Zenith Gives The Chronomaster Original A Fantastic Blue Dial; Delma Updates The Continental; Nodus Joins Gobi Desert Expedition; Chronoswiss Adds More Colors And Textures; RM Teams Up With LeBron

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. A solid lineup today, but I’ll take this time to just hint that there are some changes coming to the newsletter. Nothing major, just a refresh of the look and I will be unifying both the free and paid newsletters, so the paid subscribers won’t have to get two emails a day from me. Coming soon!

In this issue:

• Zenith Gives The Cool Chronomaster Original A Fantastic Blue Dial

• Delma Updates The Continental With Two Perfect Summer Colors

• Nodus Joins Gobi Desert Expedition With Their Exploration Dedicated Nodus Sector Nomad

• Chronoswiss Adds More Colors And Textures To Their Angled Regulator Strike Two

• Richard Mille Teams Up With LeBron James For Their First Collaboration With An NBA Player

👂What’s new

1/

Zenith Gives The Cool Chronomaster Original A Fantastic Blue Dial

One of the best watches of last year was the very cool Zenith Chronomaster Original Triple Calendar that not only had great complications, a complete look and interesting movement, it also had a great story. Over the past few years, Zenith also released a couple of great Chronomaster Sport models. But what they haven’t really been focusing on is the Chronomaster Original, a vintage-inspired chronograph with Zenith’s high-frequency El Primero calibre. The model was released back in 2017, as a successor to the A386. Now, it gets a beautiful blue dial.

For the last few major releases, Zenith has been recreating some of their more iconic models. But unlike some brands that try to capture the vibe of the old watch, Zenith takes the recreations seriously, digitally scanning original watches and then doing an exact rendition. The stainless steel case has sloping lugs, a radial-brushed finish and sharply faceted lugs with polished sides. The case measures 38mm wide and 12.9mm thick. That thickness is already quite nice for a chronograph, but also, 1.5mm is the of that thickness is the domed sapphire crystal. There’s also a transparent caseback, piston-style pushers and you get 50 meters of water resistance.

Then, we have the dial, which has the same setup, but a new color. The base of the dial gets a beautiful dark blue finish with a sunray brushing. Around the perimeter, but offset from the edge, is a white ring that goes up to 100, instead of the expected 60. At the edge is a matching blue sloped flange with a 1/10th of a second scale. But more on that later. You also get the signature overlapping sub-dials, snailed, and painted blue, grey and silver. Just like the digitally scanned case, Zenith recreates a lot of the dial details on the new version — the fonts and logos, the applied, faceted and lumed hour markers, the trapezoid date window at 4:30, and the white baton hands with black inserts and lume.

Inside, you’ll find the El Primero 3600, which has a column wheel and horizontal coupling, beats at 5Hz and has a 60 hour power reserve. Zenith has traditionally used the high speed beat rate to have the central seconds hand go around the dial every 10 seconds, making use of the scale on the periphery to do precision timing to 1/10th of a second. The watch comes on a 3-link stainless steel, and an additional blue calfskin strap, both closed with a folding clasp.

The new Zenith Chronomaster Original is available now, as part of the regular collection, priced at €10,400. See more on the Zenith website.

2/

Delma Updates The Continental With Two Perfect Summer Colors

Delma has been making great tool watches for more than 100 years. No, really, they celebrated their 100th anniversary last year. And while they might be best known for their quirky and chunky divers, but they also make a handful of pretty good and very classic chronographs. With clear vintage inspiration, the Delma Continental is a compelling alternative to the usual suspects. And now, the brand has updated the collection with two new dials, both of which work with your summer wardrobes.

The new watches haven’t changed on the outside, which means that they are made out of stainless steel, with brushed and polished surfaces, and measure 42mm wide, 15.2mm thick and have a 49mm lug-to-lug. On top is a domed sapphire crystal, surrounded by a sloping, fixed, bezel and on the side are piston pushers with a screw down crown between them. Water resistance is 100 meters.

