-compax setup, down one sub-dial from the previous version, with a date at 6 o’clock. There are three colors available — blue dial with blue bezel, green dial with green bezel and a black dial with a red gold two-tone model with matching bezel and gold crown and pushers. Inside is the familiar COSC-certified Breitling manufacture Caliber 01 which beats at 4Hz and has a 70 hour power reserve. The watches can be had on color matched rubber straps or a mesh bracelet. The price is set at $8,900 on rubber strap and $9,200 on mesh bracelet for the blue and green, and $10,100 on strap and $10,400 on bracelet for the two-tone model. See more of all the watches on the Breitling website.

3/

Citizen Teams Up With The Snowbirds, Royal Canadian Air Force’s Demonstration Team, For A Cool Navihawk

A couple of months ago, Citizen refreshed their Promaster Navihawk collection to make it more approachable to more people. While the original watch comes in a hefty 48mm, they shrunk it down to 40mm, which makes it attractive to a broader audience. And to make a point of it, they have teamed up with the Snowbirds, the celebrated flight demonstration squadron of the Royal Canadian Air Force, and used their iconic red, white, and blue airplane liveries for a colorful Navihawk.

This is very much a familiar case used here, only it’s not the size of the Arecibo radio telescope. The stainless steel case now measures 40mm wide, 13mm thick and has a very comfortable 45mm lug-to-lug. It’s a tool watch, so the majority of the case gets a satin finish, but there are a few polished details. You get a heavily knurled crown, a notched blue and red bezel that has a rotating slide rule bezel and a flat sapphire crystal. Water resistance is as expected, 200 meters.

The base of the dial gets a rich burgundy color, surrounded with a white rehaut that holds the other part of the slide rule. You get contrasting black subdials at 3, 6 and 9. At 4:30 is a date aperture, while at 7:30 you’ll find the miniature crest of the Snowbirds squadron. You get lumed applied markers and sword-shaped hands. The watch has the same functions as the bigger pieces, which include ⅕ second chronograph timing up to 60 minutes, and 12- and 24-hour time displays.

All of this is powered by the Caliber B620 Eco-Drive movement, which is a solar movement. It can power the watch for 270 days in complete darkness and is accurate to ±15 seconds per month. The watch comes on a stainless steel three-link bracelet, closed with a push-button folding clasp.

The new Citizen Snowbirds Promaster Air Navihawk doesn’t seem to be a limited edition and it’s priced at $595, the same as the non-Snowbirds releases. See more on the Citizen website.

4/

Kollokium Introduces The Projekt 01 Variant F, Their Best Take On Lume To Date

You know that one watch you know from first look that you will own one day? I have a deal with my wife of no more new watches until this whole watch thing starts bringing in the majority of our money, but the moment that deal expires, the Kollokium is my first buy. I am deeply enamored what Manuel Emch, Barth Nussbaumer, and Amr Sindi have done with the brand, and I’m even more impressed how they managed to keep the exact same look for at least five releases now, changing up mainly the colorways, but always managing to keep the releases very fresh. The latest version is called the Projekt 01 Variant F, with a very cool take on lume.

The case remains practically the same - 40mm wide, 11mm thick and it’s die cast instead of milled. This means that liquid hot metal is poured into moulds which allows Kollokium to make a case with a spectacular grained texture and rounded edges. The case is made of two parts - a barrel-shaped caseback with lugs that are apparently inspired by the Phillips-head screwdriver. On top is a sapphire box crystal which protrudes far from the case, allowing you to see the dial and the lumed pips from the side of the watch. Water resistance is 50 meters.

The dial is once again made up of 488 cylindrical markers in six different diameters and heights that have been so arranged to make “hills” where the hour markers would be. It is a sensational effect. Only, now Kollokium is using Lichtblock technology, a proprietary ceramic-resin compound infused with violet-emission Super-LumiNova. The lower parts of the dial are purple, while the higher ones are white, for a really great look. The hour and minute hands have been redesigned with lozenge-shaped Lichtblock inserts that emit the same violet light.

