It’s Friday and where are my Orient Bambino aficionados at?.
If you like these updates, read on through to the end and see if you would like to subscribe to the newsletter, I appreciate all of you!
What’s new
1/
Orient Brings Fantastic Pastel Colors To Adored 38mm Bambino
Japanese watchmaker Orient is a bit of a strange one. They are a major manufacturer, you can find their watches in thousands of stores around the world, they are owned by Seiko Epson, one of the pillars of the Seiko group and they make some fantastic pieces, be they sports watches or those of a more dressier kind. But they have one pretty big issue - they seem to be a bit shy about their releases. While other brands might go over the top creating hype, Orient just releases a new watch on their website, even if it’s a limited edition, and hopes people find it and buy it. Which is a bit of a shame, because there’s no reason to hide their newest release - a quartet of Orient Bambino 38mm Limited Editions with fantastic looking pastel dials.
You might think that the Bambino has always been around as one of the staples of the Orient range, but you would be wrong. It’s actually been around since 2012, but only in it’s 40.5mm variant. It was a popular watch at the time, but what launched it into the stratosphere is the redesign of the collection in 2022 which introduced a 38.4mm size that matched well to it’s overall retro feel.
These four new watches are also part of the 38.4mm collection and come in the familiar case that measures a not-so-retro 12.5mm thick and has a very simple style - short lugs, polished and brushed surfaces and a thin unmarked bezel. What’s new are the dials, four of them. There’s creamy yellow, baby blue, dove grey and copper. The Bambino has always been a very reserved watch, so these tiny splashes of color are a nice welcome - they’re not too in your face while still giving some personality.
Inside the watch is the Orient Calibre F6724, an automatic movement with a 40-hour power reserve. You get a three hand time function and a date window at 3 o’clock. You can see the movement through the exhibition caseback with its carefully decorated rotor. All four come on the same grey leather band.
Unfortunately, this line from Orient is severely limited, with just 360 pieces made for the entire world. This is an absolute shame, as they might be the best looking Bambino’s out there. Again, Orient is not very much into releasing information, but from what I understand the watches will go on sale in early November at a price of about €330. See more on the Orient website.
2/
The Frederique Constant Highlife Worldtimer Looks Beautiful As An Amsterdam-Themed Limited Edition
I lived in Amsterdam for a year and it is one of the nicest cities you could ever live in. It’s quaint, but not boring. Urban, but with plenty of nature wherever you turn. It just might be the perfect city. It also has an amazing sense of identity, with the city flags exhibited at every corner. And why wouldn’t you show them off if they look so amazing - a red flag with a black band and three bold ‘x’ symbols (actually, St. Andrew’s crosses), on it. It’s this visual that has served as inspiration for a new limited edition Frederique Constant has made in collaboration with the family-owned Dutch jewellery and watch retailer Ace Jewelers, the Frederique Constant Highlife Worldtimer x Ace Jewelers Amsterdam.
Frederique Constant has made it’s name with classical and elegant watches that won’t break the bank but will look much more expensive than they actually are. However, in 2020, they introduced a sports line called the Highlife, a basic integrated bracelet watch that has since seen a bunch of amazing variants and complications, with the worldtimer being the favorite, I would say.
It comes in a brushed and polished stainless steel tonneau-shaped case that measures 41mm wide and 12.9mm thick. It has a thin bezel, a sapphire crystal and is water resistant to 100 meters. Being a world timer, it has a rotating internal 24-hour ring with names of cities for the 24 time zones. While some world timers tend to overcomplicate things, the FC keeps it simple and everything from the time to the rotating city disc is adjusted with just one crown and no additional pushers.
This new version FC has made with Ace Jewelers, like I said, has taken full inspiration from Amsterdam. Instead of an embossed globe on the dial of the regular model, which looked amazing, this one gets a matte, grainy black surface which looks even better. Right underneath the brand logo are the three Saint Andrew’s crosses of Amsterdam’s city flag and more modification has been made to the colorway. The day on the 24-hour ring is now painted white, while night is red, and the city of Amsterdam, of course, replaces Geneva in red. The applied indices and hour and minute hands are treated with Super-LumiNova inserts, and the pointer date indicator at 6 o’clock also features a matte black background.
Inside the watch is Frederique Constant’s in-house FC-718 automatic. It beats at 4Hz and has a 38 hour power reserve. The watch comes on either a 3-link stainless steel bracelet or, what looks even better, you can wear it on the additional black rubber strap with red stitching provided with the watch.
The Frederique Constant Highlife Worldtimer Amsterdam will be made in only 100 pieces, unfortunately, and you can buy them exclusively from Ace Jewelers Boutique in Amsterdam or online from their store. Pricing is as good as most other FC watches - €3,550. See more on the Ace Jewelers website.
