Timex Does The 70s Racing Inspired Velocity In Blue; Rado's 40 Years With Tennis; Norqain Shrinks Independence Skeleton; Vulcain's New Dials For Skindiver Chrono; M. Grossman's Tremblage In Green

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. Returning from my trip, so this one is a bit late. However, there are some pretty cool watches on the roster today.

Another thing of note, I promised to get back to writing the additional paid posts within a week, but it’s going to be another week. I hope you can bear with me, as I make changes to the entire backend of the newsletter.

In this issue:

• Timex Expands The Cool Reissue 1971 Velocity Inspired By 1970s Racing Watches

• Rado Celebrates 40 Years Of Tennis Watches With A Limited Edition Captain Cook

• Norqain Shrinks Down The Skeletonized Independence To 40mm

• Vulcain Adds Meteorite And Salmon Limited Edition Dials To The Skindiver Chronograph

• Moritz Grossman Renders Their Tremblage Model In A Beautiful Green

👂What’s new

1/

Timex Expands The Cool Reissue 1971 Velocity Inspired By 1970s Racing Watches

Timex is an incredible brand, if for nothing then for the sheer volume of models in their lineup. Sure, they aren’t on the cutting edge of horology. Instead, they make great looking, well made, long lasting and affordable pieces that can suit any person for any occasion - from sports pieces to dress watches. Their latest release, however, is part of their “Reissue” line which, like the name says, offers a number of vintage-inspired watches that look fantastic. This is the new take on the 70’s racing-inspired Q Timex Reissue 1971 Velocity, which was originally released last year, but now comes with an even better blue dial.

The watch comes in a stainless-steel case that measures 36mm wide and 9.5mm thick, with a brushed finish on top and polished on the sides, to reflect the vintage vibe. Equally as vintage are the very short lugs that give the case an almost cushion shape. On top is a domed acrylic crystal, just like you would get from a 70s sports watch, with a aluminum bezel that has a 60 minuted scale that’s minute-marked up until the first 15 minutes.

Underneath the crystal is an equally vintage-looking dial, featuring a checked flag patter on the perimeter. The watch is blue, save for a ring of orange color just near the flag pattern. The hour markers are faceted applied chunks of what looks like aluminium, with applied dots of lume in the center. The blue surface of the dial is broken up with orange crosshairs and the central seconds hand is a very retro orange color.

Inside is an unnamed quartz movement, but seeing as how this is a Q series Timex, chances are it’s the Seiko PC33 quartz movement, accurate to +/- 30 seconds per month. You don’t expect much from a quartz Timex, but it’s still a nice watch. It comes on a stainless steel jubillee-style bracelet.

The Q Timex Reissue 1971 Velocity is available for purchase now, priced is set at $189, which is pretty awesome. See more on the Timex website.

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Rado Celebrates 40 Years Of Tennis Watches With A Limited Edition Captain Cook

Years ago, when I wasn’t a curmudgeon who’s slowly decaying, I enjoyed playing tennis. I would love to go back to it, but I’m sure it would kill me in a few days. And my favorite thing about tennis was playing in the summer, but getting up early enough that it wasn’t scorching yet. And I hate getting up early. Our local court was in a bit of a valley, so you would have the sun hitting you hard, even at 7 o’clock in the morning, while a chilly breeze was keeping you cool. It was fantastic. And ever since, tennis has been one of the few sports I like to follow. So, when a watch brand does a tennis-themed release, I’m interested. And Rado has been releasing tennis-themed watches for forty years, an accomplishment they are now celebrating with the Captain Cook x Tennis Limited Edition, with straps that any tennis fan will instantly recognize.

Based on the regular Rado Captain Cook, the watch comes in a stainless steel case that measures 39mm wide, 12mm thick and has a comfortable 45mm lug-to-lug. On top of the case is a box-shaped sapphire crystal with an anti-reflective coating on both sides, surrounded by a grey brushed plasma high-tech ceramic insert, engraved with white lacquered markers. Out back is a caseback that has the embossed textures of the three main tennis surfaces — hard court, grass and clay. Water resistance remains at 300 meters.

