Timex Perfects The Everyday Field Watch; Norqain’s Holiday Celebration; A Great Louis Erard; Ressence And Mark Newson Team Up; Parmigiani's Tonda PF Minute Rattrapante; Moser's Second Act Genesis

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Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. I might have been a bit too grumpy when writing the Moser thing, but I won’t be changing my position on Vantablack anytime soon.

In this issue

• Timex Might Have The Perfect Everyday Field Watch, The Capstone Automatic

• Norqain’s Holiday Celebration Comes In The Form Of Gold 39mm Wild One Skeletons

• Louis Erard And Worn & Wound Team Up For What Might Be The Best Le Régulateur To Date

• Ressence And Mark Newson Team On The Type 3 MN, The Most Logical Collaboration In The World

• Parmigiani Revisits The Tonda PF Minute Rattrapante, Now With An Arctic Rose Dial

• Moser Releases The Second Act Of The Three-Act Genesis Release, A Vantablack Streamliner

• FOR WATCH CLUB MEMBERS Your Next Watch, Week 61: The Classiest Rolex; And Incredible IWC Porsche Designed; Neil Armstrong's Watch; And A Classy Tudor

👂What’s new

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Timex Might Have The Perfect Everyday Field Watch, The Capstone Automatic

The Timex Expedition is about as straightforward as a watch can get. They are simple, durable, good looking and won’t break the bank. Better yet, they are mostly quartz powered, so they are worry free. And even better than that, every now and again, Timex will release a new version of the Expedition that is even better than the previous version. That’s exactly what we have here, with the new Timex Expedition Capstone Automatic. Not only does it come in two different cases, with a great look, it’s also equipped with an automatic movement. Let’s dig in.

The brushed stainless steel case hasn’t changed all that much from the rest of the Expedition collection. It keeps the same 39mm width of the quartz version, but grows a millimeter in thickness to 12mm in order to accommodate the automatic movement. There are two versions available — the one that comes on a stainless steel bracelet comes in an untreated case, while the one that comes on a fabric strap has a black coating on the case. The watches also have transparent casebacks to show off the new movements. Water resistance is 50 meters.

The dials are new, both with black bases and much more purposefully built. You now get large Arabic numerals painted in lume, as well as a smaller 24 hour scale closer to the center of the dial. The sharp hands are also filled with the same lume as the one used on the numerals. At 12 o’clock is the Timex Expedition logo, while at 6 o’clock is the word Automatic.

Inside is the Citizen Calibre 8210 automatic movement which beats at 3Hz and has a 42 hour power reserve. It has an accuracy of -20/+40 per day, but like most of these more affordable movements, it performs much better in real life.

The Timex Expedition Capstone Automatic is available now and priced at €309 for the black version on strap, while the steel version is priced at €329. See the black here and the steel version here.

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Norqain’s Holiday Celebration Comes In The Form Of Gold 39mm Wild One Skeletons

What better way to celebrate the holidays than with not one, but two gold watches. And that’s exactly what they did with two new special 39mm Wild One Skeletons, both featuring 18-karat gold top plates on the case. Yeah, just plates. It’s an interesting watch.

Based on the recently introduced 39mm version of the Wild One Skeleton, the case measures 39mm wide, 11.75mm thick and has a lug-to-lug of 45.75mm. But like I said, these aren’t solid gold watches. Instead, they are still made out of their proprietary Norteq material, which is a carbon fibre composite of CF and 60% bio-based material. It’s also built like a rock, with a protective cage around the entire case, reinforced with a rubber shock absorber surrounding the titanium movement container. Then, on top, Norqain applied a thin plate made out of gold that also acts as a bezel for the flat sapphire crystal. There are two versions to choose from — a yellow gold paired with black bumpers and a rose gold paired with white bumpers. The gold used is made out of 18K PX Impact Gold, ethically sourced and mercury-free. Water resistance remains at 200 meters.

