Timex and James Brand For The Third Time ; Bell & Ross Has Night Vision; RZE Shrinks Resolute To 36mm; A Great Ace x FC Collab; Armin Strom's Best Mirrored Force Resonance; Two Incredible Breguets

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. Have a good weekend everybody, I know I will.

In this issue

• Timex and The James Brand Come Together For A Third Collaboration On Their Titanium Traveler GMT

• Bell & Ross Is Night Mission Ready With The BR-X3 Night Vision

• RZE Shrinks Down Their Bestselling Resolute To A Very Compact 36mm

• Ace Jewelers Celebrate 50 Years With A Very Important, Very Personal Frederique Constant Highlife Worldtimer

• Armin Strom Releases What Has To Be The Best Version Of The Mirrored Force Resonance

• Breguet Continues 250th Anniversary Celebration With The Classique 7235 And Classique 7225

• FOR WATCH CLUB MEMBERS Historical Perspectives: The Relentless NASA Trials That Forged the Speedmaster’s Legacy Among the Stars

👂What’s new

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Timex and The James Brand Come Together For A Third Collaboration On Their Titanium Traveler GMT

One of — well, actually, two of — the best watches released last year were a collaboration between Timex and The James Brand, the maker of every day carry stuff focused on minimalist design, to release very nifty Automatic GMT watch. It was a continuation of Timex’s spectacular streak of great looking watches, and an announcement that they would be moving up in the price range. It was also great looking, well made, titanium and equipped with the flyer-style GMT Miyota 9075 movement, all very much justifying the price. Now, Timex and The James Brand are back at it, with the same Automatic GMT but now with the Nocturne model that has a fantastic black and orange colorway.

On the outside, nothing has changed. It’s a barrel shaped titanium case that measures 41mm wide. We don’t get any other measurements. I tried looking up reviews that mention what the other proportions are, but there is a lot of differing information out there. One blog gives the thickness of 13.2mm, another says it’s way thinner at 11.5mm. I also found a 48mm lug-to-lug measurement, but trust is as much as the two thickness measurements. The case has a matte finish and on top is a sapphire crystal, surrounded by a titanium bezel that has a black ceramic insert with 24 hour markings. Water resistance is 200 meters.

This bezel works with the internal chapter ring which also has a 24 hour scale to allow the user to track three time zones at the same time, but this time for real - none of that fiddling with the bezel and making calculations. You track one time with the hour and minute hands, you track a second with the internal bezel and the GMT hand and you track the third with the bezel that is rotated to match you third time zone and it stays there.

The dial is minimalist in its approach, but instead of a colored base, you get a black dial made out of forged carbon fiber. You get trapezoid hour markers and stick minute markers, a date aperture at 3 o’clock, two black hands filled with lume for the hours and minutes, a white seconds hand and a bright orange GMT hand.

Inside is the very familiar Miyota 9075, which allows the wearer to jump the local hour hand, meaning that it’s a “true” or flyer-style GMT movement. It beats at 28,800 vph, 4Hz and has a power reserve of about 42 hours. The watch comes on a titanium bracelet and you get an additional two-piece nylon strap, both with a quick release mechanism.

Unfortunately, just like the original, this is also a limited edition but at least the upped the limitation to 1,000 pieces. Price remains unchanged at $749 and you can see more on The James Brand website.

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Bell & Ross Is Night Mission Ready With The BR-X3 Night Vision

Bell & Ross has always been known for watches that are a bit removed from the norm. The BR-01 is an iconic model that takes its styling from airplane instruments, rendering them as square watches with circular apertures. However, in the past 20 years, these watches have become quite accepted. Well, Bell & Ross still knows how to keep us on our toes, with watches like this new BR-X3 Night Vision.

The shape of the watch will be instantly recognizable, measuring 41mm x 41mm square and 13.3 mm thick, but that’s about where any recognition stops. The case has a sandwich construction, with the top and bottom plates made from LUM-CAMO, a composite material made out of carbon fibre with a blend of Super-LumiNova resin, living up to its name — the whole thing looks like it is camouflage made out of lumed material. By day, the case is black with green striations all over. By night, it glows bright enough to light up a room. The top and bottom plates are held together with screws over a mid case made out of black PVD-coated titanium, with green lume rubber bumpers on each corner. On top is a green-tinted sapphire crystal and water resistance is 100 meters.

