VC Updates Incredible Overseas QC Ultra-Thin; Norqain's Wild One “Stan the Man”; M.A.D. Teams Up With Artist Yinka Ilori; Albishorn Is Back With More Alternative History; Halter Works With Massena

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. Hey, sorry about the missed issue yesterday. I’m still on holiday and it was a family day all day yesterday so I just had to skip. But we’re getting closer to Geneva Watch Days so releases are ramping up. Expect many, many more watches in the coming days.

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In this issue

• Vacheron Constantin Updates The Incredible Overseas Perpetual Calendar Ultra-Thin With White And Pink Gold

• Norqain Releases The Wild One “Stan the Man” Limited Edition For Tennis Player Stan Wawrinka

• M.A.D. Editions Teams Up With Artist Yinka Ilori For A Colorful Take On The M.A.D.1S

• Albishorn Is Back With Another Alternative History Watch, This Time A Regatta Chronograph

• Vianney Halter Teams Up With Massena LAB On A Watch Built Around A Vintage Pocket Watch Movement

👂What’s new

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Vacheron Constantin Updates The Incredible Overseas Perpetual Calendar Ultra-Thin With White And Pink Gold

On days like these, I like to remind all of you how this newsletter is structured, on the best of days. Ideally, the opening story would be a new release from an established brand, usually somewhat accessible. The middle 2-3 are interesting releases in a whole range of prices, and we close it out with a release that is at least 5 figures, but often many times more. Something wild and inaccessible, but still worthy of knowing about. But then, we get a release like this one we have today. Vacheron Constantin doesn’t release watches that often, but when they do, they are often quite spectacular. Today, we have a duo of Overseas Perpetual Calendar Ultra-Thins one in full pink gold and the other in a white gold case and a stunning burgundy dial.

The Overseas collection from Vacheron Constantin is one surely their most versatile collection, one that has grown significantly over the years into a true sports luxury icon. But of all the watches in the collection, easily my most favorite one is the Perpetual Calendar Ultra-Thin. It blends the perpetual calendar with an impossibly thin case. No, really, look at the photo above. The watch looks so thin it looks like an illustration. But keep in mind that Bulgari makes an even thinner QP, measuring just 5.8mm thick. This new release from VC comes in either a pink or white gold case and both have the same dimensions — 41mm wide and 8.1mm thick. You get sapphire crystals on top and bottom and on top is the Maltese cross-inspired notched bezel. Water resistance is a respectable 50 meters. You won’t be going diving with this, but then again… It’s a solid gold ultra thin perpetual calendar.

The pink gold version gets an almost monochromatic pink gold look. Everything is pink gold. The base of the dial is pink gold, the markers are pink gold, the hands are pink gold, even the moon on the moonphase is done in a pink gold color. The white gold, on the other hand, is just stunning. The base of the dial has a burgundy lacquer, with tone-on-tone sub-dials and moon, paired with white gold markers and hands.

Inside, you’ll find the very familiar Calibre 1120 QP. Based on a JLC architecture, it evolved into an ultra-thin in-house movement that has a QC module on top. It beats at an uncommon 2.75Hz and has a power reserve of 40 hours. It’s certified by the Hallmark of Geneva, showing hours, minutes, the phases of the moon, and the perpetual calendar with day, month and a 48-month display with leap year. The watches come on matching solid gold bracelets closed with a folding clasp that has micro-adjust, and you get two additional rubber straps — white and blue for the pink gold and white and burgundy for the white gold.

The new Vacheron Constantin Overseas Perpetual Calendar Ultra-Thin is available now as part of the permanent collection. Price is set at €134,000. See more on the Vacheron Constantin website.

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Norqain Releases The Wild One “Stan the Man” Limited Edition For Tennis Player Stan Wawrinka

While I still don’t “get” the brand entirely, it can’t be said that Norqain is not following a tried and true gameplan, with the hope of becoming a household name in luxury sports watches in record time. It still remains to be seen if they can pul it off, but the fact is that they are signing a bunch of ambassadors to their brand. One of them, signed last year, is Grand Slam tennis champion Stan Wawrinka. And now Wawrinka is getting his “signature model” with the Wild One “Stan the Man” Limited Edition.