There’s not much to the dial, other than a flange that holds the lumed hour markers and hands, all you see the movement and its bridges. The yellow gold version has yellow gold markers and black bridges, while the rose gold version has rose gold markers and white bridges. The movement you see inside is the calibre N08S which is, of course, just the Sellita SW200. It beats at 4Hz, has a 41 hour power reserve and is actually COSC certified, which is pretty cool. The watches come on a black or white rubber strap that has a central segment color matched to the rest of the case.

The Norqain Wild One Skeleton 39mm Red Gold and Yellow Gold are available now, with the yellow gold version limited to 50 pieces. Price is set at €14,450. See more on the Norqain website — here for the yellow gold version and here for the rose gold version.

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Louis Erard And Worn & Wound Team Up For What Might Be The Best Le Régulateur To Date

I’ve been saying for a while now that Louis Erard has been the source of some of the best collaborations in the watch world. And they are best known for using their Le Régulateur model as a spectacular platform. It has a simple regulator setup that allows for maximum creativity. A regulator watch draws its inspiration from clocks and watches from England in the 1700s, and by the late 1800s the regulator clock was common across railroad stations in the United States. This setup separates the hours, minutes and seconds from the same axis and places them at 12, central and 6 o’clock positions, making it easier to spot the precise time. But there’s one other great collaborator out there on the market, and that’s Worn & Wound, one of the more influential watch blogs around. They have exquisite taste, so their collaborations are usually something to have a look at. Now the two are coming together for the Louis Erard x Worn & Wound Le Régulateur, playing with colors and textures in the best possible way.

The case of this watch is not just familiar from previous models, it’s also super simple. Made out of stainless steel, it measures 39mm wide, 12.82mm thick and has short lugs for a 45.9mm lug-to-lug. The case is fully polished with a minimalist fixed bezel on top that surrounds the domed sapphire crystal. Water resistance is 50 meters.

The dial is where all the cool stuff happens. The base plate of the dial gets a fluted light-blue finish, framing all the time-telling dials. At the very center is a cobalt blue minute dial that uses a polished arrow-shaped minute hand. Above and below it are white subdials, of which only half are visible. The central cobalt dial has a metal ring outline with arrows pointing up and down, indicating the seconds and hours which are displayed on black skeletonized hour and seconds discs.

Inside, no surprises — it’s the Sellita SW266-1 élaboré-grade automatic movement, which has the regulator setup and Louis Erard gives it a openworked rotor with their logo in black lacquer. It beats at 4Hz and has a 38 hour power reserve. The watch comes on a pebbled taupe leather strap.

The Louis Erard x Worn & Wound Le Régulateur is limited to 99 pieces, priced at €4.339. I assume that’s with my taxes included, so your mileage might vary. See more on the Worn & Wound website.

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Ressence And Mark Newson Team On Up The Type 3 MN, The Most Logical Collaboration In The World

Oh, boy, what a great day for me today. As you know, I am a massive, massive fan of Ressence. It is the first brand that introduced me to the idea that watches can be way more than simple movements connected to a couple of hands. It all started with the Type 3. I don’t know what fascinated me more — the ever moving dial and sub-dials, the oil filled display that created an incredible look or the wild magnetic connection between the top display part and the bottom part that holds the movement. It was clear that a lot of design inspiration for the Ressence watches came from the Ikepod watches that were originally by Marc Newson, one of the most influential product designers of our era. So, you can imagine how exciting a collaboration between Ressence and Marc Newson would be. And that’s exactly what we’re getting here, with the new Type 3 Marc Newson.

The Type 3 is ultimate simplicity. The watch measures 45mm wide and 15mm thick, and has a completely unique construction, with its signature pebble case that Newson used for his Ikepod. If you’re as much a fan, you might have noticed that the watch has grown 1mm in width and there are no more lugs. Instead, the strap connects directly to the round case. The watch is made out of two parts — on the bottom is a Grade 5 titanium mid-case, while on top is a highly domed sapphire that covers the convex titanium dial. Ressence then injects oil between the dial and crystal, creating an incredible optical illusion in which the whole top part looks like one compact unit. This is further enhanced by the fact that the entire dial rotates, with the subdials changing locations and spinning almost freely. It has to be seen to be understood, but one thing is for sure — it does not look real.

