The New Seiko Prospex LX Has A Spring Drive GMT; Lebois & Co. Revives 50s Chrono; Vulcain Panda Monopusher; Beda’a Tributes Qatar; Panerai From The Archives; A New Armin Strom Gravity Equal Force

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. This Seiko is a very pleasant surprise for me, I guess there’s much more to learn in the watch world than I expected. Also, this last week is going to be quite a ride. We’re redecorating the apartment, and I’m coming down with the flu. Wish me luck! Also, a soft reminder that the holiday discount for the premium subscription is still running, and I really appreciate your support.

In this issue

• The New Seiko Prospex LX GMT Has A Spring Drive GMT, And It’s Only Available In The US

• Lebois & Co. Revives An Iconic 50s Chronograph With Vertically Brushed Dials

• Vulcain Adds A Panda Option To Their Heritage Monopusher Chronograph

• Beda’a Pays Tribute To Their Home Country Of Qatar With A Beautiful Jump Hour

• Panerai Reaches Back Into Its Archives For A Heavily Domed Luminor Marina PAM01759

• The Armin Strom Gravity Equal Force Ultimate Sapphire Salmon Is A Subdued Take On A Fantastic Watch

👂What’s new

1/

The New Seiko Prospex LX GMT Has A Spring Drive GMT, And It’s Only Available In The US

I’m really not sure if there’s a brand that has a wide collection as Seiko does these days. It’s so vast, in fact, that I forget that some model lines even exist. For example, the Prospex LX. What even is that? No joke, I had to google it, and I’m not ashamed. According to Seiko, “the line’s name, LX, hints at the Latin word for light and is a subtle nod to the way that light is reflected in the broad, flat surfaces of each case.” But from what I understand, this is the top of the line of the sporty Prospex line, one with better finishing and aimed at a more upscale customer. And the watch that they just released, the Seiko Prospex LX GMT U.S. Special Edition SNR058 is the top of the line of the LX collection, giving us a bunch of cool materials and finishings, combined with a Grand Seiko-sourced Spring Drive GMT movement.

This being a Prospex watch, it’s quite chunky. It helps that it’s made out of titanium, so easier to wear, but there’s little helping the fact that it measures 44.8mm wide, 14.7mm thick and has an almost 51mm lug-to-lug. That’s quite significant. The titanium gets Seiko’s super-hard coating, making it an actual sports watch, which is no wonder since it is styled after the 1968 professional diver. On top is a sapphire crystal surrounded by a bi-directional bezel that has a copper-gold color to it. In the bezel is a sapphire crystal insert with a 24 hour scale, split into an anthracite and same copper-gold color. The same color can be found on the crown that sits at 4 o’clock.

The dial is inspired by the North American Nebula, and it does so with a vertical gradient on the dial that goes from black on top to brown on the bottom. The dial also has a slight texture to it. You get multi-faceted applied hour markers and the GMT hand has the same gold color. There’s also a 24 scale printed on the dial itself, allowing for the tracking of three time zones. At 3 o’clock is a date aperture, while at 8 you’ll find the very controversial power reserve that you’ll find on Grand Seiko models with the same movement.

Speaking of the movement, Seiko calls it the Calibre 5R66 Spring Drive movement, but it’s the exact same as the Grand Seiko Calibre 9R66, but with different finishings. You know what this — it combines a traditional mainspring with quartz regulation. That gets you an accuracy of ±15 seconds per month, with a 72 hour power reserve and a smooth sweeping seconds hand. The watch comes on a brushed titanium bracelet that’s closed with a clasp that has a tool-less micro-adjustment system.

I know the size and look of this watch won’t be for everyone, but if they toned it down a bit, this would be such a cool watch. Unfortunately, the Seiko Prospex LX GMT U.S. Special Edition SNR058 is a special edition available to the U.S. market, but at least it’s not limited. Price is set at $6,600. See more on the Seiko website.

2/

Lebois & Co. Revives An Iconic 50s Chronograph With Vertically Brushed Dials

Tom van Wijlick is a Dutch entrepreneur with a seemingly simple idea that drives his business decisions - make incredibly cool, vintage-inspired, watches that sell for an accessible price and meet pretty much every demand the market has. And he’s doing good. One of the brands he owns, Airain, is developing new models in close collaboration with its fanbase and the other, Lebois & Co. is recreating some of the best designs of the past. Actually, that’s not true. Lebois has been making a wide range of watches, from modern to avant-garde, and only a couple of years ago did they launch their Heritage Chronograph which thrust them into the limelight of vintage-revival. The Heritage Chrono came with a bi-compax setup and a number of fantastic retro colors, including the coveted salmon. Most recently, the company made a step into the very high end of chronographs with a souscription sale model and an incredible coquille d’œuf dial. Now, however, they’re going back to the basics by reviving a legendary dial from the 1950s. This is the new Lebois & Co. Heritage Chronograph Linéaire.

The stainless steel case remains the same, which is a good thing. Because it’s a simple but beautiful case. Made out of stainless steel, with a mix of brushed and polished surfaces, with a thin beveled bezel. The pushers, which look amazing, and the angled lugs have a strong and pronounced bevel to them. The case measures 39mm wide and 14.3mm thick, but a lot of that thickness is used up by the hugely domed sapphire crystal on top. Water resistance is 50 meters.