Inside is the La Joux-Perret G101 automatic movement, an alternative to the ubiquitous but increasingly hard to source ETA 2824. It bets at 4 Hz and delivers a 68 hour power reserve. It’s not a high end movement, but it’s clear that all the money has been spent on the case, crystal and dial. The watch comes on an elasticised grey textile strap with a die-cast steel hook fastener that makes it easy to size.

The new Kollokium Projekt 01 Variant F is limited to 399 pieces. It’s already on sale for those who have early access to Kollokium releases, and goes out to the general public tomorrow, June 12th at 15:00 CET. Price is set at CHF 3,666.66, without VAT. See more on the Kollokium website, but only from tomorrow when it goes on sale.

5/

ArtyA Introduces Another New Collection, The Luminity Wavy Micro-Rotor

In the grand scheme of things, ArtyA is a tiny brand. Headed by Yvan Arpa, they make exquisite watches, often with sapphire cases, that are quite expensive. And as such, they have a limited audience, which makes sense. What makes less sense — but don’t think I’m complaining in the slightest — is the amount of different models and watches that ArtyA releases on a yearly basis. Most brands of ArtyA’s calibre release about 10 watches a year, if that. But when it comes to ArtyA, they seem to be cranking out watches on a bi-weekly basis. Sure, that might be a bit of an exaggeration, but they do put out a shocking number of watches per year for such a small brand. Now, their latest release comes in the form of the Luminity Wavy Micro-Rotor which comes in a wide variety of cases and with an interesting movement.

You have a choice of either Grade 5 titanium or full sapphire cases, both of which have an overall same shape. They measure 40mm wide and 13mm thick, with gently curved lugs that help them sit closer to the wrist. While the sapphire versions are naturally scratch resistance, the titanium versions get a DLC coating to bring up the resistance to 1,200 Vickers. And that coating can be either transparent, to show the grey color of titanium, or black. Water resistance on the titanium version is 50 meters, while the sapphire model drops it down to 30 meters.

The dials are virtually non-existent, since they are sapphire plates in various transparent colors that hold up the applied and polished hour markers that are pointed to with dauphine style hands. However, I say virtually, since the two titanium versions also have two smaller plates underneath the hands, but smaller than the entire dial, made out of aventurine glass or meteorite. It’s a pretty cool look. But even those stone and glass versions offer a huge view of the new movement,

And inside, you’ll find the brand new movement. ArtyA is well known for their in-house Purity movement, but this is not it. This is a proprietary caliber co-developed with Télôs Watch SA, one of the most well known high-end movement makers in Switzerland. Called the AMR-02, it features barrels, and a tungsten micro-rotor, which gives you an 82 hour power reserve. And it’s a beautiful movement, purpose-built to be visible from the front. The watches come on nubuck straps with a pin buckle closure.

The new ArtyA Luminity Wavy Micro-Rotor is limited to 99 pieces per colorway and come in a variety of prices — €21,200 for the titanium with either the stone or colored sapphire dial, €40,400 for the sapphire case with sapphire dial and €42,600 for the sapphire case and stone dial. See more on the ArtyA 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

• How did a 27-year-old man named Jimmy Donaldson amass 400 million YouTube subscribers and become one of the planet’s most popular (and highest paid) entertainers? Mark O’Connell answers that question, in this fascinating and, at times, astounding piece that untangles the mysteries of the lucrative attention economy.

• Four years ago, an unconscious Kentucky man began to awaken as he was about to be removed from life support so his organs could be donated. Even though the man cried, pulled his legs to his chest and shook his head, officials still tried to move forward. What a wild story!

• “The counselors had given the youngsters a choice: Do laundry at camp or climb the mountain," Craig R. McCoy writes. If the counselors had asked park rangers of the wisdom of climbing Banff National Park’s Mount Temple in early summer, the rangers would have waved them off. The early summer’s rays warm snowpack and warm snowpack spells avalanche. But climb they did. They should have been off the mountain by lunch. They weren’t.

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

It’s fascinating to see how much work has to go into trying to make something in the United States.

Thanks for reading,
Vuk