The dial comes in a very nice gradient that goes from a very light silver, almost white, in the centre to a darker grey on the outside of the dial. Around the dial is a ruthenium-coloured flange and a white dotted minute track that has green Super-LumiNova dots at 60, 15, 30 and 40 minutes, standing for the standard scores in a single game of tennis. The hands are rhodium plated and filled with white lume, and the seconds hand has lume in the tip the same color as a tennis ball. There’s a date aperture at 3 o’clock with a white date disc.

Inside, you’ll find the Rado calibre R763 which is, since Rado is part of the Swatch Group, essentially a Powermatic 80. That means that it beats at 3Hz and has an 80 hour power reserve, with a antimagnetic Nivachron. The watch comes on a brushed and polished beads-of-rice stainless steel bracelet with a 3-fold clasp, with an additional three NATO-style textile straps, each color matched to the three main tennis surfaces — blue for hard courts, green for grass, and orange for clay.

The new Captain Cook x Tennis Limited Edition is limited to 1,985 pieces, matching the year when the first Rado tennis watch came out. Price is set at CHF 2,400. See more on the Rado website.

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Norqain Shrinks Down The Skeletonized Independence To 40mm

I’ve said it many times, but I’ll say it again — while I appreciate the incredible effort behind Norqain, the startup indie Swiss watch brand that has people like industry legend Jean-Claude Biver behind it, I just don’t get it. It could be a case of it just not being a watch for me, but I can’t see myself owning one. On the other hand, tens of thousands of people can see themselves with one on their wrist, so good on them. And as the brand grows, Norqain keeps expanding their collections, with more and more watches showing up in smaller cases. Now, they are shrinking down their Independence Skeleton from 42mm to 40mm, with two case colors.

While the width of the watch has been reduced for this new release, it got a little fatter. It now measures 40mm wide, 12.05mm thick (compared to 11.8mm on the 42mm version) and it has a much more compact 46.3mm lug-to-lug. The case can be had in two finishes — a brushed and polished stainless steel version and a brushed black DLC coat that has sandblasted flanks. Norqain makes sports watches, so this one takes on the same guise with a protected crown and a protruding bumper on the left side. Water resistance is 100 meters.

The dials of the two differently finished cases are overall the same, with anthracite colored skeletonised bridges covered by a sapphire crystal that has all the printings, including the logo and water resistance. Around the perimeter is an anthracite chapter ring which holds the hour indices filled with white lume. The same white lume is used on the skeletonised hour and minute hands, as well as the seconds hand arrow. That arrow is also the only difference between the two models — the steel version gets a turquoise arrow, while the black version gets a bright orange arrow.

Inside, and visible from the front and back, is the calibre NB08S, which is actually the skeletonized version of the Sellita SW200-1, a very familiar automatic movement that beats at 4Hz and has a 41 hour power reserve. While it’s quite a middle-of-the-road movement, it’s also COSC-certified, which is great. The steel version comes on a black rubber strap with a Milanese texture or a steel bracelet, while the black version comes on either a khaki or black rubber strap with the same texture.

The new Norqain Independence Skeleton is available now, priced at €3,950 on rubber and €4,200 on bracelet for the steel versions and €4,160 for the black DLC coated version on rubber. See more on the Norqain website.

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Vulcain Adds Meteorite And Salmon Limited Edition Dials To The Skindiver Chronograph

Vulcain is having a good time this summer. Just last week, I wrote about their new Skindiver Nautique GMT, a multi-time-zone take on their revival of the Skindiver Nautique. A skindiver, if you’re not familiar, is a genre of diver that became increasingly popular in the 1960s. While actual professional divers demanded robust water resistance and were willing to trade an oversized case for more depth, casual divers and swimmers who just wanted to have some fun in the water appreciated the format of the skin diver which came in with a lower water resistance, but also a more compact size. And while Vulcain is expanding this model line in a lot of directions, my favorite versions is the Skindiver Chronograph, because there are very few things as cool as a chrono diver, made even better with a compact case. Now, the brand is giving the collection two limited edition dials — one in salmon and one with a slab of meteorite.

The watch still keeps the iconic skin-diver case shape, with super short square lugs. The case gets a deeply brushed finish, measuring 39.7mm wide and an actually approachable thickness of 13mm, with a 47mm lug-to-lug. The thickness is even more impressive considering the fact that includes the domed sapphire crystal on top. Surrounding the crystal is a serrated bezel with a black ceramic insert that has both a 60-minute dive scale and a much smaller 12-hour, which is cool.

