Sinn Celebrates 65 Years With a Revival Of A Chronograph That Went To Space By Accident

The Sinn 140 S went to space by accident. Reinhard Furrer wore his personal one on the 1985 D1 Spacelab flight, outside any official programme, and came back with proof that an automatic chronograph works fine without gravity. Sinn is now marking its 65th anniversary with a recreation of that watch, with a very cool utilitarian look. This is the new 140 A S Anniversary.

The case is 44mm wide and 15.5mm thick, made out of steel with Sinn’s Black Hard Coating over its TEGIMENT surface hardening, finished with a mix of brushed and polished surfaces. It’s large and tall, but this is a Sinn. It has every right to be. Everything else is standard Sinn overbuilding: D3-System crown and pushers, Ar-Dehumidifying Technology to stop the crystal fogging, low-pressure resistance, and 100 meters of water resistance. The sapphire crystal is AR-coated on both sides and the caseback screws down. This anniversary edition gets polished bevels in addition to the matte black rest of the watch.

The dial is matte black with lumed indices and lumed hour and minute hands. Both chronograph hands, one for the seconds and one for the minutes, are lumed too, which is rare and genuinely useful. The minute track runs all the way around the edge to give the central counter something to point at, and an inner pilot’s bezel with a lumed marker lets you time something without starting the chronograph. Small seconds and a date complete it

The SZ01 is Sinn’s modification of the Valjoux 7750, reworked to drive the central jumping minute hand. It’s automatic, beats at 4Hz, has 28 jewels and hacking seconds, and is antimagnetic to DIN 8309. The anniversary box includes a black-and-yellow leather strap, a solid steel bracelet with fine adjustment, a strap-changing tool and spare spring bars.