And I'm glad I did, because it turns out I actually liked these designs a lot more than their Rolex equivalents. Except maybe the Grand Seiko GMT... I'd still probably buy a GMT Master II if it were available.

Sitting down at a restaurant with my family, and a guy approached me asking me where I got my watch. I told him it was a Hamilton from the movie Interstellar (Cooper). He goes, but where did you get it? I told him online. Then he asks specifically which store. I said I couldn't remember.

He was wearing some some sparkly cheap looking watch. Then he goes "you got it from Russia. We have the same watch. I got mine from Russia."

He then knocked his watch against mine, like a fist bump, but with watches, and walked away.

I was totally weirded out and couldn't figure out wtf had just happened.

My steel case is already scratched up, so I don't really care about that. I inspected the sapphire glass, and it seems fine. This is my favorite watch as I love Interstellar, and I bought the Murph watch for my daughter, so it has a lot of sentimental value.

Has anyone else experienced anything like this before?

As a life-long Donald Duck fanboy-manchild, I really love this whimsical watch.

I feel watches are so deadly serious most of the time that it's good to take a step back from that every now and then.

A little wrist shot of my Tudor Black Bay one in the autumn sunlight.

I’ve been wearing this watch for about a week now, and I honestly couldn’t be happier with my choice.
I spent quite some time deciding between different brands and sizes, but the 39mm turned out to be the perfect fit for my 7 inch wrist.

The blue dial really comes alive in natural light, and I find myself admiring it way more often than I’d like to admit.

My first proper luxury watch, and definitely one I’ll enjoy for many years to come.

Any other Black Bay one owners here?

EDIT: Found another picture, from a different angle: https://imgur.com/a/BgbzTeb

Hello reddit. This is a long shot, and a bit emotional for me.
I don't know much about watches or anything, but some years ago, my father drowned.
Unfortunatly I don't have many things from him, but would like to buy the watch that he wore,
which was sadly stolen a year prior. I only have a blury image from a home movie from 2008.
Maybe it is impossible, maybe not. The only clues I have, is the picture, and some facts:
We are from Denmark, and I believe my mom has gifted it to my dad sometime between maybe 1999-2005. I am pretty sure that it is not a very expensive watch. If I had to guess, it could be a vintage Festina (or maybe something of similar price, quality), but I don't know. My mother doesn't remember at all.
Could you lovely people take a guess? It would mean a lot to me to wear the same model.
Thank you!

At its peak, my collection was 17 pieces, half of which I hardly wore despite them being lovely; consolidation forces you to kill your darlings, but 8 pieces allows me to cycle through all of them frequently. From right to left:

1. Lange Zeitwerk Date
   
2. Lange Datograph Up/Down
   
3. Lange 1 30th anniversary “Darth” with onyx dial
   
4. Lange 1, the classic
   
5. Lange Titanium Odysseus
   
6. Lange 1815 Rattrapante
   
7. Patek 5320G-011
   
8. MB&F LM101 EVO NYC Edition

Will be continuing down the indie rabbit hole for the foreseeable future—stay tuned :)

Reading Note: Some readers on the Android Reddit app report seeing these posts as unformatted run-on text. The fix: it happens when you tap the image—just go back and tap the title of the post instead.

It's Thursday and a lot of cool lume stuff happening today, from the very complex Ming rotating lumes to the lume easter eggs on the Jack Mason. Good stuff.

THIS IS IMPORTANT: if you're a subscriber to the newsletter and have been missing them in your inbox, I've been having some deliverability issues since switching to the new platform. The emails often get caught in spam or promotions folders. Please check those and move the emails to your primary inbox. That should fix it.

I publish this every weekday as part of It's About Time, a free daily newsletter. The newsletter version includes more watch commentary, opinions, columns and a couple of non-watch related recommendations that will get you through the day. Subscribe here if that sounds useful.

---------------------------------------------

1/ Ming and Massena LAB Put the Honeycomb Dial in Motion With the 57.09 Secret Honey

Ming and Massena LAB, William Massena’s design studio, first worked together in 2021 on the 17.09 Honey, which had that honeycomb pattern. So what gives? Are they just re-releasing that watch again? Well, no... The 57.09 Secret Honey looks like a plain dark brown dial until it starts moving. This time the pattern is built from rotating sapphire discs, so it changes through the day. That has to be quite the sight up close.

The case is grade 5 titanium, 40mm wide and 10.17mm thick, with a lug-to-lug of 47.8mm. There’s a polished concave bezel on top, sapphire crystals on both sides and you get 100 meters of water resistance. But that's the boring part. The lugs, on the other hand, aren't boring. They use Ming’s three-step design, and each step gets its own finish: bare titanium on the outside, a TiN coating that looks like yellow gold in the middle, and a TiSiN coating that looks like rose gold on the inside. The ring under the bezel is TiN as well.