The watch shares the same basics as the existing models. It’s housed in a very complex case that measures 42mm wide and 12.3mm thick, with a 49.4mm lug-to-lug. It’s a large case, but it also weighs just 78 grams, so I can see how it could be easy to wear. The case is made out of 25 parts, has a titanium container for the movement that’s housed inside a rubber shock absorber, wrapped out in a carbon composite Norteq cage. Norqain claims that their watches are shock-resistant to 5,000g which makes them good for playing tennis. The Norteq is black, while the shock absorber are inspired by the colour of a tennis ball and are a bright yellow green. The Norqain plaque on the left side is infused with tennis ball fibres for a more tennis-theme. Water resistance is 200 meters.

There is no dial to speak of. There’s a yellow green ring on the outside, followed by a rehaut and a minute and hour marker ring attached to it. The hands are skeletonized with yellow green tips, and the same color is used on the minute track and numerals on the rehaut. Everything else you see is the skeletonized movement with anthracite bridges.

Speaking of the movement, it’s the automatic calibre N08S. But behind the name is the tried and true, albeit very budget oriented Sellita SW200-1S. Sure, it’s skeletonized and modified to be more shock resistant, but it’s still the lowest tier of the generic Sellita movements, a clone of the ETA 2824. It beats at 28,800vph, has a 41 hour power reserve but at least it’s COSC chronometer-certified. The watch comes on a black and yellow-green rubber strap with a tennis net pattern.

The new Norqain Wild One Stan the Man is limited to just 85 pieces and priced at €6,700, which is quite the price for a SW200-powered watch. See more on the Norqain website.

3/

M.A.D. Editions Teams Up With Artist Yinka Ilori For A Colorful Take On The M.A.D.1S

In 2021 Max Büsser, the creative mind behind the out-there-but-still-incredible MB&F watches, sent out an almost cryptic email to friends of MB&F. The email was addressed to suppliers of the company, and in it Büsser announced that they will be creating the M.A.D.1 watch and he would like to offer it to them first. The lowest price an MB&F watch sells for is CHF 50,000 and they go way past half a million, so to expect suppliers of parts for the watches to be able to afford one would be very optimistic. But this one was different. It was still a highly complicated watch, but it was offered at a price point of CHF 2,900. This proved to be such a great move that the M.A.D.1 was soon offered to MB&Fs loyal customers in a similar email, and a legend of a highly unattainable but affordable watch was born. Since then, the collection has undergone a massive change with the release of the M.A.D.Editions M.A.D.1S, which got a much slimmer case and a Swiss movement. Now, M.A.D.Editions is releasing the M.A.D.1S in collaboration with British-Nigerian multi-disciplinary designer Yinka Ilori, for three extremely colorful watches. This is the new M.A.D.1S Grow Your Dreams collection.

Nothing has changed on the construction and shape side. You still get the wild x-shaped caseback that holds the mineral glass container with sapphire crystal on top. Surrounding the crystal is now a bezel that is filled with HyCeram, a high-tech liquid ceramic that hardens through heat and is then finished with hand-polishing. These come in green, yellow and light blue.You get the crown at 12 o’clock. What has radically changed from the original is the size. Sure, it’s still 42mm wide, but the watch has slimmed down from 18mm to 15mm. Despite this crazy construction, you still get 100 meters of water resistance, which is really commendable.

The M.A.D. watches don’t really have a dial to speak of. Look at it head on, and you will be greeted with a rotating battle axe-shaped rotor. The rotor is made out of titanium, now with each blade getting a milled tree motif, a symbol of hope and growth. The rotors are anodized in yellow, green or blue, each standing for the Sun, Nature and Water models. Looking through the crystal and the rotor you see the movement and the aluminum baseplate which is stamped with a wave pattern and come in blue, red and purple. The correct time is displayed at the 6 o’clock position of the watch, on the side of the case, with a single disc that shows the hours and features dots marking the quarters.