3/
Glashütte Original Refreshes Senator Excellence Collection With Four New Watches
The very traditional German watchmaker Glashütte Original has lately been making waves with their incredible 70s inspired sports watches and some interesting divers. That’s nice, but we all know why we’re here - it’s for their incredible Senator collection that showcases the the Saxon watchmaking style to its maximum. Since 2016., then it was first introduced, the Senator Excellence line has seen a wide range of classic and modern dial variants and complications, and now the brand is introducing more contemporary models, with two new Senator Excellence Perpetual Calendar references and two new Senator Excellence Panorama Date Moon Phase models.
On the outside, not that much is changing. The Perpetual Calendar retains the 42mm x 12.8mm, while the Panorama Date Moon Phase gets a slightly smaller case that is 40mm wide and 12.2mm thick. Both models come in a choice of steel or red gold and have brushed and polished surfaces, sapphire crystals on both sides and a satisfactory 50 meters of water resistance.
For the rest, no evolutions are to be noted. The Senator Excellence Perpetual Calendar still comes in a case of 42mm x 12.8mm, while the Senator Excellence Panorama Date Moon Phase keeps it slightly smaller at 40mm x 12.2mm. In both instances, the case is either steel or red gold, features brushed and polished surfaces, sapphire crystals on both sides and a decent water-resistance of 50m.
Everything that’s new about these watches is the dials and they vary depending on the case material you choose. Red gold versions of the Senator Excellence Perpetual Calendar and Senator Excellence Panorama Date Moon Phase here feature a finely grained dial with silver galvanic treatment combined with applied numerals and hands in solid gold. The steel versions go fully modern with a grained dial with grey galvanic treatment, applied gold numerals coated in blue and blued steel hands.
Inside the perpetual calendar is the Glashütte Original calibre 36-12, an automatic movement with a 4Hz frequency and 100 hours of power reserve (something to be appreciated because you really don’t want your perpetual calendar to run out of power). The same movement serves as the base for the 36-24 movement in the Moon Phase, with the obvious addition of the moon phase complication. The gold versions come on a brown alligator nubuck leather while steel models can be ordered either on a blue alligator or a blue fabric strap.
These new Senator Excellence references will be part of the permanent collection. The Senator Excellence Panorama Date Moon Phase is priced at €12,700 in steel and €22,400 in gold, while the Senator Excellence Perpetual Calendar is €24,300 in steel and €38,100 in gold. See more on the Glashütte Original website.
4/
Watchmakers love to go for records. They will invest incredible time and money to prove that they can make the most precise, the thinnest, the lightest, the most complicated or whatever else they please watch in the world. These attempts usually come from the most prestigious of brands, those who can invest untold amounts of money to achieve a moment of prestige. You don’t, however, often expect such an achievement to come from what is essentially a micro brand. And yet, Ming Thein, the founder of Ming watches, has just releases a new watch from the Special Projects Cave called the Ming LW.01, quite possibly the lightest watch ever made. And they did it while not compromising their signature style, which means a lot in this race for lightness.
Ming is actually releasing two watches, the Ming LW.01 Manual and the LW.01 Automatic. The manual weighs in at 8.8 grams while the auto is 10.8 grams, both without a strap. However, seeing as how the strap and buckle weigh in at just 1.8 grams, you can see how this whole package is mind blowing.
While a brand like Richard Mille had to completely redefine their design language to get a different record, that of the thinnest watch in the world, I love that Ming didn’t have to compromise here to get lightness. You still get the traditional Ming case and lugs, markings printed on the crystal and what looks like a dark sapphire dial. Except there is no dial, since Ming has opted to just print a gradient on the crystal to hide the movement and eliminate the need for a dial all together. Which is just brilliant. That printing has an “interference pattern,” a positive pattern on the top of a disc and a negative pattern on the bottom of the crystal. The result is a central display that pulses like a star to show that the movement is running.
The case measures 38mm wide and 6.5mm thick, so in addition to lightness you get great thinness as well. The construction of this watch is completely new - it fuses a hat-shaped dial ring and movement holder, supported from the rear by a cage with 3D struts to avoid damage to the dial and movement. The entire assembly is capped and sealed to the bezel, which is very narrow and internally hollowed to save weight.
Ming also decided against using carbon, as they found that the AZ31 Magnesium-Aluminium-Zinc-Manganese alloy was lighter than carbon and more consistent than hollow 3D printing. And it felt more like metal. The alloy is further treated with plasma-electrolytic oxidation (PEO) to enhance corrosion resistance and biocompatibility. They also don’t use sapphire crystal, as that is too heavy, but rather Corning Gorilla Glass 6.