Ressence calls that dial the ROCS 3.6 (Ressence Orbital Convex System) and it’s made out of a number of convex titanium discs that orbit in unison, instead of traditional hands. In this versions, the discs are DLC- and PVD-coated titanium, engraved and filled with Grade A Super-LumiNova in blue and green, with a four-disc setup. You get displays hours, minutes, running seconds (180s), day, date, and oil temperature.

In the bottom part, you’ll find a heavily modified ETA 2824, beating at 4Hz with a 36 hour power reserve, that drives the ROCS 3.6. But since the discs are immersed in oil, there’s a physical divide between the two domes. Meaning that Ressence developed special magnets that connect the movement to the dial. It’s incredible. Take into account also that the watch has a compensating bellows system that is used to equalize pressure caused by thermal expansion of the oil. The watch is wound and set through the caseback. The watch comes on a grey synthetic rubber strap.

The new Ressence Type 3 Marc Newson is limited to 80 pieces and is on sale right now. Price is set at CHF 46,000. See more on the Ressence website.

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Parmigiani Revisits The Tonda PF Minute Rattrapante, Now With An Arctic Rose Dial

Launched during the 2023 Watches and Wonders, the Tonda PF Minute Rattrapante is one of the best watches in the modern Parmigiani Fleurier catalogue. Not only is it gorgeous, with clever solutions, it also features one of the most ingenius complications in modern watches — an elapsed minute timer on demand. Now, they’re releasing a new variant of the watch, one with a stunning Arctic Rose dial.

On the outside, hardly anything has changed. The case is made out of stainless steel and still measures 40mm wide and 10.7mm thick. On top is the signature knurled platinum bezel, and the entire case has alternating satin-finished and polished surfaces. There’s a rose gold pusher integrated into the crown, while on the other side, at 8 and 10 o’clock are two teardrop-shaped pushers. Water resistance is 60 meters.

The dial keeps the same beautiful hand-guilloché grain d’orge pattern, but here it gets the lightest of pale rose colors. I’ve seen videos of this watch and the pink disappears in some light and gets much more intense in other. Beautiful. The three hands are skeletonized, gold and delta shaped, and you get hand-applied gold indices, and the gold oval PF cartouche at noon.

Inside, you’ll find the classic Parmigiani Fleurier movement, the calibre PF052, which beats at 21,600vph and has a 48 hour power reserve. It has an addition of a rattrapante function and this is where things get very cool. They use the same principle of the GMT Rattrapante which has two superimposed hour hands to create an elapsed timer. This watch uses two superimposed minute hands, with the pusher at 8 o’clock advancing the rose gold hand in 5-minute increments, while the one at 10 o’clock advancing it in 1-minute increments. Hit the crown pusher, and the minute hands slips under its white gold counterpart. It’s basically the same principle as using a bezel on a dive watch to time events, but much more complicated and cooler. The watch comes on an integrated steel bracelet with brushed central links and polished outer links.

The new Parmigiani Fleurier Tonda PF Minute Rattrapante Stainless Steel Arctic Rose is part of the regular collection and priced at CHF 29,700. See more on the Parmigiani website.

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Moser Releases The Second Act Of The Three-Act Genesis Release, A Vantablack Streamliner

I’ll be open for a second and share with you how much I don’t like Vantablack. Actually, the tech behind Vantablack, the darkest synthetic material on Earth capable of absorbing 99.965% of visible light, is definitely cool. I strongly dislike everything associated with Vantablack. The fact that they sold the exclusive rights to Anish Kapoor as the only artist allowed to use it is the lamest marketing stunt in the world. They could have at least picked a half decent artist. And people who will go on explaining how Vantablack works are like crypto bros who won’t shut up about the “future of finance”. They’re the people who build their own keyboards and make RGB their entire personality. They’re the audiophiles who claim they can “hear the difference” between identical cables that cost $9 and $900. And yes, they are the people that will eat your ear off at the pub trying to explain how mechanical watches are superior to quartz, “because they have a soul”. Sorry, looks like I had something to get off my chest here, and it’s mostly my hate of Vantablack and Anish Kapoor.