The setup of the dial remains familiar from the other Continental models and reflects the movement inside. Around the perimeter is a sharply sloping flange with a tachymeter scale, followed by a black minute scale and applied and faceted hour markers. The two summer options are a light blue and a salmon. Both feature bright red central seconds hands, the Delma logo above the day and date aperture at 3 o’clock and a 12-6-9 layout of the sub-dials. The 30 minute counter at 12 o’clock and 12 hour counter at 6 o’clock come with silver snailed backgrounds, while the running seconds at 9 have a silver ring and dial color on the inside.

Inside, not much of a surprise. It’s the Sellita SW500 automatic chronograph, a clone of the legendary Valjoux 7750. This means it beats at 4Hz and has a 48 hour power reserve. The watches come on a seven link steel bracelet that closes with a butterfly clasp.

The new Delma Continental colorways are available now for €2,600. See more on the Delma website.

3/

Nodus Joins Gobi Desert Expedition With Their Exploration Dedicated Nodus Sector Nomad

100 years ago, American Explorer Roy Chapman Andrews began exloring the Gobi Desert. It’s considered one of the most significant paleontology expeditions in the region, collecting thousands of samples. But it was never finished. Andrews had to cut it short due to rising political instability and impossible logistical hurdles, but what the world got from that is one of the most adored film series in history. It is believed that Andrews, a professor who carried a revolver and wore a wide-brimmed hat, was the direction inspiration for Indiana Jones. Now, a group of 30 explorers and scientists are mounted on camels to complete his journey through the northern regions. And the wrist of the explorers will be the prototypes of the new Nodus Sector Nomad, their take on the explorer’s watch, with a GMT function and a compass function. The feedback from the expedition will then inform the final product. That’s cool.

The Sector Nomad is based on the Sector II platform, which means that it’s made out of stainless steel and measures 40mm wide at the bezel and 38mm down at the case, 11.9mm thick, with a 47mm lug-to-lug. Slightly unusual for a watch made for exploration, but also very cool, the case has a vertical brushing that makes the thing look almost polished. Or am I seeing things? On top is a box-shaped sapphire crystal, with a blue anti-reflective coating on the underside, surrounded by a uni-directional bezel that has a black insert with a very cool hybrid compass and dive scale. On the side is the familiar oversized and knurled four-stage screw down crown that gives you 100 meters of water resistance.

The dial takes a lot of inspiration from the Dive GMT model, which means that you get a sector style dial with a sunken center part. The colorway mimics the environment where the watch will be used, with the outer part of the dial having a tan color and the inner part a lighter shade of the same. Around the perimeter is a flange with a 24-hour GMT scale. You get white hour, minute and seconds hands, and an orange GMT hand that matches the orange compass markings on the bezel.

Inside, you will find the NH34 which is essentially the GMT version of the NH35 found in the standard model. It has a 41-hour power reserve and Nodus regulates the movement to get accuracy of +/- 10 seconds. Both watches come on one of the best bracelets at this price point, with the NodeX tool less micro-adjustable clasp.

The new Nodus Sector Nomad is not for sale. Yet. The expedition is set to conclude today, after two weeks of travel, on June 30, 2025. And Nodus heavily hints they will be selling this watch very soon.

4/

Chronoswiss Adds More Colors And Textures To Their Angled Regulator Strike Two

Chronoswiss makes watches that are visually very different from everything else, making them attractive for a very limited number of people. They are also surprisingly priced. I won’t say that a 10k watch is cheap, but they often look much more expensive than they actually are. Their latest release are two addition to their relatively new Strike Two line that brings new and beautiful colors to an unusual regulator.

The Strike Two comes in a not-so-small 40mm wide and 12.7mm thick case, but then again, how could it be small when it’s made out a whopping 17 pieces. Despite this complexity, it looks quite elegant with a fluted and polished bezel on top, polished case and a blasted caseback and sides of the lugs. On the side is the familiar onion crown, now a bit less circular and a deep groove cut into the middle. The lugs are very prominent next to the fully circular case and feature screwed strap links. The Nugget model gets a 18k red gold case, while the Nebula gets a stainless steel case.

The Strike Two is a different take on the regulator display, a type of showing time that gives each of the hands - hour, minute and second - their own space on the dial and their own axis to spin on. And while most regulators are vertically aligned, since the 1990s Chronoswiss has been aligning them horizontally. The Strike Two Nugget gets an anthracite dial that has a galvanic finish on a brass base and is hand-guillochéd in the Atelier Lucerne. The small seconds sub dial at 9 o'clock gets a glossy white lacquered finish. On the other hand, the Strike Two Nebula which has a blue CVD coating, again hand-guillochéd with straight-line engraving, while the subdial at 9 o’clock gets a silver rhodium plating and a guillochéd texture.