The LW.01M and LW.01A are powered by a ETA 2000.M1 modified by Schwarz-Etienne for MING. Both the LW.01A automatic and the LW.01M manual-winding have a 36h power reserve and a 4Hz frequency. The watch comes on a choice of straps, but if you’re buying the lightest watch in the world, you might as well go for the lightest strap. And that would be the 1.2 gram single-layer Alcantara strap by Jean Rousseau Paris, with a signed AZ31 Magnesium buckle.
200 pieces will be made in either manually-wound or automatic options, which does seem like a lot for such an experimental watch, but I love it! Price is set at CHF 19,500. A lot of money, but come on. Look at it. Sales started today, October 27, at 1PM GMT and you will be expected to make a 50% deposit on order. Deliveries are expected in Q4 of 2024. See more on the Ming website.
5/
Timex Continues ‘iykyk’ Collaboration With seconde/seconde/
Just a couple of weeks ago, Timex announced they will be collaborating with seconde/seconde/, a brand run by Romaric André, a former financial auditor who has in recent year profiled himself as one of the leading vintage watch customizers, on a series of watches called “iykyk” standing for “if you know, you know”. It was seconde/seconde/ taking a poke at ridiculous watch nicknames like the Kermit, Hulk, Starbucks, Coke, Batman AND Batgirl. Now they’re coming out with two more watches which they call Episode 3 and 4, with even more puns.
Episode 3 takes a 70s inspired Q Timex and gives it a green dial, bezel and clinched cartoon fist — in an apparent hat tip to the “Hulk” nickname. On the other hand, Episode 4 uses the M79 Automatic which features the Coke black and red bezel and what pairs better with a Coke than a burger? Well, fries. Fries pair better. But that’s for another time.
Each of the watches includes a stainless-steel case and bracelet, as well as a rotating bezel. Like the first two episodes, each of these watches are limited to an edition of 500 examples. Both are available now via Timex’s official site, with the M79 Automatic priced at $322 and the ’70s Q at $215. This release comes just on the heels of the quickly sold out Spinnaker 50 Phantoms I mentioned in yesterday’s newsletterand points out a potential issue - are we getting seconde/seconde/ overload and is he jumping the shark? It seems that we see a new release from the man every single week, sometimes even multiple times a week. And worst of all, while the 50 Phantoms looked fantastic and had a lot of humor built into it, these Timex collaborations seem to be a bit on the nose. A bit of a surprise, something unexpected, would have been more appreciated. Although, I don’t doubt these will sell out as well. See more on the Timex website.
-------------------------------------------------------------
On hand - a selection of reviews
1/
A Hands-On Introduction To The Christopher Ward C1 Moonphase
2/
A review of the ultra-robust yet surprisingly accessible 5,000m-rated Delma Blue Shark IV
-------------------------------------------------------------
Watch Worthy - A look at an offbeat, less known watch you might actually like
The Nuun Official Origen Sahara is a surprisingly affordable carbon fibre watch made for Dubai
Given that the brand is based in Bahrain (although the watches themselves are designed in Spain and cased in China), a number of different Nuun Official models feature dials with Hindu-Arabic numerals, and this includes the Origen Sahara, which features them on both its dial and calendar disc. Additionally, along with the standard 1-12 numerals that serve as the primarily hour markers, the dial of the Nuun Official Origen Sahara also features a secondary 24-hour scale with Hindu-Arabic numerals for its 13-24 markings, which get printed along the periphery of the dial in the location where you would normally find the minute track. Read the whole piece on A Blog To Watch.
-------------------------------------------------------------
If you would like to receive some additional watch-adjacent content, as well as this news overview, every morning Monday-Friday in the form of a newsletter feel free to subscribe. However, there is absolutely no need for you to subscribe, as all the news from the newsletter is posted here. It is only if you want to receive a couple of daily links that are not strictly watch-related an occasional long form article and possible givaways.
A Bambino is for everyone! And at that price…
The FC Worldtimer really is one of the best watches you can get right now. You’re right, it would be amazing if they did just a bit more with color. It doesn’t have to be anything crazy, just a hint of something
I mean… I get it. It looks a bit like it was just thrown at the dial and left where it stuck.
I would agree, I also love hefty watches. But I like when someone goes crazy and builds something like this. Would I buy it if I wanted to spend so much on a watch right now? Absolutley! Would I enjoy wearing it? Yea, for a day or two :D
if it is, kudos to him (them?)!
i like it even more with these photos :D
Since I’m not a huge Delma fan, it’s funny that this might be my favorite of theirs. Haha
Yes