The base dial is brass, lacquered dark brown and circular brushed. Just an unrelated note: we need more brown dials. Above it sit three sapphire discs with anti-reflective coating. One turns once a day, one every 12 hours and one every hour, and each is a different color with a different pattern of cut-outs. As the openings line up and drift apart, the honeycomb appears and changes. Ming calls this “dynamic guilloché.” The hour and minute markings are printed on the two faster discs and glow orange. The indices and both logos are engraved into the underside box sapphire crystal and filled with Ming’s Polar White lume, which sounds a bit like a marketing gimmick but is actually the whitest lume I've ever seen. Maybe truly the only pure white lume.

Inside is the Ming 330.M2, which is a heavily modified Sellita SW330 GMT architecture, which is where the 24-hour disc comes from. Ming has skeletonized the bridges, brushed them and coated the bridges and mainplate in anthracite. It beats at 4Hz (28,800vph) with about 50 hours of power reserve. You get two straps: vachetta goat leather from Jean Rousseau Paris and black FKM rubber, both with quick-release spring bars and a steel flying-blade tuck buckle with micro-adjustment.

The Ming x Massena LAB 57.09 Secret Honey is limited to 125 pieces, priced at CHF 7,250 before tax. Orders open today, October 15, at 1:00 PM GMT. See more photos here and the watch on the Ming website.

2/ Fortis Gives the Already Cool Novonaut N-42 Halo Edition a Fully Lumed Dial

You see those milky white dials on the Novonauts in the picture above? That's all lume. While most lumed dials are just painted with lume, Fortis made the whole dial base from Lumicast X1, a special composite material that incorporates lume within it. That's cool. Some background if the Novonaut is new to you: Fortis supplied chronographs to Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, for three decades, starting with the B-42 Official Cosmonauts that went up to the MIR station in 1994. That partnership ended after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and in 2023 Fortis replaced the B-42 with the Novonaut N-42, a tougher, more modern chronograph. Until now it came with a plain black or blue dial on a bracelet. The three Halo Editions add the luminous panda dial and an upgraded movement, and they’re the best-looking versions of the watch so far.

The case carries over from the regular edition: 42mm wide, 15mm thick, with a lug-to-lug of 51mm. It’s made out of recycled steel, brushed all over, and the head alone weighs 115 grams. This is a big chronograph and it's quite proud of it. I'm pretty sure it would look right at home on my wrist. It is tempting... The bidirectional bezel has a fully lumed 60-minute scale on a polished ceramic insert in black, blue or green. There are sapphire crystals front and back, on the side is a screw-down crown with three gaskets, and you get 200 meters of water resistance.

All three variants have a very similar setup, with a panda setup. The snailed sub-dials, day-date discs, Arabic numerals and inner flange are printed in the accent color, and the blackened hands are filled with Super-LumiNova, including a bullseye tip on the seconds. Fortis says it’s the brightest watch it has ever made. I’d believe it, since there’s simply more luminous surface here than on anything else they make. At 12 o'clock is a 30 minute totalizer, at 6 is the 12 hour one, small seconds at 9 and a day-date window at 3 o'clock, right underneath the Fortis logo.

Inside is the new calibre Werk 17 TR, built with La Joux-Perret on the Valjoux 7750 architecture but with a column wheel. The TR update reinforces the bridges, fixes the balance bridge at two points instead of one, and swaps the index regulator for a free-sprung variable-inertia balance adjusted by screws on the rim. Power reserve goes from 60 to 70 hours, and it beats at 4Hz. The Halo Editions ship on a color-matched hybrid strap in FKM rubber and textile with a steel pin buckle. Since this is a massive and heavy watch, built to be used in extreme conditions, it doesn't depend on a spring bar to hold the straps together. Instead, they use screwed pins. That's cool.

The Fortis Novonaut N-42 Halo Edition is available now in black (F2040021), blue (F2040022) and green (F2040023), priced at €5,950. See more photos here and the watches on the Fortis website.

3/ Rado Doubles Down on Cricket With the Captain Cook In Green And Gold

Rado has made its second cricket Captain Cook in quick succession, following the European Cricket Special Edition with a collaboration with Cameron Green, the Australian all-rounder. Being that Australia's cricket team colors are green and gold, this collaboration practically just made itself.

The polished steel case is 42mm wide and 12.3mm thick, with a lug-to-lug of 48.6mm. The bezel pairs a gold-tone PVD ring with a green ceramic insert, and a domed box sapphire sits on top. Green’s signature is engraved on the screw-down caseback with the edition number. Water resistance is 300 meters.