Inside, instead of the Miyota movement from the original, you’ll find the calibre G101 from La Joux-Perret which beats at 4Hz and has a 68 hour power reserve. The watches come on rubber straps with a stamped leaf patterns and mismatched colors — Water gets a deep blue and teal strap, Nature gets a purple and red strap and Sun gets a yellow and green strap. Each watch also gets a white rubber strap.

As with previous M.A.D.Editions, a portion of the Grow Your Dreams collection will be made available to MB&F owners and company suppliers, while the rest will be raffled off. Good luck getting one since only 400 pieces of each will be made. The raffle opens Tuesday, September 2nd and closes Monday, September 8th. Price is set at CHF 3,200 without tax. See more on the M.A.D.Editions website.

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Albishorn Is Back With Another Alternative History Watch, This Time A Regatta Chronograph

There are so many reasons to fall in love with a watch brand, but I’ll argue that my reason for falling in love with Albishorn is the most valid one. Director of Innovation and Marketing at Sellita Sebastien Chaulmontet and designer Fabien Collioud started Albishorn with the coolest idea I’ve ever heard — to create hypothetical watches from history, sorts of missing links in the development of watches. First, they came out with a regatta chronograph called the Maxigraph, next was the Type 10 Chronograph — a precursor to the Type 20 pilot’s chronograph — ending with the mountaineering special Thundergraph. I med Sebastien in Geneva in April and he told me about a couple of upcoming watches and they are all sensational ideas. But not only that, I got to try the watches on. And Albishorn is the brand that blew me away the most at Watches and Wonders. They are that cool. Now, Albishorn is revisiting the regatta timer with the new Marinagraph, but in a new era. While the Maxigraph was set in the 1930s, the Marinagraph is a hypothetical watch that could have been worn by the crew of the New York Yacht Club in the 1958 America’s Cup. Very cool.

I think even cooler is the fact that the Maxigraph and Marinagraph share the same case, despite being separated by decades in inspiration. The stainless steel case measures 39mm wide, 13mm thick and has a 47.7mm lug-to-lug. On top is a box-shaped sapphire crystal that is surrounded by a bowl-shaped bezel with an insert made to track tides. The insert is brushed aluminum, with a black and green track. White markers indicate the first 12 hours following the last high tide, while red markers indicate the next 12 hours, allowing you to estimate the relative tide height at a set hour. Albishorn is well known for their creative orientation of movements which gives you interesting crown and pusher placements. Like previous models, the crown sits at 10:30 and the mono pusher is a huge red anodised aluminium button at 9 o’clock, making it the perfect size at the perfect position to be started with your right thumb. Water resistance is 100 meters.

There are two dial colors available for this watch. The first is called Classic Racing and gets a black sunray brushed dial with silver brushed hands and applied hour markers. The second is Paraíba Racing which also gets a sunray brushed finish, but now in a color called tourmaline green, the same one as on the bezel, and it’s so incredibly strange that it looks unnatural. The green version gets blackened hands and markers, with white lume inside. But cool. The markers are a combination of diamonds, triangles and circles. You have a central seconds to measure elapsed times and then between 6 and 9 o’clock you have the regatta chronograph countdown indicator. But not a regular one. This is a patented 10-minute retrograde regatta countdown that, unlike regular countdowns that start over once they are finished, stop once the 10 minutes are over, while the central seconds continue running. The retrograde indication works on a 10-minute basis, with the last 5 minutes done in red. There’s also an aperture at 3 o’clock that functions as a running indicator.

With Sebastien being Director of Innovation and Marketing at Sellita, it’s to be expected that they use a Sellita movement. But it’s also heavily reworked. Albishorn gives the Valjoux 7750 architecture a new mainplate, shortened pivots and a redesigned chronograph start mechanism, slimming the movement down by more than a millimeter. It’s also been modified to be rotated in case, and to add the retrograde timer. The movement beats at 4Hz and has a 64 hour power reserve. The watches come with two tropic-style rubber straps — Classic Racing gets a black and red strap, and the Paraíba Racing gets a black and white.

