This Timex Expedition Is The Only Watch You Need For Your Next Hike; Seiko And Beam's Deep-Sea Inspired Monster; Garrick S3 Deadbeat Seconds Is The Best Of British Watchmaking; New Richard Milles

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. I really like the contrast of the watches we have today — two really cheap ones up against two eye-bulging expensive ones. What a wonderful world this world of watches is.

Speaking of world watches, if you’re interested in Indian watchmaking, you can read the third part of my three-part series on the past, present and future of Indian watches.

In this issue:

• The New Timex Expedition Tide-Temp-Compass Is Really The Only Watch You Need For Your Next Hike

• Seiko Teams Up With Beams For A Deep-Sea Inspired Monster Prospex Diver

• The Garrick S3 Deadbeat Seconds Is Certainly The Best Of British Watchmaking

• Richard Mille Releases A Trio Of Colorful Sapphire Tonneau-Shaped Watches

👂What’s new

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The New Timex Expedition Tide-Temp-Compass Is Really The Only Watch You Need For Your Next Hike

The field watch, especially in its contemporary guise — made out of modern materials and with gadgets about it — is marketed as the perfect watch to take into nature, whether just for a walk or on a more serious hike. And sure, if you don’t want to go full smart with a Garmin or Apple Watch, your best bet is a nice field watch, maybe even with a compass scale on top just to play with it as you hike. It’s not like you’ll use it for survival. However, you’re kind of out of luck if you want something in between a regular analogue field watch and a full smart watch. Sorry, you would be out of luck, if Timex didn’t make this pretty wild Expedition Tide-Temp-Compass. They’ve made the watch for a couple of years now, but this latest release, with a dark finish and a green dial is very much adventure ready.

The case of the Tide-Temp-Compass is made to be tough. We know that it measures 43mm wide and 13mm thick, but I also assume it has quite the long lug-to-lug thanks to those long and pointy lugs. The steel case gets a brushed gunmetal finish, on top is a sapphire crystal surrounded by a by-directional steel bezel that has the same finish and a compass scale engraved into it with very fine serrations on the edge. On the right side is the crown with protectors, along with two pushers that each operate one of the cool functions, as well as an additional pusher at 8 o’clock. Water resistance is 100 meters.

This version of Tide-Temp-Compass comes with a dark green case that matches the gunmetal finish of the case. There’s a sloping flange that holds the temperature scale from -20 to 50 degrees celsius, with the comfortable temperature range done in green and the extremes in a dark red. The base of the dial holds the Timex Expedition logo at 12, a mountain illustration at 6 above a date aperture and a tide scale. It also appears like the watch has five hands. In reality, it has an hour, minute and second hand, with an additional hand that almost has a paperclip shape and extends through the full length of the dial. That’s used for the compass, tide indicator and thermometer.

What do I mean when I say compass, tide indicator and thermometer? It must be some nifty way of lining up the sun and telling these three values, like some other compass watches out there. Nope, this watch actually tells you what the tide is, what the temperature is and points north, with each of those functions getting their own dedicated pusher. Now that’s freaking cool. Timex, of course, doesn’t tell you what movement is inside, but it is a quartz one. The watch comes on a green double-layered recycled slip-thru fabric strap.

The new Timex Tide-Temp-Compass is available now and priced at €279. See more on the Timex website.

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Seiko Teams Up With Beams For A Deep-Sea Inspired Monster Prospex Diver

Seiko has always been really good at collaborations, we know that. But is it just me, or have some of their collaborations gotten so much better over the past two or three years? Their latest collaboration happens with Japanese clothing and lifestyle brand BEAMS, this time in the form of the Prospex "Monster" Reference SKX781 which comes in a two-tone setup with actual gold plating, inspired by underwater monsters.

