Timex's Expedition Pioneer GMT Duo; Straum's Titanium Jan Mayen Arctics; Arsène Lippens Keeps It Restrained; The Albishorn Thundergraph Is Back; Greubel Forsey's Balancier 3 In Frosted Titanium

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. What an exhausting week… have a good weekend with a couple of very nice watches. See you all back here on Monday.

In this issue

• Timex Keeps Expanding The Explorer II-Adjacent Collection With The New Expedition Pioneer GMT Duo

• Straum Expands Jan Mayen Arctic Into Titanium, Adds Purple Borealis Limited Edition

• Arsène Lippens Releases Their Most Restrained Watch Yet, The Classico

• Albishorn’s Brings Back The Thundergraph, An Imaginary Timepiece Made To Scale Mountains

• Greubel Forsey Balancier 3 Gets A New Frosted Titanium Edition

• IT’S ABOUT TIME PRESENTS THE TRTS PODCAST: OraOrea — Worn And Wound's Zach Starr Weiss Launches His Own Brand

👂What’s new

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Timex Keeps Expanding The Explorer II-Adjacent Collection With The New Expedition Pioneer GMT Duo

When Timex launched the Expedition GMT Titanium Automatic last year at €549, I said it was going onto my to-buy list. The spec-to-price ratio was genuinely hard to argue with: Grade 2 titanium, 200-meter water resistance, Seiko NH34, sapphire crystal, and a fair price. It seems that a few people had the same sentiment as I did, as Timex is quick to update it with two important additions — a new and great looking green dial and a titanium bracelet for the black dial version.

The 41mm case is unchanged: angular construction, short lugs, sandblasted finish, 11.5mm 13.5mm thick. The screwdown caseback has Rolex-ish fluting around its edge. The bi-directional 24-hour titanium bezel still does a convincing Explorer II impression. And despite the obvious inspiration, the watch still has a lot of its own character. AR-coated sapphire on top, 200 meters of water resistance.

Both versions share the same layout: lume blocks in a mix of dots and dashes, triangle at 12:00, date window at 3:00 matched to the dial color. The black version keeps everything white except the yellow GMT hand. The green version gets green-filled bezel markings and a white date disc, which backs off the Rolex references and looks sharp in its own right. Both dials have a small mountain logo at 6:00 above three lines of text calling out the key specs.

The movement is still the Seiko NH34 automatic, 21,600vph, 41-hour power reserve. New with this update is a sandblasted titanium H-link bracelet on the black version, secured with a signed butterfly clasp. The green version comes on a fabric strap with leather lining and quick-release spring bars. Both have titanium buckles.

The green strap version is $629, the black bracelet version $729, both available now on the Timex website.

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Straum Expands Jan Mayen Arctic Into Titanium, Adds Purple Borealis Limited Edition

Straum's Jan Mayen is easily one of the more impressive releases in the independent space over the past couple of years. It’s a thoroughly adventure-ready watch and tells a story that everyone can and should head outside and get into some exporing of the world around us. That brief might sound corny, but only because so many watchmakers want to give off the same vibe. Straum lives the message. They’re fairly simple integrated bracelet watches with a sensational texture to every dial and even better color variants. The Jan Mayen also has the Arctic sub-collection that perfectly captures the Arctic environments. Now, the Arctic gets a titanium case, as was supposed to happen, and a brand new color that’s just mint.

The case stays 39mm wide and 11.5mm thick, in exactly the same configuration as the steel version. Nothing changes dimensionally; the upgrade is entirely material. Grade 5 titanium brings real weight savings without asking you to give up the look, and for a collection positioned around actually going outside and wearing the thing, that matters. On top is a domed sapphire crystal and the case is largely brushed with dramatic polished bevels. Water resistance is 100 meters.

The four existing Arctic dial variants carry over into titanium, and the new addition is the Purple Borealis — a gradient fumé running from deep palatinate purple at 6 o'clock up to a lighter rose violet at 12. The Arctic texture is stamped, which you'd expect, but this dial is noticeably darker and more serious than anything else in the range. But that doesn’t mean that the rest of the dials are anything to turn your back on. You have a very classic green gradient from a lighter on top to darker on bottom called Aurora Sky; the playful Alpine Glow that goes from a light blue on top to a pale pink on bottom; the Meltwater Teal that goes from a white on top to a very light teal; and the pretty groovy Tundra Brown that goes from light to dark brown. Diamond-cut hands and Swiss Super-LumiNova Grade A indices are standard across the collection. Oh, and the Purple Borealis will also be available on the steel case version as well.