The green sunburst dial is meant to look like a pitch, with three small gold dots at 12 standing in for the stumps. The minute track copies a ball’s stitched seam, and Rado’s rotating anchor sits on a red disc meant to be the ball. Applied gold indices and hands are filled with Super-LumiNova, the seconds hand is tipped in red, and there’s a date window at 3. If you follow cricket, the references are subtle enough to live with every day. If you don’t, you’re looking at a green and gold Captain Cook. So I would say that might be a win-win?

Inside is Rado calibre R763, Swatch Group’s ETA C07.611, better known as the Powermatic 80. It runs at 21,600 vph with 80 hours of power reserve, and its Nivachron hairspring resists magnetism. You get three strap options in the box: a two-tone bracelet with brushed steel outer links and gold PVD rice-grain center links, a green and gold NATO, and a black rubber strap.

The Captain Cook x Cameron Green (ref. R32138318) is limited to 459 pieces, since Green was the 459th man to play Test cricket for Australia and price is set at $4,700. See more photos here and the watch on the Rado website, when Rado goes ahead and puts the watch on there.

4/ Jack Mason Moves the Dr Pepper Strat-o-timer to a 42mm Case and Hides a 1920s Slogan in the Lume

I was 18 when I first had a sip of Dr Pepper. I had to wait so long to try this delicious nectar because it's impossible to buy in Croatia, where I'm from, and only a bit difficult to find in other EU countries. So it wasn't until I moved to the US did I finally get to try this mythical drink that was only a pop culture reference to me. And let me tell you, it's a very good thing that I am currently in Croatia and it's still as difficult to get Dr Pepper as it was 20 years ago. Because, brothers and sisters, if I could walk to the corner store and get a Dr Pep, I would certainly have diabetes. I love that drink so much. Which is why I necessarily automatically like this new Jack Mason Strat-o-timer 42: Dr Pepper 2026 Limited Edition, the brand's fourt collaboration with Dr Pepper. It's also the first in the larger 42mm case, and I'll have more to say about watchmakers moving to larger cases next week. And to close out this intro, this watch has a very cool easter egg hidden in the lume.

The steel case is 42mm wide and 13.2mm thick, with a lug-to-lug of 49mm and 22mm between the lugs. On top is a domed sapphire crystal, surrounded by a bi-directional 48 click bezel which has a sapphire insert. Look at it a bit longer and you'll notice the subtle difference in color for the day and night hours on the 24-hour bezel. On the side you'll find a screw down crown, which gives you 200 meters of water resistance.

The dial has a black sunray finish with gold applied markers and gold hands. The Lone Star logo at 12 is the newer faceted version Jack Mason introduced recently. All the markers are lumed, of course, and they glow blue just like the hands. However, the markers at 10, 2 and 4 glow green, and those hours have a special place in the Dr Pepper universe. Advertisements from the 1920s and 30s told consumers that 10, 2 and 4 o'clock was Dr Pepper time, the best way to drink the soda. They even incorporated 10, 2 and 4 on the bottle label. I wish I could have a Dr Pepper at 10, 2 and 4.

Inside is the Miyota calibre 9075, an automatic beating at 4Hz with 42 hours of power reserve. It’s a flyer-style GMT, so you can jump the local hour hand on its own when you land without stopping the watch. The rotor is new for this edition: gold-tone, skeletonized and engraved with the Dr Pepper logo. It comes on a seven-link steel bracelet with a micro-adjustment clasp.

The Jack Mason Strat-o-timer 42: Dr Pepper 2026 Limited Edition is limited to 230 pieces, each numbered on the caseback, priced at $1,299. It goes on sale October 12 at 12PM ET. See more photos here and the watch on the Jack Mason website.

5/ Czapek Puts a Green Singularité Dial and a Flying Tourbillon in the Gold Antarctique

The Antarctique is Czapek’s integrated-bracelet sports watch, launched in 2020. It has a rounded barrel case instead of the angular bezel most watches in the category use. Czapek later added a flying tourbillon version to mark the brand’s 10th year. There's a collector out there that really liked the tourbillon variant, but just couldn't find colors he liked. So, naturally, he comissioned his own. The result was a beautiful green guilloché dial in a gold case. The watch was so beautiful they agreed it would be a shame if only one were made. So Czapek is now making 10 more.

The case is 40.5mm wide and 11.5mm thick, with the same barrel shape and integrated bracelet as the rest of the Antarctique line. A raised box sapphire sits on the front, with a second one on the back. The finishing is mostly vertical brushing, with a polished bevel along the edges. Water resistance is 50 meters, compared with 120 meters on the time-and-date, Rattrapante and Révélation models. But come on, a gold tourbillon...