The base of the watch is the popular Seiko Monster diver, so from that we can extract its basic data. The stainless steel case measures 42.4mm wide, 13.4mm thick and has a 49.4mm lug-to-lug. On top is a hardlex crystal, surrounded by the iconic Monster bezel with the 60 minute diving scale. Only, here the bezel is not plain steel, but rather actually gold plated which gives it a pretty unique look on an already unique watch. Water resistance is 200 meters.

Like previous Beams collaborations with Seiko, the dial of this watch gets a matte black base dial. There’s a cyclops over the day and date display at 3 o’clock and the plump lumed hour markers have the tiniest gold surrounds. The hands, however, are the well known Seiko Monster hands that are also gold plated here.

Inside is the well known calibre 4R36 which beats at 3Hz and has a 41 hour power reserve. The watch comes on a three-link bracelet that has its middle links gold plated. That’s a lot of gold.

The new Seiko x BEAMS Prospex "Monster" Reference SKX781 is limited to just 300 pieces and available only in BEAMS stores. The price, considering the amount of gold plating, is pretty reasonable at €500. See more on the BEAMS website.

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The Garrick S3 Deadbeat Seconds Is Certainly The Best Of British Watchmaking

When you first get into watches, you will want to learn how to distinguish between a quartz and mechanical movement on first glance. And people will tell you it’s easy - the second hand on a mechanical movement sweeps and on a quartz movement it ticks second by second. It’s easy until you get into the highest of ends of watchmaking. One of the holy grails of watchmaking is the deadbeat second which features a stop-start motion and makes a mechanical movement tick like a quartz one. Now, as the followup to their S2 Deadbeat Seconds Garrick, a small British indie is no longer that small, is releasing the S3 Deadbeat Seconds, an already spectacular watch that can be personalized to your exact wishes.

The watch combines the best of the S3 and S3 MK2 and comes in a case that meastues 42mm wide and 11mm thick. You can choose between stainless steel or gold, but both versions will come with the signature oversized fluted onion-style crown, sapphire crystals on top and bottom and an overall polished finish. Despite this having the look and internals of a delicate high-end watch, the large size and 100 meters of water resistance give you quite the resilient watch.

There’s not much of a dial to speak of. You get a circular-grained minutes/seconds ring made from German silver with drilled in markers and the Garrick logo at the top, and the rest is just a view of the movement. Above the movement, you’ll find a number of rings (one of which acts as an indicator for the power reserve with a red pointed) and handmade heat-blued, polished and centrally mounted hour and minutes hands. The seconds hand is also heat-blued and polished and is obviously the main attraction since it ticks. The dial is where Garrick’s custom options begin to shine, as you can choose the color of infill for the rings and there as whole slew of options for the hands — observatoire hands, lancine, spade, anchor, heat blued, purpled or polished.

The movement you see through the crystals is the manually wound Garrick calibre DB-G07 which beats at 18,000vph and has a 45 hour power reserve. While not COSC-certified, the movement is regulated to ±3 seconds per day. There are plenty of decorations including beveled and frosted bridges and a hand-engraved balance cock on the front side and a number of choices (graining or mirror polishing) for the bridges out back, as well as a choice of gold, silver or rhodium wheels. At the front of the dial, you also get to see the deadbeat mechanism that moves the seconds hand. And of course, you get a choice of leathers for the strap — alligator, calf, buffalo or ostrich.

The new Garrick S3 Deadbeat Seconds is available for order now, priced at £40,000 in steel and £47,000 for the gold, both without taxes and before any custom options. See more on the Garrick website.

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Richard Mille Releases A Trio Of Colorful Sapphire Tonneau-Shaped Watches

For the majority of the Northern Hemisphere, summer doesn’t officially start for another 50-something days. For the 0.1%, summer is all year long. So it only makes sense for Richard Mille to release three summer watches in April. This is the RM 75-01 trio of flying tourbillons in three colorful sapphire cases.