Vantablack also appears on some H. Moser & Cie watches, and it’s kind of appropriate — considering the incredible douchiness of the material — that it appears on the Streamliner Genesis 2. You see, Moser has this idea of a three-act Genesis play in which is “story of an independent Swiss watch manufacture exploring uncharted territories”. Sure, I guess. But the first Endeavour Centre Seconds Genesis in 2022 was an interesting looking, pixellated 3D-printed watch, but in trying to be trendy, it was weighed down with Web3, blockchain and NFT buzzwords that mean absolutely nothing just three years later. The second iteration in the Genesis line is the Streamliner Genesis 2 which brings back Vantablack, not making it look better for Moser sidestepping cringy trends.

The case of this new watch uses the same case as the second-gen Streamliner and it’s still a work of art. Cushion-shaped and made out of satin brushed steel, it measures 40mm wide and 10.3mm thick. However, everyone reports that the watch wears much smaller, thanks to its lack of lugs and the fact that the case length measurement is 39mm. The watch has the same pixelated crown as the Genesis 1. Attached to the case is a tapering steel bracelet that is vertically brushed and with contrasting polished bevels between each link. Water resistance is 120 meters.

The dial is as simple as can get, with a Vantablack surface — don’t you dare call it paint, because it’s actually a synthetic material made up of nanotubes, or something like that — that swallows up all light making you feel uncomfortable while looking at it. There’s nothing else on the dial, not even the transparent Moser logo they usually print on them. The hands are skyscraper shaped, with the upper part being made out of Globolight, a lumed material.

Inside, you’ll find the in-house HMC 203 automatic calibre, which beats at 21,600vph and has a 72 hour power reserve. It’s also nice to look at, with skeletonized anthracite bridges with Moser’s signature double stripes, alongside an openworked 18k gold rotor.

The new Streamliner Genesis 2 is limited to 50 pieces. Actually, 100. 50 pieces will be offered to owners of the Endeavour Centre Seconds Genesis 1 and a further 50 pieces will be provided to them to offer to their friends and family. Each, however, will cost CHF 29,900, without tax. I know it sounds like I hate this watch, but I really don’t. It looks nice, but it’s just trying too hard. The Genesis 3 is coming out next year, I hope they do something a bit less obnoxious then. See more on the Moser website.

FOR WATCH CLUB MEMBERS Watches You Might Not Have Seen, Week 58: Favre-Leuba's Bathy and the dawn of instrument divers

How Favre-Leuba packed a mechanical depth gauge into a 1960s wristwatch. Read it here.

⏲️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

• Paul Sagar, once a fierce rock climber and political theorist, shattered his neck on a Scottish crag, waking tetraplegic and trapped in hospital hell—humiliated, grief-stricken, yearning for his lost life of peaks and freedom. Dictating raw despair from rehab, he eyes Dignitas assisted suicide while wrestling hope's cruel curse. This is incredibly well written.

• The radicalization of Ziz Lasota: how an AI doomer became an accused cult leader. Lasota’s friends, colleagues, and family talk about how a nasa intern and google employee wound up at the center of a bizarre string of murders across the country.

• Step inside the world of the American Racing Pigeon Union (ARPU) convention, where Oliver Egger introduces us to the sport’s colorful characters and its often unspoken ethical debates. The racing pigeons themselves are astonishingly brave, risking storms, predators, hunger, and exhaustion as they navigate hundreds of miles to find their way home. But the most impressive birds are the ones treated as commodities—valued, traded, and sold for their performance.

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

One of the funnest parts about the year ending is seeing what kind of gadgets, doo-das and contraptions Adam Savage managed to find throughout the year.

Thanks for reading,
Vuk