On the dial, we get the 1950s quote, with a vertically brushed dial rendered in either champagne or a very deep blue. These are paired with applied gold-toned Arabic numerals and a tachymeter track on the very outside. The hands are either silver or blued, syringe-style, filled with lume. The bi-compax setup has a 30 minute totalizer at 3 and a running seconds at 9.

Inside, and visible through the caseback, is the calibre LC-450, which is essentially a manual wound La Joux-Perret L100 series column wheel chronograph movement made for Lebois & Co. The movement beats at 28,800vph and has a great power reserve of 60 hours. Decorations are on point, as well - a blued column wheel with polished column tops and blued screws, perlage and Côtes de Genève. The watches come on a beige or blue leather strap.

The new Lebois & Co. Heritage Chronograph Linéaire seems to be part of the regular collection, with interest open now and sales starting on the 20th. Deliveries are expected in spring of 2026. Price is set at €3,300, which is much more accessible than the €9,800 of the coquille d’œuf version. See more on the Lebois & Co. website.

3/

Vulcain Adds A Panda Option To Their Heritage Monopusher Chronograph

The watch of presidents is such an incredibly cool moniker. And the 150 year-old brand Vulcain has certainly earned it. It seems that the Vulcain has been on the wrists of every significant president since Harry Truman. While most will know Vulcain for this association with presidents and their incredible Cricket Nautical, a dive watch with an alarm function, they have had an incredibly diverse lineup of watches through the years. And the brand is living through a new renaissance, reissuing some of their best vintage pieces. Two years ago, they recreated their iconic monopusher chronograph in a very nice dimension, and since rendered in a number of great colors. Now, they release the Vulcain Monopusher Heritage in panda setup.

While it looks like a faithful recreation of a vintage model, Vulcain modernized the dimensions of the watch. This means that the stainless steel case measures 39mm wide and has a 13mm thickness. The finishing on the case is polished, but the lugs get a brushing. There’s a crown at 3 o’clock and a single pusher that operates the chronograph at 2 o’clock. Despite having a screw-in solid caseback and double-domed sapphire glass, the crown pushes in meaning that water resistance is limited to 50 meters. Good enough for a vintage-inspired watch.

The dial has one of my favorite scales, the pulsometer, which allows you to quickly measure a heartbeat. That track sits just outside of the hour track which features simple, almost art-deco, numerals. The hands are very nice and leaf shaped, painted silver or rose-gold, depending on the dial colors. There are two subdials at 3 and 9 o’clock, with one serving as the 30-minute chronograph register and a seconds display, respectively. The sub-dials are rendered in black, with a white base, as a panda dial should be.

Inside the watch is the very well known Sellita SW510 M MP b movement. The movement beats at 28,800vph and has a power reserve of 58 hours, which is decent for a chronograph. This watch comes on a either a very interesting metal single-link steel bracelet or a whole slew of other straps.

The new Vulcain Monopusher Heritage Panda is available now, priced at €2,999. See more on the Vulcain website.

4/

Beda’a Pays Tribute To Their Home Country Of Qatar With A Beautiful Jump Hour

Only at Geneva Watch Days did I find out that Beda’a is no longer a Qatari brand. They’ve since moved their headquarters to London, but they still take a lot of inspiration from their founding country. Most recently, just yesterday, they released a Qatar-themed version of their Eclipse, a jump-hour watch that earned them a GPHG nomination.

Pretty much everything about this watch is beautiful. It comes in an elegant case with some pretty special finishings. The dimensions are near perfect, measuring 37mm wide and 8.1mm thick. It’s fully round, with beautiful lugs that have frosted flanks, topped by a domed sapphire crystal with a polished bezel around it. Water resistance is 30 meters.

But the coolest things happen beneath the crystal. It’s a multi-layered dial with several very interesting pieces. First, there’s a sunken-in frosted white peripheral minute track, pointed to with a maroon colored arrow hand that glides around a central metallic disc floating above the dial. The color comes from the Qatar flag. The same color can be found on the hour disc that is visible through the opening in the disc at 12 o’clock. The numerals have been replaced with Easter Arabic, and serve as a jump hour display. However, the opening also has a running seconds indicator, but only somewhat. There’s a linear 10-second scale that is read left to right in retrograde style and use a clever trick to appear to have a retrograde display. Instead of jumping back at the end of the 10-second scale, it has six seconds hands spaced so that only one is visible at a time — when one goes out of view, the other shows up on the other end.

Inside, you won’t find a special movement, instead it’s a cleverly set up Sellita SW300, beating at 4Hz with a 56 hour power reserve. The watch comes on a maroon leather strap.

The new Beda’a Eclipse Qatar is limited to 50 pieces, priced at CHF 2,700. See more on the Beda’a website.