The dial is no less crazy, albeit a bit more familiar. It takes on the x-shaped design on the dial from the recently introduced BR-X collection. It’s a multi-level dial with a sapphire crystal base that gives you alook at the movement. The x-shaped segment frames the date window at 3 o’clock with three visible dates and the power reserve indicator at 9 o’clock. And once again, there’s a hell of a lot of lume here.

Inside, you’ll find the BR-Cal.323. It’s a manufacture movement made for Bell & Ross by Kenissi and it beats at 4Hz, with a 70 hour power reserve. It’s also COSC certified, which is a cool addition. The watch comes on a black rubber strap which would have been cooler had it been lumed as well.

The new Bell & Ross BR-X3 Night Vision is limited to 250 pieces and is priced at a quite intense €13,900. See more on the Bell & Ross website.

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RZE Shrinks Down Their Bestselling Resolute To A Very Compact 36mm

Making a best-selling watch is pretty easy. Use great materials, build it super-sturdy, make it look good and sell it for a very low price. Well, that’s easier said than done. Not for RZE. It seems that they are very good at making best-selling watches. Watches like their Resolute. In a world of watch enthusiast calling for smaller watches, the Resolute has been quite consistently well sold even at its 40mm size. But RZE is not one to ignore its customers. So, celebrating five years of the company, RZE is now releasing the Resolute in 36mm.

Like you would expect from RZE, the new Resolute 36 is made out of Grade 2 titanium, which is treated with the brand’s proprietary UltraHex coating for increased scratch resistance. The new case measures 36mm wide, 9.5mm thick and has a 42.3mm lug-to-lug. RZE is pretty proud to point out that this is their thinnest watch to date. It’s also super light, at 36 grams without and 90 grams with the bracelet. The case keeps the angular construction with brushed surfaces all over, except for a really nice polished chamfer on the bezel. Water resistance remains 100 meters.

There are a lot of changes to the dial, as well. Four colors are available — ice-blue Halcyon, red Tempo, black Waypoint and green Mojito. They all have a sunray central disc with a grained ring on the outside that holds the applied hour markers. All the way on the outside is a minute track. The hands are sharp and filled with plenty of white Super-LumiNova.

Inside, you’ll find the Miyota 9039 automatic. The movement beats at 4Hz and has a 42 hour power reserve. The watch comes on a very nice titanium bracelet that tapers from 20mm wide to 16mm at the clasp, which has a nice toolless micro-adjustment mechanism.

The new RZE Resolute 36 is available for pre-order now, with shipping starting on November 3rd. Price is set at €705, with taxes included. See more on the RZE website.

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Ace Jewelers Celebrate 50 Years With A Very Important, Very Personal Frederique Constant Highlife Worldtimer

Back when I was starting this newsletter, I was a complete industry outsider. I didn’t live anywhere near the industry, haven’t exactly interacted with brands at all and I have a modest watch collection. I started growing the newsletter, developing my writing approach and one of the first people from the industry that subscribed to the newsletter was Alon Ben Joseph, the owner of Ace Jewelers and one of the most positive people in the industry. He offered a few words of encouragement at the start and they meant a lot. A few weeks after we exchanged just a couple of words, Alon sent me his personal Frederique Constant Highlife Worldtimer x Ace Jewelers Amsterdam for review. It was the first or second watch I got in for review and I was impressed with the trust Alon had for a complete unknown writer. I greatly appreciated that and we’ve become good friends since. So good, in fact, that we started a company together — 360watch, a luxury industry consultancy that helps brands from inception to sale (hey, if you have a brand, or are starting a brand, get in touch).

This year, Ace is celebrating a huge milestone. They have been in business for 50 years. To celebrate that, they have partnered with Frederique Constant once again to create 50 pieces of an even more special Highlife Worldtimer than the Amsterdam edition. This one is extremely personal to Alon and Amir Ben Joseph, their father David who started Ace Jewelers, and, of course, to Ace Jewelers the company.

On the outside, this is still the wonderful Highlife Worldtimer we know and love, with a brushed and polished stainless steel tonneau-shaped case that measures 41mm wide and 12.9mm thick. It has a thin bezel, a sapphire crystal and is water resistant to 100 meters. Being a world timer, it has a rotating internal 24-hour ring with names of cities for the 24 time zones. While some world timers tend to overcomplicate things, the FC keeps it simple and everything from the time to the rotating city disc is adjusted with just one crown and no additional pushers.