The new Albishorn Marinagraph is limited to 99 pieces in each colorway and the watches will be produced over three years. Sales open tomorrow, Friday, August 29 at 3PM CET. Price is set at CHF 3,950, without tax, which is very in line with other Albishorn prices. I’ll say that this is one of the best deals in the market, an incredible price for a very unique watch. See more on the Albishorn website.

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Vianney Halter Teams Up With Massena LAB On A Watch Built Around A Vintage Pocket Watch Movement

I hardly ever get to write about independent watchmaker Vianney Halter. That’s mostly because his creations are reserved for a select few customers and aren’t often presented to the public. But there’s no denying that he is one of the most talented watchmakers of this generation. But now, we get a rare public release from Halter, based around a vintage Minerva pocket watch movement, and in collaboration with William Massena of Massena LAB. This is the new Vianney Halter and Massena LAB Old Soul.

The case of the Old Soul might sound like it’s large, measuring 42mm wide and 12mm thick, and sure, those measurements are substantial, but it’s actually as small as possible. That’s because inside you’ll find a huge pocket watch movement that measures 39.25mm wide, leaving just under 1.4mm on either side of the movement for the case material. It’s a very classic case, made out of stainless steel, with stepped lugs, a polished concave bezel and a funky crown that has one of Halter’s signature touches, tiny circular studs. Water resistance is 30 meters.

Working from a standard Minerva pocket watch movement, Halter and Massena modified the movement to make it way more interesting. The time display has been split up into a regulator display, with hours shown on the sub-dial at 3 o’clock, seconds on the 9 o’clock dial and the minutes on the radially brushed and rhodium-plated outer chapter ring pointed to with a blue losange marker that’s printed on a transparent disc. On top of the case is a domed sapphire crystal that is embedded with a hourglass steel shield, engraved with concentric circles and dotted with steel studs. On the underside of the sapphire, and above and below the shield, you’ll find the Vianney Halter and Massena text.

Inside, you’ll find the massive new old stock Minerva 17’22 movements. Since these were largely made prior to 1942, they are almost entirely handmade, and the duo now finishes it with black polishing, Cotes de Genève and anglage. The movement beats at 2.5Hz with a screwed balance with Breguet balance spring and a mainspring engraved with the Minerva signature. It’s good for a 36 hour power reserve. The watch comes on a dark blue leather strap.

The new Vianney Halter and Massena LAB Old Soul is on sale now and limited to 47 pieces. The price is set at CHF 32,000, without tax. See more on the Massena LAB 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

• For The New York Review of Books, Bathsheba Demuth recounts falling in love with the Arctic at age 18 and learning how to run a team of sled dogs by apprenticing with Gwitchin musher Stanley Njootli. Sledding with a team through an Alaska winter, she reflects on the bond between dog and musher, realizing that through the darkness of the long polar night, the dogs’ sight, smell, and hearing have become an extension of her senses.

• Near the end of her searing report on the health hazards faced by unmasked wildfire fighters, Hannah Dreier speaks with an unnamed veteran of the Gifford fire, which has burned more than 130,000 acres and brought thousands of firefighters to the blaze. The man is “in his early 20s,” Dreier notes, and unmasked. Asked by Dreier about the smoke he inhaled, the man replied, “It’s just organic.” It’s a devastating moment, set by Dreier against the terrible health outcomes of wildfire fighters who aren’t much older and a history of resistance by the Forest Service to protecting its crews from the smoke they inhale. Devastating, too, to imagine the same moment played out again and again.

• A childhood souvenir, a painted shell, and an animal quietly doomed. For decades, hermit crabs have been sold as easy “starter pets,” yet few buyers realize they can live for 30 years—or that most don’t survive past a summer. This story follows the unlikely community fighting to give them the lives they deserve.

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

A fun little video on the many gadget watches of Hollywood.

Thanks for reading,
Vuk