Inside is the calibre C.6000, which has been developed in collaboration with La Joux-Perret. It beats at 28,800bph and has a 55 hour power reserve. The decorations are truly next level - a ruthenium-coated finish, radial Côtes de Genève, and engravings all over the place. Both watches come on a calfskin leather strap.

The new Chronoswiss Strike Two Nugget and Strike Two Nebula are limited to 100 pieces each and look like pieces of haute horology. The Nugget is priced at CHF 23,400, while the Nebula is actually quite reasonably priced at CHF 10,800. See more on the Chronoswiss website.

5/

Richard Mille Teams Up With LeBron James For Their First Collaboration With An NBA Player

Of all the watch brands, I would argue that Richard Mille has the best defined customer base. It’s pretty easy to see someone and judge within a few seconds whether they are an RM person or not. Not to dip into stereotypes, even though we’re all guilty of it, the ideal customers come from my side of the former Iron Curtain, having emptied their respective state’s cash registers; or they are in the hip-hop business; or they are high profile sports stars. All of this is emphasized even more by the fact that they have collaborated with so many people in their target markets. Right? Well, I guess then you’ll be as surprised as me to learn that RM never made a watch with an NBA player. Regardless of whether you like them or not, there’s no denying that they couldn’t have chosen a better player for their first NBA watch. This is the new RM65-01 Selfwinding Split-seconds Chronograph, made with LeBron James.

The case comes in the instantly recognisable RM tonneau shape, made out of Carbon TPT with titanium, and measures 43.84mm wide, 16.19mm thick and 49.94mm long. On top is a carbon fibre bezel, the midcase is made out of yellow Quartz TPT and more yellow details can be found on the pushers, crown and the outline around the dial. While the yellow is obviously a nod to James’ tenure with the lakers, people who know much more about basketball than me say that the green on the pushers and around the crown are an homage to his high school alma mater, St. Vincent-St. Mary. Out back is an open caseback which has LeBron’s signature in purple.

The dial remains the same in the setup, but new in color. Yellow and purple are used on the hour and minute hands, and LeBron’s crown logo appears below the 12 o’clock marker. On the edge of the dial is a tachymeter scale, and working your way to the center you’ll find a minute scale, followed by an elaborate cutout dial. You get two sub-dials in yellow, a chronograph 12-hour and 30-minute counter, while one split seconds hand is yellow and the other pink.

Inside in the RMAC4, a hi-beat movement that operates at 5Hz and has a 60 hour power reserve. The high frequency gives you more accuracy for the split-seconds chronograph which counts down to 1/10th of a second. RM is well known for their weird additions to movements, and this one is no different. It has a rapid winding mode that you enable with a pusher on the left side. The watch comes on a black rubber strap.

The new Richard Mille RM65-01 Selfwinding Split-seconds Chronograph LeBron James is limited to 150 pieces, priced at $400,000. See more on the Richard Mille 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

• Bruce Springsteen opens his vault for "Tracks II: The Lost Albums," unveiling decades of unreleased music and reflecting on how the weight of the past, creative restlessness, and America’s political moment shape both his art and identity—a journey through lost albums, survivor’s guilt, and the enduring power of home.

• For years, men online swore they only read non-fiction. And sure, I can enjoy a good biography, but they are all missing out on the fantastic power of fiction. A new wave of men’s book clubs is now quietly challenging old stereotypes. Through candid conversations, shifting habits, and the revival of fiction as a space for self-discovery, these groups reveal how reading together can reshape the landscape of literary culture.

• A son of a Jewish WWII veteran and son-in-law of a Japanese imperial soldier, the author traces the haunting parallels between his family's war legacies and the indelible scars left by conflict—culminating in a search for the identity and fate of S. Ushio, the Hiroshima survivor whose kimono-patterned burns echo the branded numbers of Holocaust victims, and whose story reveals the deeply personal imprints of history’s greatest tragedies.

👀Watch this

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Thanks for reading,
Vuk