The dial is made by the legendary dialmaker Metalem and each one is engraved by hand. The pattern, called Singularité, is made of small rhombus shapes that shrink toward the centre, so the dial seems to drop away into the middle. That very cool texture then gets a green PVD treatment. Other than that, this still has a familiar setup, with a barrel at 12, gear train below it, flying tourbillon at six, with a curved openworked bridge running across the centre. The indices sit on the raised flange so they don’t interrupt the engraving. They are outlined in green and lumed, as are the openworked gold hands.

Inside is Czapek calibre 9, an automatic flying tourbillon movement with 191 components. It beats at 3Hz and has a 72-hour power reserve. The gold rotor is hand-engraved with the same Singularité pattern as the dial. The integrated 18k gold bracelet uses Czapek’s quick-release system, and the watch is also offered on green rubber or alligator leather.

The Czapek Antarctique Tourbillon Victory Green is limited to 10 examples. It's priced at CHF 98,000 on the gold bracelet, CHF 73,600 on alligator and CHF 69,600 on rubber. See more pictures here and the watch on the Czapek website.

---------------------------------------------

Watch Worthy - A selection of reviews and first looks from around the web

• A review of the Glashütte Original 70s
• Hands on with the ArtyA Complexity Métiers d’Art

---------------------------------------------

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 giveaways.

I’ve been picking up watches for the past couple of years, finding out what I like and don’t like. I am trying to limit the collection to this 4-watch box but when I look at it I’m realizing, while these are all great watches, it’s kind of boring?

The Seamaster and Speedmaster are not going anywhere. Those are my 2 favorite watches and I feel grateful to have them. I’m thinking of selling the Longines and replacing with something vintage, maybe on the dressier side. I love Omega so maybe a classic pie pan Constellation. I really like the Spirit Pilot but sometimes I’m unsure about the gilt look. I have also thought about the Hydroconquest in blue or green but don’t really want 2 divers. 

Anyway, curious if there are any suggestions for something in the 3k-5k range, used, that might add some class and a little flair to the collection? 

Seems I am in dead end. I would like to add third watch, but every watch I would like to have or had have some "but"

Overseas - not fit comfortably

321 Speedy - redundant with White

GS SBGH353 - returned, springbar issues

CHNR, BLNR - sold, 3285 movement issue

PAM 3325 - movement not great

PAM1313 - only 2020 had proper p.9010

PAM01731 - too thick and polished

Fifty Fantoms - left side logo uff

Ingenieur - movement and price for what is it

AquaTerra - all polished new model

JLC Reverso Duo - price went out of roof, 30m WR

The only watches that I am considering is New PO, but it will be another Omega and I haven't seen new Master Control Power Reserve or Milgauss Z-Blue, but thickness.

Or maybe I have to take a break and just enjoy the life :)

I’m currently travelling through Korea and Japan and had the chance to try on a few KUOE watches in Seoul.

I’ve been curious about the brand for a while and really like their designs. It’s got me wondering if KUOE could become one of the more successful Japanese microbrands over the next 5–10 years? Curious to hear from anyone who actually owns one.

I've been an Apple Watch only kinda guy my entire adult life. It's hard for me to splurge without a good reason, but I finally decided it was time to get something more sophisticated than my trusty wrist-computer. I present the Casio Edifice EFK-110D. I did ungodly amounts of research trying to find the perfect GADA watch, as this will likely be my only watch for quite some time. I even went to a boutique and tried on Omegas, Tudors, and Grand Seikos. This watch seemed to check all the boxes for a fraction of the cost: great size, unique dial, automatic movement, sapphire crystal + AR coating, and an exhibition case-back (because who doesn't want to see the cool moving bits?). The biggest con so far is the lume, which is virtually non-existent. Fellow watch enthusiasts who know way more than I, how'd I do?

swatch clearly gent 41mm

saw this on the swatch catalogue and been eyeing this one for a long time

turns out dad already bought it 2 months ago and hid it from me so he could gift it on my birthday 😭

looks super cool and eye catching

hope to cherish this for a long time

am a little worried about yellowing tho ngl

I have never been a watch collector. I've had a couple of Apple watches which I eventually lost interest in as I decided I did not need an extra screen in my life. I've had a couple of very cheap watches which didn't do much for me and I only ever wore inconsistently. For my wedding my wife got a formal Tissot quartz with a 40mm case that was way too big for my 6.3 inch wrist, so I rarely wore it because it wasn't comfortable (but I did wear it on my wedding day!).

Decided I finally wanted to get myself a watch I would really feel good about. I landed on this Lander Farer IV 36mm. I decided it was the right combination of cool looking (at least to me!), somewhat unique without being overly funky, and something that can be worn for almost any situation (casually, at work, etc.). I also saw based on pictures online that changing out the straps can give it very different looks (ranging from very casual to suitable for formal occasions).