On the dial side, the setup remains the same, with a city ring on the outside, folowed by a blue (David Ben Joseph’s favorite color and the house color of Ace Jewelers) and white 24 hour ring and then a black base dial with applied indices, hour and minute hands, both treated with Super-LumiNova inserts. The pointer date indicator at 6 o’clock also features a sunray pattern. But beyond that, here is where all the personalization happens, by replacing cities with important locales for Ace and the Ben Joseph family. First, at GMT+3, you’ll find Jerusalem that replaces Cairo, written in Hebrew alphabet, a city where David lived with his parents and learned to become a diamond cutter, diamond polisher and goldsmith. At GMT+2, Geneva is replaced with Amsterdam, which is often nicknamed Jerusalem of the West. David Ben Joseph moved to Amsterdam in 1972, where he founded Ace Jewelers in 1975. Amsterdam is also the place Alon and Amir were born, so it’s a deeply important city for the family. And last, at GMT+1 is London, the city in which Ace Jewelers opened a new showroom, 50 years after opening the flagship store in Amsterdam.

Inside the watch is Frederique Constant’s in-house FC-718 automatic. It beats at 4Hz and has a 38 hour power reserve. The watch comes on either a 3-link stainless steel bracelet or, what looks even better, you can wear it on the additional black rubber strap with blue stitching provided with the watch.

The new Frederique Constant Highlife Worldtimer x Ace Jewelers Jerusalem is available now, limited to 50 pieces and priced at €4,795, the same as the Amsterdam edition. See more on the Ace Jewelers website.

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Armin Strom Releases What Has To Be The Best Version Of The Mirrored Force Resonance

The resonance in the name of the new watch from Armin Strom, the Mirrored Force Resonance doesn’t refer to a sound a watch might make, like in a chiming watch. But any confusion might be excused because resonance is a term originally derived from the field of acoustics. It occurs when two close vibrating frequencies synchronize, mutually absorbing each other’s energy and eventually arriving at the same frequency. It is also one of the most elusive phenomena in watchmaking, one that Armin Strom is very well known for making use of. It was Armin Strom co-founders Serge Michel and master watchmaker Claude Greisler who invented a way of connecting two independent balance wheels to have them synchronize, as a way of protecting from gravity, temperature and motion disruptions. This system was first introduced in 2016, and further refined with the Mirrored Force Resonance in 2022. Now, following an icy-blue dial version, and a black guilloché dial version, we’re getting the Mirrored Force Resonance Zeitgeist 1665, a retro futuristic masterpiece.

The watch comes in a stainless steel case that measures 43mm wide, 11.5mm thick, with a 49.60mm lug-to-lug. The case has polished tops of lugs, beautiful polished facets and a polished plain fixed bezel, while the sides of the watch have a vertically brushed finish. On top is a domed sapphire crystal that extends all the way to the edges, while out back is a flat sapphire crystal. Water resistance is 50 meters.

While previous Mirrored Force Resonance watches came with similar dials, just in new colors, this one does a lot different. It keeps the same setup with the offset dial for the hours and minutes and the resonance mechanism, two balance wheels oscillating in opposite directions, connected by Armin Strom’s patented resonance clutch spring on the left side of the dial. But now, the dial is fully opened, and you get 18k white gold tracks that are finished in white polished varnished lacquer. The hands are heat-blued and the three-spoke running seconds hand has a single lacquered spoke.

Visible from front and back is the manually wound Caliber ARF21, which beats at 3.5Hz and has a 48 hour power reserve. It has two independent oscillators, each equipped with its own balance wheel and hairspring, synchronized via the brand’s patented clutch spring. To show this off, the movement has twin seconds counters, which can be reset with the pusher at 2. You will then get to witness them synchronize once again. The watch comes on a black Alcantara strap with grey stitching.

The new Armin Strom Mirrored Force Resonance Zeitgeist 1665 is limited to 25 pieces and priced at CHF 82,000, without tax. See more on the Armin Strom website.

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Breguet Continues 250th Anniversary Celebration With The Classique 7235 And Classique 7225

There aren’t many watch brands out there that can celebrate 250 years of existence. Breguet is one of them, and that’s exactly the anniversary they are celebrating right now. In fact, this entire year seems to be dedicated to this celebration for Breguet. And good on them. The latest in the celebrator line are two watches in the Classique line, the Classique 7235 and Classique 7225.