Inside, La Joux-Perret calibre LJP G101 continues doing exactly what it needs to do: automatic winding, 28,800 vph, 68 hours of power reserve, adjusted to four positions. A new purple FKM rubber strap launches alongside the Purple Borealis and, unlike the watch, isn't limited — it joins seven existing colours in Straum's quick-release strap system, which makes its first appearance in the Arctic line here. Eight strap colours across five dials and two case materials is apparently 85 possible configurations, which Straum are clearly pleased about. And they should be.

The Purple Borealis is a 200-piece limited edition available in both steel and titanium. Steel pricing is set at €1,530 on rubber and €1,600 on steel bracelet. The titanium version is priced at €1,820, on rubber. See more on the Straum website.

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Arsène Lippens Releases Their Most Restrained Watch Yet, The Classico

Arsène Lippens makes a strong first impression. I came across the brand for the first time at Geneva Watch Days last year, and their Artigianio collection, with those actual fabric dials, was genuinely one of the more exciting things I saw all week. The Classico is their newest line, and it trades the textile dials for something seemingly simpler, but hiding a very cool technique. The new dials look like regular grained finish dials, but they actually use vintage-inspired hand-hammered techniques.

The stainless steel case is 37.5mm wide and 9.9mm thick, with a lug-to-lug of 45.5mm. All the same measurements as the Artigianio, which means this wears just as well. The double stepped bezel and the 12-sided caseback are signature Arsène Lippens details. The crystal is a box-shaped sapphire with anti-reflective coating on both sides, and the case has a mix of brushed and polished surfaces throughout. Water resistance is 50 meters, which is fine for a watch like this.

The dial comes in two colors: a navy blue and a grey, both with the same grained texture. It's a relatively restrained look — applied trapezoid indices, a central seconds hand, a minute track — but the texture does real work here. Each dial is described as slightly unique due to the finishing process. The hands are brushed with polished edges, and the combination with the applied indices gives the dial enough dimensionality to hold your attention.

The movement is the Sellita SW210-1b, a manual wind calibre that beats at 4Hz with a 48-hour power reserve. Nothing surprising here — it's a sensible choice for a watch at this price and produces a clean three-hand layout without any date complication. The strap is Alcantara leather with a pin buckle, in navy blue for the blue dial and light grey for the grey.

The Arsène Lippens Classico is available to order from today until May 4th at 3PM CET, with delivery expected by June 2026. Price is CHF 1,195 excluding VAT. See more on the Arsène Lippens website.

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Albishorn’s Brings Back The Thundergraph, An Imaginary Timepiece Made To Scale Mountains

There are two modern and recently launched watch brands that just drive me crazy with how awesome their watches are. One is Kollokium, which gives us a truly unique take on a lumed dial. The other is Albishorn, who is doing something completely different. They are creating “imaginary vintage” watches, ones that could have existed at a time in history, but never did. The first one was the Maxigraph, a hypothetical 1930s wrist chronograph that might have been commissioned by a competitor in the 1939 Bol d’Or regatta on Lake Geneva. The second watch was the Type 10 Chronograph, a never-made predecessor of the iconic Type 20 Chronograph pilot’s watch. The third was the Albishorn Thundergraph, a chronograph that could have been made for mountain exploration in the early 1950s and worn by the Swiss expedition to Mount Everest in 1952, a year before Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay in 1953, that was forced to turn back just 250 meters from the summit. Now, they have a new take on the Thundergraph called the Khumbu, named after the region of northeastern Nepal on the Nepalese side of Mount Everest.

While the Thundergraph uses the same case as the Maxigraph and the Type 10, but with slight tweaks, it looks like its own unique watch. It has a stainless steel case that measures 39mm wide at the case and 42.7mm at the oversized, bi-directional, rotating bezel, 13mm thick and with a 47.7mm lug-to-lug. It’s a curious looking watch, fully round — almost like a sporty disco volante — with a bronze crown at 10 o’clock and a wide red aluminium chronograph pusher that sits almost flush with the case at 9 o’clock, making it easy to operate with your thumb. On top is a box sapphire crystal surrounded by a wide and dramatically sloping silver brushed bezel that has an engraved 60-minute scale.

The dial remains the same as the previous Thundergraph in setup and borrows heavily from the Type 10 and that’s a very good thing. The Type 10 has one of the more unique sub-dial setups, where you get two large chronograph sub-dials at 5 and 7 o’clock, taking up the entire bottom half of the dial, for a very unique look. But on the Thundergraph, Albishorn calls this a “California ghost dial”. Where a regular California dial would have Roman numerals on one half and Arabic numerals on the other, this dial has only oversized lumed Roman numerals on the top part and those very cool registers on the other. The base of the dial now has a beautiful vivid teal-green base, with large applied triangular indexes. Everything, including the gold toned, brushed, pencil hands is filled with beige Super-LumiNova.