OK, I’ve read a lot about this watch. And I know this must be my fault, but… I can’t find the size for this case. Anywhere. I know a lot about it. I know how big the movement is. But no idea on how big the case is. But even despite that, it’s super interesting. Made out of synthetic sapphire, it’s made out of three separate parts — the bezel, caseband, and caseback. They are bound together with grade 5 titanium spline screws. This means that other than the screws, the cases are fully transparent, giving you an unobstructed look at the movement. You can get the case in either clear sapphire, or sapphires that have a pink or blue colored element, making it glow in that color. Water resistance is not great at 30 meters.

Thanks to the fully transparent case and complete lack of traditional dial, all you see when you look at the watch is the movement, and the polished and microblasted red gold flange that holds the luminescent hour markers. Looking through the watch, you see a titanium baseplate that is almost a lattice that holds the wheels with their involute-profile gear teeth, the tourbillon, and the barrel. The notable absence of upper bridges, which makes the tourbillon “flying,” further accentuates the skeletonization of the movement.

The movement you see is the calibre RM75-01, manually wound, beating at 3Hz and with a 65 hour power reserve. The watches come on silicone straps that vary in color depending on which version you get. The clear sapphire case gets a seafoam green strap, the pink comes on a color matched strap and the blue version gets a white strap.

The new Richard Mille RM 75-01 Flying Tourbillon Sapphire is limited to 15 pieces in the clear case and 10 each of the colored cases. I assume they aren’t sold out instantly since they are priced at $2.02 million for the clear case, $2.25 million for the blue and $2.26 million for the pink. See more on the Richard Mille website.

SPECIAL FEATURE: The Next Chapter — Indian Watches for a Global Generation

I’ve teamed up with the very fine folks over at Bangalore Watch Company to bring you a three-part series on Indian watchmaking, from the British occupation and the invention of the JLC Reverso, through homebrew mass production, the rise of the Mumbai special, all the way to the modern rise of Indian brands.

Today, I’m publishing part three, on how Bangalore Watch Company is ushering a brand new era for the local watch scene. Read it here.

⏲️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 the women’s 1500m in the 2012 London Olympics get its unenviable reputation? Athletes who were cheated out of medals talk about what happened that day – and how the results have slowly unravelled. The Guardian goes inside the dirtiest race in Olympic history.

• Germans in need of new kidneys are heading to Kenya to buy one. The donors are frequently suffering from bitter poverty. Behind the scheme is an Israeli whom the authorities have been after for years.

• Nancy and Frank Howard were happily married for three decades. Then he fell in love with another woman, embezzled $30 million, and hired a hit man to kill her. This is how not to get away with murder.

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

Bear with me on this one. Despite how it may seem, the UFC, and MMA in general, is a rather timid sport these days. Back in the 1990s, as mixed martial arts was just being invented as a sport, things were much more raw. And I can tell you exactly the moment I realized MMA is nothing like any other combat sport. It was 1998 and I was watching Pride 2. The tournament was kicked off with a fight between the absolute Croatian kickboxing legend Branko Cikatic and Mark Kerr.

The fight was slow to start, but the moment Kerr exploded and grabbed Cikatic by the legs to take him down, you could see in the legend’s eyes that his time in the sport was over. He grabbed the ropes and lost control, trying to decapitate Kerr with strikes to the back of the head. The referee barely stopped him. He got a warning, Kerr went for his legs again, and Cikatic did the same — grabbed the ropes and went for the back of the head. Kerr wanted none of this. A brawl broke out, it took three judges to separate the two giants and after the dust settled Cikatic was disqualified and it was clear that the era of boxing and kickboxing was over. (You can see that fight here)

What you see lined above is the trailer for a biopic of Kerr’s life. I knew that The Rock was working on that. What I didn’t know is that it was being directed by Bennie Safdie, that he transformed into Kerr and that the movie is going to sweep it at the Oscars. This is The Wrestler, but looks even better.

Thanks for reading,
Vuk