There are two dial options for these limited editions — a dark and light grey meteorite, and a very shiny and beautifully brushed salmon colored one. Both versions have a tachymeter and decimal scale on the periphery, applied silver hour markers and polished silver square hands. They also both have a bi-compax layout with a 30 minute totalizer at 3 and a running seconds at 9 o’clock. The meteorite dial has black sub-dials with a touch of red on the 30 minute totalize, while the salmon has salmon dials with a black details on the right.

Inside, you’ll find the Valjoux 7753, a variation of the legendary Valjoux 7750, which is an automatic, cam-lever chronograph that beats at 4Hz and has a 42 hour power reserve. The watches can be had on a black rubber strap, or on a vintage-inspired single-link brushed steel bracelet.

The new Vulcain Skindiver Chronograph models limited to 100 pieces each, priced at CHF 2,590 for the Salmon on rubber and CHF 2,850 on the steel bracelet; and CHF 2,890 on rubber for the Meteorite and CHF 3,150 on steel. See more on the Vulcain website.

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Moritz Grossman Renders Their Tremblage Model In A Beautiful Green

Tremblage is a historical decorative technique in which an artisan uses a tool called a burin to hand engrave a densely packed pattern onto a dial to give it a wonderful grained finish. It’s not an easy or quick thing to do, and there are a few watches out there that do it perfectly. The one that instantly comes to mind is the A. Lange & Söhne Datograph Handwerkskunst. It is an incredible watch, completely made by hand, but made just in a series of 25 pieces and priced at a headache-inducing €625,000. But there’s one other brand that does tremblage, and they do if really well. It’s Moritz Grossmann, out of Glashütte, which goes so far as having a whole model line called Tremblage. And this new version comes in a beautiful green color.

You get a choice of materials with this watch, but they’re both quite luxurious — 18k white or rose gold. The case measures 41mm wide and 11.35mm thick, and remains quite simple, with quite chunky and angled lugs. There are sapphire crystals on top and bottom, with a super thin bezel around the top one. There’s also a pusher at 4 o’clock, which is kind of odd, since this is certainly not a chronograph. Well, that pusher is part of Moritz Grossmann’s proprietary time-setting mechanism. You pull out the crown and it snaps back to the original position, instead of remaining pulled out. But, the act of pulling it out hacks the movement and allows you to set the time. When you’re done, hit that pusher, and the movement restarts.

Then, there’s the dial. All of the dials in the Tremblage line are made out of German silver and then hand-engraved using the tremblage technique. This version gets a deep matte green color, and it’s paired with applied beautiful numerals and logo, with a sub-dial at 6 for the seconds display.

Inside, you’ll find the manually wound in-house calibre 100.1 which beats at 18,000 vph and has a 42 hour power reserve. Just like the dial, the 2/3 plate is made out of untreated German silver, hand engraved and with polished bevels. The movement’s architecture is inspired by 19th-century German watchmaking, highlighted by components such as the hand-engraved balance cock and white sapphires set in gold chatons. The watches come on brown alligator leather straps.

The new Tremblage Green is limited to just eight pieces in each metal and priced at €55,200 in white gold and €56,700 in rose gold. See more on the Moritz Grossmann 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

• Ted Bundy, Charles Manson, and many other notorious figures lived in and around Tacoma in the sixties. A new book argues that there was something in the water.

• When beloved New York art dealer Brent Sikkema is found brutally murdered in his Rio de Janeiro sanctuary, a tangled web of betrayal, art-world intrigue, and an alleged murder-for-hire plot unravels. As police close in on suspects from Sikkema’s inner circle, the shocking case exposes the dark side of love, legacy, and ambition behind the glittering facade of the contemporary art scene.

• In the dead of night, ten inmates vanished from a high-security New Orleans jail, leaving behind a taunting graffiti and a city on edge. As a sprawling manhunt unfolds, the daring escape exposes deep cracks in the justice system — fueling fear, political fallout, and urgent calls for reform in a city haunted by its own history.

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

We’re getting a bit meta here. I’ve posted a few Tiny Desk Concert videos and they’re great fun. I’ve also posted a few Architectural Digest videos which give you some great insight into interesting spaces. Today, we have a crossover and it’s cool.

Thanks for reading,
Vuk