Inside, you’ll find the calibre ALB03 M. While based on the 7750 architecture (more specifically, the Sellita SW510M, which makes sense as Albishorn is headed by Sebastien Chaulmontet, a known chronograph specialist who has worked as Head of Innovation and Marketing at Sellita and head of innovation and product development at Manufacture La Joux-Perret SA), it’s a proprietary hand-wound, monopusher. The cool details are all over the place. The red pusher at 9 sits perfectly under your thumb to start, stop and reset the chrono, and if you look closely at the watch, you’ll notice that they managed to get the two cool sub-dial positions just by rotating the movement (which would have sub-dials at 12 and 9 o’clock if it were regularly oriented) so that the crown comes out at 10. The movement beats at 4Hz and has a power reserve of 65 hours. The watch comes on a black and beige grained leather strap and a matte beige leather strap.

The new Albishorn Thundergraph Khumbu is, unfortunately, limited to just 99 pieces that will be made over three years and priced at a pretty great CHF 3,650 without taxes. Deliveries will begin April 13, 2026. See more on the Albishorn website.

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Greubel Forsey Balancier 3 Gets A New Frosted Titanium Edition

Greubel Forsey introduced the Balancier 3 in 2023, built around the idea that a movement's architecture should be readable at a glance — three prominent bridges each assigned a distinct mechanical function, visible and legible from the dial side. This new edition, limited to 22 pieces, doesn't change that architecture, but it sure does refine it beautifully.

The case is once again made out of titanium, 41.50mm wide and 13.35mm thick, with a variable-geometry bezel and a curved sapphire crystal that follows the wrist's contour rather than sitting flat across it. Finishing is hand-polished with straight graining. The case back is transparent. Water resistance is 50 meters, which is about as relevant as it is on any other six-figure watch.

This is one of the more distinct dials in the watch world, with its minimalist hands and expressive movement making up the majority of the display. You have the large central bridge: it runs from 1-2 o'clock down to the small seconds disc at 7-8, and it's been given a deep frosted finish, applied by hand with a steel brush across the full curved surface. Polished bevels run along the frosted bridge's edges to keep the whole thing from looking unresolved. The blue accents across multiple levels of the movement add depth and help your eye move through the architecture without getting stuck. It's a lot happening, and it works.

The movement is Greubel Forsey's in-house variable-inertia balance wheel calibre, 35.80mm wide and 9.03mm thick, with a 12.60mm balance wheel fitted with six gold mean-time screws, 282 parts, 43 jewels, and two series-coupled barrels delivering 72 hours of power reserve. It beats at 3Hz. Hours and minutes sit on the suspended central bridge, the small seconds runs on a disc with a fixed red triangle indicator, and the power reserve reads on the movement side. The watch comes on a hand-sewn textured rubber strap with a titanium folding clasp, with a three-row titanium bracelet available on request.

The new Greubel Forsey Balancier 3 in titanium is limited to 22 pieces, with the price set at around CHF 160,000. See more on the Greubel Forsey website.

IT’S ABOUT TIME PRESENTS THE TRTS PODCAST: OraOrea — Worn And Wound's Zach Starr Weiss Launches His Own Brand

Alon and Rob sit down with Zach Weiss from Worn and Wound to talk about his start in watches, how they built up one of the more popular watch media in the world and what led him, ultimately, to launch his own watch brand called OraOrea.

⏲️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

• In recent years, fantasy books have started to turn our image of delightful, beautiful winged mini-humans into something much darker and more sexual. But “fae,” as these books often refer to them, first appeared in sinister tales, only becoming more child-friendly in the Victorian era. Neil Armstrong (not that one) traces how the fairy tale has come full circle in this fascinating history piece

• In this Toronto Life story, 22-year-old Kennedy Lashley reflects on how challenging life—academic, creative, social—has been for her generation. They spent their high-school years on Zoom calls during the pandemic and have had to navigate a post-secondary system in disarray, up against underfunding and federal policy changes. The faculty they’d normally look up to are disillusioned, struggling to keep up with changes. Lashley, an animator with a strong support network and a genuine passion for her craft, seems poised for a successful career in the arts (her father is also a longtime artist at Marvel). But for Gen Zers entering creative fields, the job market is bleak—and AI is a big reason why.

• Let’s say you’re diagnosed with a terminal illness, and your doctor gives you a time frame: five years, two years, six months to live. What would you do next? Perhaps you get your affairs in order, spend as much time as you can with loved ones, or tackle a bucket list (as your health permits). What happens, then, when the estimated end date comes and goes? Bruce Deachman speaks with people who have experienced exactly this: people who are frustrated—even angry—to find themselves stuck in a prolonged state of uncertainty, having accepted an ending that hasn’t yet come.

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

Andrew Callaghan might be the best reporter in the world now. Not because he’ll break an exclusive. But because his deadpan demeanor will get the truth out of a corpse. He’s incredible and the situation he puts himself into are just wild.

Thanks for reading,
Vuk