It was very important for me to get a watch that had the right fit, and this watch not only has 36mm case but also relatively short lug-to-lug and it's also quite thin, making it comfortable for everyday use even with my relatively small wrist, and it certainly fits easily under a dress shirt sleeve.

The dial is what first drew my eye to the watch. I love its unique use of color and the way the dial plays with the light (the color varies a lot depending on the lighting and the angle, which is fun).

This is my first time ever owning a mechanical watch. I really enjoy it. I love the smooth, sweeping seconds hand - which I find much more satisfying compared to a ticking quartz movement. I enjoy hearing the mechanical sounds that can only be heard when you put the watch right up against your ear, like hearing its heart beat. I appreciate the artistry of it.

It has a GMT hand, which isn't particularly useful to me since I am not a frequent flyer or someone who does business with another time zone. But it's nevertheless cool to look at and play with. I currently have it set to Japan time, since I'm a fan of Japanese culture and sometimes I look at it and I think about what people are doing in Japan right now.

Also as a bonus, it keeps very accurate time. I have it running about 2 seconds fast a day, so I rarely need to adjust the time (the model's "average" is supposed to be +/-4 seconds per day).

So, I'm really enjoying it. So much so that I don't really know why I would need another watch. But then again, I guess I've been enjoying it enough that at some point in the future the temptation for something new might strike.

Did I do okay?

The criteria for choosing something had to be inexpensive since its testing waters to see if she likes having something on her wrist . It also had to be small and have some feminine touch (pink faux mother of pearl texture on dial). She’s prone to forgetting to take it off before showering so a metal bracelet is a must I.e no leather. The fact that it has backlit face is a bonus! Quartz is best in this case since she won’t have any desire to set the time if she takes it off for a while. Don’t mean to toot my own horn but I think I did a stellar job finding something that fits my criteria and even more props for timex for making this watch. I bought her a tennis bracelet to go with it too!

From left to right...

•Omega Speedmaster 3861 – A gift from my father and will never leave the collection.
•Cartier Santos – My wedding watch.
•Tudor BB58 Blue – My first “nice” watch.
•Vintage Omega De Ville – Family heirloom.
•Omega Seamaster NTTD.
•Hamilton KFM – This is the first iteration of the polar dial from when it was a Topper Jewelers exclusive. Still kinda ticked I paid a premium for this dial colorway and then Hamilton made it a general release.
•CWC G10 – Birth-year watch. Love this!!! Tritium lume, broad arrow engraving, and just a super fun watch.
•Unimatic U4S Hodinkee collab.
•Rolex Explorer II 16570 – My latest watch.
•Grand Seiko SBGM221.
•Timex Abu Garcia – I have another Ironman, but this one is super fun.
•Cartier Santos-Dumont WSSA0046 – Black lacquer dial.
•Rolex Submariner 126610.
 
There are no safe queens in this collection. I have and will daily anything from a $20 Timex to a precious-metal Rolex sports piece.
If this were your collection, what would you add or remove?
 
For my next milestone watch, I’m considering:
•Patek Calatrava 5196J
•A. Lange & Söhne Lange 1 101.025
•Vacheron Constantin Historiques American 1921 in yellow gold

This is Seiko's new limited edition version of the MarineMaster.. it's based on their collaboration with JAMSTEC, Japan's research agency that studies geology, weather, etc and is in celebration of their new icebreaker.. dial is meant to look like the path an icebreaker has just formed in the Arctic. It's also super pretty... Only 1000 were made and only half were sold outside Japan so I feel lucky... The new MarineMaster has a better movement, MUCH better bracelet with a huge microadjust, and a fantastic bezel... All for less than the price of a used Tudor Black Bay.

Just pulled these bad boys from the depths of my "for repair" boxes and am gearing them up for a full overall and hopefully a quick recovery.

All are running, just not very well at all and all parts are accounted for except for 1 Valjoux 72 movement ring in the reverse panda.

Please wish them a speedy recovery and I will post some pictures and videos once they are up and at em' again.

Here goes nothing 🤣🤣🤣

P.S. Don't be alarmed, no cases or dials will be altered in any way, shape or form to keep them as original as you see them now 👌

Made in USSR on the dial, small, lightweight, and purchased for $80 in Prague on a whim. What’s not to love?

It is definitely the most quirky of my watches, and the only manual wind I own. It’s also the oldest, and I know nothing about it.

But every time I give it a whirl, I’m reminded of how cool this little thing is. The seconds hand also moves very smoothly, so it’s even more fun to look at than just a tick-tick-tick motion.

