"Watch & Act!" Auction Item – Lot 2: The hardest Oris to get on earth?
Hodinkee’s extraordinary run of sold-out limited edition models only became more of a water-cooler conversation topic when the 250-run of the Oris Divers Sixy-Five Limited Edition for Hodinkee was released, to be sold out in less than 10 minutes. The team generously offer one of their own brand new archive models of the highly sought Limited Edition to the ‘Watch & Act!’ Auction. Modelled after a design originally created by Oris in 1965, the Divers Sixty-Five model was introduced in 2015 and has become a mainstay of the brand’s heritage collection, offered in a range of sizes, dial designs and bezel materials. The Divers Sixty-Five Limited Edition for Hodinkee pares down the design with a “balance of go-anywhere ability and always-on-your-wrist versatility” as a goal. The real talking points here, apart from the perfectly tuned overall vintage aesthetic — that ‘ghost’ faded grey bezel is just sublime — and the speed at which it was snapped up, is the fact that this is the first Divers Sixty-Five to be manually wound, allowing the case profile to slim down slightly. The Divers Sixty-Five Limited Edition for Hodinkee is fitted on a tapered rivet-style stainless steel bracelet but also comes with…
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The personal watch of Adam Clayton, bass player of U2, this Pioneer Centre Seconds is one of only three Pioneer models in existence without a brand name on the dial. It has not been polished and is literally ‘off Adam’s wrist to the auction’ – light scratches and wear marks remain. Adam has been photographed extensively with the watch, including the attached photo shoot in GQ Magazine. This watch has been generously donated by H. Moser & Cie with the blessing of Adam Clayton. The Pioneer is an extremely curious hybrid of a sports watch and a dress watch. The size, 42.8mm, makes it bolder and more suited to Australian tastes than a sub-40mm dress watch. And yet, little else apart from the striking, masculine lines of the case, mark it as anything like the sports oeuvre. The elegant dauphine hands, partially skeletonised, gives a sense of lightness and delicacy. The mirrored, bi-faceted indices, the calligraphic brandmark, the gloss finishing of the rehaut … they are all wonderful, nuanced touches that fit it firmly into the most desirable category of considered dress watches. Oh, and did I mention the dial? A ‘funky blue’ fumé masterpiece that can make a fool…
Unquestionably one of Grand Seiko’s most surprising releases of 2019, the SBGK additions to the Elegance Collection had all the makings of a perfect dress watch. There was just one problem, however — if I’m being really finickity, the dial options that were made available upon release were perhaps slightly out of keeping with that of a quintessential dress watch. Someone in the Japanese watchmaker’s design team clearly had the same feeling, because less than six months after its initial unveiling, we have this — the Grand Seiko Elegance SBGK007. I was borderline ecstatic when this watch was unveiled, and waited with bated breath for the press watch to find its way into the office, eager to find out whether the crisp white dial I’d seen in countless press images was as arresting in person as it was on my Mac screen. And now that I’ve been able to spend some time with this svelte dress watch attached to my wrist, I have to admit it’s a great dress watch … but it’s not exactly what I was expecting. Allow me to explain. The press release for SBGK007, as well as the product description found on Grand Seiko’s own website, characterise…
Continuing their creative collaborative partnership, luxury Japanese streetwear label Bape and Japanese watchmaker Seiko have just unveiled their latest limited edition creation … and we like it. Water resistant to 200 metres, this matt black marvel is, much like their first joint effort, sporting Bape’s quintessential “ABC” camouflage, which has been masterfully applied to the dial, as only to be expected of Seiko. Unlike the previous watch, however, this new timepiece has ditched the vibrant camo green in favour of a much more brooding and low-key black and grey colour palette. The dial also features Lumibrite hour indices and handset, prominent chapter ring and a day-and-date window, which can be found at the three o’clock position. The unique dial is capped with a Hardlex crystal, and the case back shows off an engraving that reads “A BATHING APE LIMITED EDITION”. Powering the limited edition timepiece is Seiko’s tried-and-true Calibre 4R36, a true workhorse of a movement that the Japanese watchmaker utilises in a number of its collections including the new Seiko 5 Sports series and the Prospex range. The self-winding movement features approximately 41 hours of power reserve, 24 jewels, seconds hacking and the aforementioned day-and-date complication. Shrouding the movement,…
Editor’s note: The last couple of years have seen a very distinct trend with the majority of Swiss watchmakers — the rise of the re-edition. You know what I’m talking about: re-edition, re-creation, reinterpretation … whatever you want to call it, vintage-inspired watches are the vogue right now. And I get it, a watchmaker looking to its past to help forge a bright future is great, and consumers get to purchase watches with real antiquated charm and flair, without trawling eBay, op-shops or thrift stores. But — and it’s a big but — all this hype around vintage timepieces has meant that we’re getting less and less fresh takes on what a timepiece should be. That’s why I’m so fond of the Oris Aquis collection. Here is a timepiece that is unashamedly from the 21st century, and it’s all the better for it. It’s not trying to hark back to the golden era of diving, or paying homage to a certain watch first seen 50 years ago. No, it’s just an honest-to-goodness, fit-for-purpose dive watch, and a capable one at that. A little while ago we had a look at this Oris Aquis Depth Gauge, and these were our initial…