Starting with the Classique 7235, it’s a tribute to one of the first watches that Breguet ever made, the No. 5 of 1794. It’s an inspired tribute, for sure, but in the form of a wrist watch and not a pocket watch. It comes in a case made out of 18k Breguet gold and measures 39mm wide and 9.9mm thick. It’s a simple case with a sapphire crystal that extends all the way to the edge and you even get 30 meters of water resistance. The dial is also made out of 18k Breguet gold and replicates the non-symmetrical setup of the pocket watch, with the moon phase at 2 o’clock, small seconds at 5 o’clock, power reserve at 10:30 and centrally mounted Breguet blued steel hollow-tipped hands. Around the perimeter are blued Roman numerals, while the sub-dials get Arabic numerals. The base of the dial has a hand-guilloché ‘Quai de l’Horloge’ motif. Inside, you’ll find the Calibre 502.3.DRL which beats at 3Hz with a 45-hour power reserve. But it’s incredibly beautiful, with an engraving of the historical Turgot map, an insanely detailed map of 1730s Paris, specifically where Breguet’s manufacture was located. The new Breguet Classique 7235 is limited to 250 pieces and priced at CHF 65,000. See more on the Breguet website.

Then, there’s the Classique 7225 which is similar to the 7235 but with some pretty special hidden details. The case is once again made out of 18k Breguet gold, but slightly larger, measuring 41mm wide and 10.7mm thick. On the right side is a flat crown while on the left is a trigger that looks like it activates a chiming mechanism. But oh, does it not. It does something way better. The base of the dial gets the same hand-guilloché ‘Quai de l’Horloge’ motif, with a centrally mounted time telling dial, surrounded by two small seconds indicators – one at 2 o’clock, one at 10 o’clock. Why, you ask? The small seconds at 10 o’clock is actually observation seconds. Or, in other words, a chronograph that never stops. Instead, you hit that button on the left side of the case to reset the seconds to zero. Very weird. Very cool. Inside, you’ll find a new movement, the calibre 74SC, beating at a monstrously fast 10Hz, or 72,000 vibrations per hour. That’s twice as fast as high-beat movements from Zenith and Grand Seiko. Such fast movements also generate a lot of friction, affecting accuracy. But Breguet uses a magnet on each side of the balance staff, with the tip of the staff placed in a jewel, lowering friction massively. You get 60 hours of power reserve and a pretty incredible accuracy of +/-1 second a day. The new Breguet Classique 7225 is not a limited edition and it’s priced at CHF 75,000. See more on the Breguet website.

FOR WATCH CLUB MEMBERS Historical Perspectives: The Relentless NASA Trials That Forged the Speedmaster’s Legacy Among the Stars

NASA’s Ruthless Tests, the Omega Speedmaster, and the Birth of the ‘Moonwatch’ 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

• When actor Gene Hackman and his wife were found dead, the world couldn’t look away. What happened to them was uniquely awful. Novelist Joy Williams meditates on what made it so.

• Who would win in a fight: Theodore Roosevelt, or Pee-wee Herman? Those are the two models of masculinity competing within eight-year-old Saul, a National Parks enthusiast who carries his own first-aid supplies in the pockets of his Junior Ranger vest. Sam Graham-Felsen sets off for the Badlands with his son to teach him resilience, but ends up navigating the gullies that separate the violence we anticipate from the real deal, and less certain about how to prepare a child for either.

• Across southern Africa, the Amitofo Care Centre, an NGO founded by a Taiwanese monk, has established a series of residential schools for orphans and at-risk children in the area. Over time, the school has become increasingly staffed by those from mainland China—and in Malawi, some of them have groomed students to help a vast ivory-and-animal smuggling operation. Rachel Nuwer is the perfect reporter for this feature, having written the literal book on wildlife trafficking; here, she blends solid sourcing and spare scenework for a fascinating story.

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

I had to check Wikipedia, but I was shocked to learn that Stephen King wrote only one novel this year, as opposed to the three per year he writes otherwise. I joke, just a bit. He is incredibly prolific. He is the exact opposite of George R. R. Martin, which makes this short video all the more funny.

Thanks for reading,
Vuk