Well, it’s been a long battle back to ‘The Grateful Eight’ after losing the original collection (see final picture) to a major Mental Health Crisis (long, long story) but I’m extremely thrilled to have the collection back and to have my nice little group again. Just like everyone else, the last few years (really since 2020) have been a real challenge and struggle, and I’ve found refuge in my watch collection. It’s something “just for me”. But, (and you can laugh and doubt me — I would) I am actually going to retire from the watch game now. It’s time. Time to enjoy life and just relax awhile.

What the title says.

If a man were to go looking for a square shaped watch, sized not like a house.

To fit a dainty wrist and give off that cool cool 70s vibe.

Would he find anything that didn’t cost a kidney (like the glashutte) but had sweet finishing and movement (better than the mido)?

Or would he just be wasting his time?

Reading Note: Some readers on the Android Reddit app report seeing these posts as unformatted run-on text. The fix: it happens when you tap the image—just go back and tap the title of the post instead.

It's Wednesday and I have to run today, so no quips or jabs from me. Enjoy the issue.

THIS IS IMPORTANT: if you're a subscriber to the newsletter and have been missing them in your inbox, I've been having some deliverability issues since switching to the new platform. The emails often get caught in spam or promotions folders. Please check those and move the emails to your primary inbox. That should fix it.

I publish this every weekday as part of It's About Time, a free daily newsletter. The newsletter version includes more watch commentary, opinions, columns and a couple of non-watch related recommendations that will get you through the day. Subscribe here if that sounds useful.

---------------------------------------------

1/ Seiko Turns the New Marinemaster Green for Its Latest Save the Ocean Edition

The Marinemaster is Seiko’s top mechanical dive watch, and the current generation is only six months old. Seiko had already redesigned it two years earlier, so the March update came faster than anyone expected. It kept the 1968 design and the 42.6mm case and changed four things: a ceramic bezel insert, the date moved to 3:00, a tool-free micro-adjusting clasp, and the calibre 8L45. Those changes made it the best diver Seiko sells, if that's what floats your boat. The HBF003 is the first special edition built on that version, with a green sunray dial in place of the black grained one and it's part of Seiko's Save the Ocean effort that funds multiple ocean preservation and exploration efforts.

The steel case is unchanged from the standard HBF001. That means that it's made out of stainless steel and measures 42.6mm wide, a massive 14.1mm thick and has a lug-to-lug of 49.3mm. I know this is a dive watch that's actually intended to be used as a tool, but that thickness is hard to justify. On top is a double domed sapphire crystal, surrounded by a unidirectional bezel that has a black ceramic insert with the classic 60 minute scale. The caseback is engraved “Limited Edition” with the individual number, the only physical sign on the case that this isn’t the regular model. Water resistance is 300 meters.

Seiko claims that the green of the dial is inspired by mangrove forests, the coastal trees that grow between the sea and fresh water and protect shorelines from erosion, and it goes from near-black to bright green depending on the light. The seconds hand is pink gold-tone. Everything else on the dial matches the HBF001, including the date at 3:00.

The calibre 8L45 is an automatic movement based on the Grand Seiko 9S65 architecture, and it beats at 4Hz, with a 72-hour power reserve, and a rated accuracy of +10 to -5 seconds per day. The steel bracelet’s clasp adjusts by 16mm in eight 2mm steps without tools.

The Seiko Prospex Marinemaster 1968 Heritage Save the Ocean Limited Edition HBF003 is limited to 900 pieces. As for pricing, it's only been published on the UK website for now, even though the watch will be available worldwide, and it's set at £3,300 or about €3,900. That's a lot of money. See more photos here and the watch on the Seiko website.

2/ Spinnaker And seconde/seconde/ Bring Back All 50 Phantoms For Year Four

Every October since 2023, Spinnaker and seconde/seconde/ have put out a Halloween watch. The first one, the Fleuss Automatic 50 Phantoms, was a parody of the Blancpain Fifty Fathoms with 50 lumed ghosts on the dial and “No Feet” printed at 6 o’clock. It was limited to 670 examples at $445 and sold out almost immediately. That was the year Romaric André, the banker-turned-customizer behind seconde/seconde/, was releasing a new collaboration nearly every week, and I was getting pretty tired of all the collabs coming out. The Spinnaker was the one watched that made me completely change my mind on him. It was fantastic. The 2024 follow-up gave us the Phantom Classic and the No App, which moved the ghosts onto the bezel as a nod to Blancpain’s No Rad, and hid the date so you could only see it under UV light. Last year the two dropped the Blancpain joke for the 47+3 Phantoms, with three ghosts hidden on the case and the rotor and a wavy bezel I liked more than I expected to. This year the 50 Phantoms name is back, the wavy bezel remains, and you get two variants, the Crazy and the Quiet.