5/

Panerai Reaches Back Into Its Archives For A Heavily Domed Luminor Marina PAM01759

Say what you will, but I think I have a feeling that Panerai had a really good year. Sure, their prices and movements deserve criticism, but I just can’t stop loving their releases. They are equally confident when creating something very modern with cutting-edge materials, or when reaching back into their past. Take, for example, this latest release, the Luminor Marina PAM01759, which brings back an era when Panerai’s were still tool watches.

Stainless steel and 44mm wide, with the closed caseback and the iconic flip-down crown guard, at first glance, this new watch looks like a regular Luminor Marina. But look a bit closer and you’ll see a very important difference from other Luminor models. And it’s the hugely domed sapphire crystal, that is a direct quote of old Luminor Marina models that used thick pieces of plexiglass to keep water out. With sapphire, we can make the crystals thinner, but it’s still extremely cool to see such a huge dome that distorts the numerals on the dial. You get 300 meters of water resistance.

The dial is also very familiar — a sandwich construction with a matte black base that has Arabic numeral cutouts that have the lower layer painted in green Super-LumiNova. The small seconds sits at 9 o’clock, while also keeping the 9 o’clock marker, which makes for an interesting duo. The hands are filled with the same green lume and it all looks very cool.

Inside, you’ll find the P.9010 calibre with automatic winding. It also has an independently adjustable hour hand, which is useful when traveling to quickly switch to the local hour without disturbing the minute hand. It beats at 4Hz and had a 3 day power reserve. The watch comes on a dark brown vintage-style calf strap closed with a steel pin buckle, and you get an additional black rubber strap.

The new Panerai Luminor Marina PAM01759 is limited to 1,000 pieces and priced at €9,900. See more on the Panerai website.

6/

The Armin Strom Gravity Equal Force Ultimate Sapphire Salmon Is A Subdued Take On A Fantastic Watch

The Armin Strom Gravity Equal Force is quite an important watch in watchmaking, as it introduced a new way of providing constant force within the movement, as providing consistent torque throughout the power reserve ensures way more precision and accuracy. It did so by introducing a stop-work declutch mechanism integrated into the mainspring barrel, the first of its kind in an automatic watch. That was some five or six years ago. Since, they’ve rendered the Gravity Equal Force in a number of fantastic guises. I particularly like this new one, the Ultimate Sapphire Salmon which plays with transparency and a great salmon color.

There’s a lot going on with this watch, so it’s surprisingly small. It comes in a stainless steel case that measures 41mm wide and just 12.65mm thick. And it has all of the things you would expect from an Armin Strom. That means fantastic polished and brushed finishes, and the brand’s signature lip in the bezel at 6 o’clock. On top is a domed sapphire crystal, and out back is a flat one. Water resistance is 30 meters.

Then, there’s the dial. It features the familiar mainplate with hand-guilloché barley grain pattern, developed by Kari Voutilainen, which here gets a salmon-coloured PVD finish. On the left side of the mainplate is a slightly tinted, but transparent, time dial, which features quite modern minute numerals, an integrated small seconds at 7:30 o’clock and rhodium-plated hands, filled with lume. But thanks to its transparency, you see the internal geartrain, which is connected with large cogs to the micro-rotor at one o’clock and the equal-force barrel at five o’clock.

Inside is Armin Strom’s Caliber ASB19 which is known for solving one of the great watchmaking problems - inconsistent power delivery through the duration of the power reserve. When regular watches unwind their mainspring, there is less force on the gear train, which generally leads to less accurate timekeeping as there’s less and less in the proverbial tank. Armin Strom’s solution is a “stop work” mechanism, which keeps the mainspring from ever fully unwinding, and always topped off with enough power to deliver enough force for accurate timekeeping. The movement beats at 25,200vph and has a 72 hour power reserve. Finishings include black-polished screws, polished bevels, Geneva stripes and perlage. The watch comes on a grey nubuck leather strap.

The new Armin Strom Gravity Equal Force Ultimate Sapphire Salmon is limited in production to 25 pieces per year, priced at CHF 27,500. See more on the Armin Strom 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

• An AI producer spends six obsessive months sculpting the “perfect” digital ingénue from thousands of glitchy faces, only to unleash Tilly Norwood into a film industry already terrified of synthetic stars. As Hollywood panics, talent agents circle, ethics lawyers hover, and Tilly herself learns to clap back at James Cameron—with a smirk and a punchline about the end of civilization. Wild story.

• A crypto whiz hires a PI to chase a $300 million stolen laptop, leading from Bel Air mansions to LASD deputies moonlighting as thugs—pulling guns, planting drugs, and faking warrants. As the "Crypto Godfather's" Gatsby-fueled empire of hackers, extortion, and wire fraud unravels, one question lingers: how did a shy Midwest teen build, and blow, such a dangerous fortune?

• A virologist flees Hong Kong amid Covid fears, convinced China engineered the pandemic as a bioweapon. Whisked to U.S. safe houses by Steve Bannon allies, she ignites MAGA media firestorms—only to vanish from her desperate husband, who chases her shadow across America. Now in hiding, she rejects her old life: was it paranoia, politics, or truth?

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

I love Teddy’s rundown of the most worn watches of the year for a bunch of people in the industry.

Thanks for reading,
Vuk