The case is the familiar Fleuss at 40mm wide and the two variants come in at two different thicknesses – the Crazy is 12.15mm thick and the Quiet comes in a bit thinner at 11.8mm, and you'll see later why. The bezel is now white ceramic, polished, with the same rippled edge as last year, which is supposed to be the hem of a bedsheet ghost. Around back, two oval display windows turn the caseback into a pair of ghost eyes. And they light up at night. You get a sapphire crystal on top, a screw-down crown and 100 meters of water resistance, down from 150 meters last year.

The difference between the two watches is all on the layered dial. The Crazy edition prints its 50 ghosts in green, yellow, blue and white, so you see all of them in daylight, and they’re lumed for the dark. On the Quiet edition, during daylight you only see the ghost eyes scattered around the dial. The full ghosts never appear, but the eyes do glow in the dark. Love that thing.

Inside is a Miyota 9039 automatic, which beats at 4Hz with a 42-hour power reserve. Both versions come on a jubilee-style steel bracelet, plus a white perforated rubber strap and an orange striped fabric strap in the box. Btw, the box is pretty cool, with a glass display case for the watch and a UV torch to light up the ghosts even in daylight.

The Quiet edition is limited to 850 examples and the Crazy to 1,500, both priced at $600. The watches go on sale 16th October, 6:30 am CEST, and if previous editions are anything to use as a baseline, these will go very fast. See more photos here and the watches on the Spinnaker website. (Spinnaker triggers a filter on Reddit so I can't link to it. you'll have to find this one yourself or go through my website)

3/ RZE Builds Its Own In-House Digital Module and Will Swap It Into Your UTD-8000

Digital watches usually die with their electronics. When the module gets old, the whole watch goes in a drawer, especially on a lower priced digital watch. Often, a replacement module will cost a hair less than a brand new watch, so why not go for a new watch. This is, of course, a bit wasteful and one of the reasons why some people don't like quartz/digital watches. RZE, the Singapore brand that makes lightweight titanium field and dive watches, agrees that this is wasteful, so they have a solution. And it's not a simple one, as it required them to develop their own in-house digital module. When's the last time you heard a watch brand do that? And the UDT digital watches going forward will all use this module. But what about you UDT-8000 owners? No biggie, for $100 RZE will sell you the new UTD-8080 movement to drop into your existing case. Very cool.

The case is Grade 2 titanium with RZE’s UltraHex surface treatment. It is 42mm wide with a bezel that overhangs to 43mm, 13.4mm thick, with a lug-to-lug of 49.5mm, and it weighs 51.9 grams. Water resistance is 200 meters. A sapphire crystal with Super AR coating on the inside covers the display. The launch model, the UTD-8080-ST, gets a white Cerakote finish with black accents.

The display moves to FSTN LCD, which has darker numerals and better legibility at steeper angles than the standard TN screens most digitals use. Functions now include dual time, multiple alarms, a countdown timer, a 1/100th-second stopwatch and a calendar that runs to 2099 without adjustment. The backlight is RZE’s UltraGlow.

The UTD-8000 ran on a modified existing module. The RZE-8080 is RZE’s own design, tested on the UTD platform since March 2025 for temperature extremes, shock, vibration and drops of more than 30 feet. It runs on a CR2032 cell rated for at least three years. RZE also plans to offer the module to other independent brands and microbrands, which could be extremely cool.

The UTD-8080-ST is priced at $399 and ships in November 2026. Standard UltraHex titanium versions follow in March 2027, priced at $299. The $100 swap for UTD-8000 owners will be available through service centers in the US, Canada, the UK and Singapore from January 2027, and RZE covers the shipping back to you. See more photos here and the watch on the RZE website.

4/ Ralph Lauren Shrinks the Western Cushion to 38mm And It's Still The Coolest Watch

Ralph Lauren’s Western collection is the part of its watch line that looks least like what you would expect from a watch, and at the same time most like something Ralph Lauren would make. The cases are sterling silver, engraved in the style of Western belt buckles and saddle silver, and they come from the same ranchwear world as the brand’s Double RL clothing. RL watches are often looked down on as being fashion watches, but they are so much more than that. They started making watches in 2009 through a joint venture with Richemont, featuring some pretty nice movements and even better finishing. Since, they've moved production in-house and often come out with wild creations like this Western Cushion. This is certainly not a watch for everybody. I love it.

The case measures 38mm square and 9.3mm thick, with a lug width of 23mm, which are some killer proportions. Well, killer, except for that lug width, but would you dare put a boring strap from your collection on a watch like this? Nah, this needs a custom made leather masterpiece if you want an alternative to the one that comes with the watch. It also has what look like super stubby lugs, likely making it very wearable for most people. It’s made out of sterling silver, which is a rare material in watchmaking, but one that will patina brilliantly. The case is then engraved with scrollwork and aged so the engraving are darker than the surface. About 47 grams of silver are used for the case. There’s also a convex sapphire crystal on top with anti-reflective coating on the inside, a back closed with six screws, and 50 meters of water resistance. The crown is aged silver with the RL logo.

There are three dial options, two of which are lacquer. The off-white version has printed black numerals, Roman and Arabic mixed, with a black minute track. The black version swaps in off-white numerals but keeps the black Breguet hands, so it will be the hardest of the three to read. The third dial is polished natural turquoise and it is by far the best of the three.

Inside is the RL514, an automatic Piaget makes exclusively for Ralph Lauren. It’s an 11-ligne calibre with 26 jewels and 189 components, beating at 3Hz with about 40 hours of power reserve, finished with vertical Côtes de Genève and perlage. The off-white and turquoise models come on brown tooled calfskin, the black model on black, all with brown lining and an engraved silver pin buckle. The strap tapers to 20mm and is interchangeable.

The Ralph Lauren Western Cushion 38mm in sterling silver is available now, priced at €26,000 with the off-white or black dial and €29,000 with the turquoise dial. See more photos here and the watches on the Ralph Lauren website. Unfortunately, the RL website is extremely geolimited so I can't link to the watches directly as it will only allow me to see the Croatian website. I believe if you click on the link above it should bring you to your local store that has the watches.

5/ MB&F Revives the Original Legacy Machine as the Smaller, Tougher LM1 EVO

The Legacy Machine 1 was never a watch you’d wear to do anything. It's the kind of thing I would put on and just stare at. It truly is one of the most impressive watches I've ever seen up close. The watch was released in 2011 among the brand’s spaceship-shaped Horological Machines with two white sub-dials, Roman numerals and a giant balance wheel floating on a bridge above them, like a 19th-century pocket watch that had wandered into the wrong decade. MB&F retired it in 2017, but obviously not forever. Now it’s back in EVO spec, the sport-ready version (titanium, rubber, shock protection, water resistance) that the brand has been rolling across the Legacy line since the LM Perpetual. Of all the Legacy Machines, the first one deserved this the most.

The case, made in either grade 5 titanium or 18k rose gold, shrinks from 44mm to 42mm wide and is 16.8mm thick, though that number includes the domed sapphire on top and the box sapphire underneath. Add to that a lug-to-lug of 52mm and the watch certainly has a huge presence on wrist, but not in a bad way. You want a watch like this to have a presence. There’s no bezel: the crystal is thermally bonded to the case itself, so the dome flows into the metal without a step and lets more light onto the movement. This being the EVO spec, it adds the brand's FlexRing shock absorption mechanism, the two crowns screw down, and you get 80 meters of water resistance. I should reach out to MB&F to see if they'll lend me one to go diving.

The two sub-dials each shows their own time and each has its own crown, which means this is one of the truest ways of displaying two time zones as you can set each to whatever time suits your fancy. Why is that useful? Well, it's one of the rare watches that you can set the time zone for a region like Iran, that is offset from other time zones by 30 minutes and Nepal, which is offset by 45 minutes. Those two sub-dials are black and snailed on both versions, titanium pairs them with a rhodium-plated base plate and blue lumed arrow hands; rose gold gets a green plate and gold hands with lume inlays. Above them, the 14mm balance now sits under a new titanium bridge, and the old vertical power reserve gauge has become an inclined arc at six o’clock.

Inside is a 3D movement developed in-house by MB&F with Jean-François Mojon, under supervision from Kari Voutilainen for the finishing, which explains the gold chatons, Côtes de Genève, polished internal angles, hand engraving and black NAC-treated bridges. The balance still beats at a lazy but cool 2.5Hz, now with a Straumann double hairspring for better stability, and power reserve rises from 45 hours to 60 hours. The rubber strap is integrated into the case, black on titanium and grey on gold, with a folding buckle, and for the first time it swaps out via a quick-release at both the case and clasp.

The titanium LM1 EVO is not limited and is priced at €89,000. The rose gold version is limited to 33, priced at €111,000. Both of those prices are without VAT. See more photos here and the watches on the MB&F website.

---------------------------------------------

Watch Worthy - A selection of reviews and first looks from around the web

• A review of the Atowak Manta-X Violet Purple
• Hands on with the CIGA Design Hunter Tourbillon In Blue

---------------------------------------------

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 giveaways.

This is my daily driver for the office. The white dial and blue subdials give off snoopy vibes while obviously not being a snoopy. This watch does pretty much everything: day, date, world time, dual time, chrono, and even a tachymeter for some reason. It's powered by light and sets itself. Set it and forget it.