Bulova adds a new chronograph to its Joseph Bulova Collection, a set of automatic watches with designs inspired by Bulova watches made in the decades between 1920 and 1950.
This latest addition to the retro-themed collection is a three-subdial, 42mm steel-cased chronograph offered with either a black dial with rose-gold tone accents or a silver white dial with blue-tone accents.
The new 42mm Joseph Bulova Chronograph, powered by a Sellita automatic chonograph caliber.
While the new watch is larger than the original, and it now shows chronograph timing using three sub-dials instead of two, the new model retains several features that contributed to the character of the original watch.
The original features retained by Bulova include the telemeter scale around the perimeter of the dial, a domed crystal, railroad-track scales around the subdials and distinctive, squared chronograph pushers. In addition, Bulova has transferred the dial font and hand style from the original onto the new Joseph Bulova chronograph.
The new Joseph Bulova chronograph echoes the style of this vintage 1941 Bulova automatic chronograph, with a few key differences.
Of course, updates for both aesthetic and technical reasons are inevitable. For this piece, these include using anti-reflective sapphire to create the domed crystal, a day/date window and an exhibition caseback, exposing the rotor. Inside you’ll find a Swiss-made Sellita SW-500 chronograph caliber with a 48-hour power reserve.
Bulova is offering either style on a black leather strap engraved with Joseph Bulova’s signature on the inside. Finally, Bulova offers each watch in the Joseph Bulova collection as a limited edition of 350. Price: $2,495.
Alongside a new dive watch (Diver X Skeleton) and a new chiming watch (the Blast Hourstriker), Ulysse Nardin just ahead of Watches & Wonders 2021 debuts UFO, a table clock that literally rocks as it displays time on three dials, all under a glass dome.
The new Ulysse Nardin UFO, a 10.3-inch high ‘swinging’ table clock with three dials.
We’ll provide details about the watches in upcoming posts. Below we help you identify the new Ulysse Nardin UFO.
Collaboration
Teaming with Swiss clockmaker Maison L’Epée, well known in recent years for its whimsical collaborations with pioneering independent watchmaker MB&F, Ulysse Nardin has constructed UFO, a sixteen-pound, 10.3-inch tall aluminum and glass clock built with a rounded base that allows the clock to swing from side to side like mechanical waves around its axis. The UFO swings up to 60° from its axis – an amplitude of 120 degrees, with no affect on its precision.
The UFO, or unidentified floating object, is the futuristic interpretation of what Ulysse Nardin’s designers, engineers, and watchmakers think a marine chronometer should look like in 175 years, according to Ulysse Nardin CEO Patrick Pruniaux. “We always look ahead,” he says. “We wondered what a marine chronometer designed in 2196 would be like.”
The clock’s imbalance and swinging motion is meant to conjure images of the perpetual movement of the ocean. Ulysse Nardin’s 175-year history, which this clock honors, includes more than a century of making award-winning marine chronometers.
Six barrels confer a remarkable one-year power reserve when fully wound.
Glass and dials
The clock’s ‘imbalance’ starts with a blue half-spherical aluminum base fitted with a tungsten mass. The base and glass bell are connected to a bayonet mounting system, which echoes marine chronometer construction where the top glass could be unscrewed.
Romain Montero, a 26-year-old artisan glass blower who works for the Swiss-based Verre et Quartz, a technical glass-blowing workshop near Lake Neuchâtel, creates each glass cover by hand. The process is labor-intensive, and for each cover finished, two others were attempted without success, according to Ulysse Nardin.
L’Epée requires 663 components, and plenty of time, to build each UFO, with the three trapezoidal dials being among the clock’s most complex components to construct. According to the manufacturer it takes twenty-eight hours to manufacture eight of the dials. Three are placed into the UFO, which allows the owner to display three different time zones at once, each seen from a different angle.
One of three titanium dials on the UFO.
The three blue-hued dials face outward around the top the clockworks, which are fully visible. And among the many spectacular sights within the clock are the six massive barrels that confer an incredible year of power reserve when fully wound with forty turns of a key. Each dial has its wind-up notch, which is also used to the set the time (four notches in total, one for winding up and one for each time zone wound up using a single key).
UFO’s dramatic slow-beat, large-diameter (49mm) brass balance wheel. The size and the leisurely 3,600 bph frequency (one per second) of the balance soothes the viewer while also contributing to movement’s ultra-long power reserve.
At the top of the movement L’Epee and Ulysse Nardin have installed a dramatic slow-beat, large-diameter (49mm) brass balance wheel. The size and the leisurely 3,600 bph frequency (one per second) of the balance is meant to both soothe the viewer while also contributing to movement’s ultra-long power reserve. And to put a finer point on the clock’s meditative rate, you’ll find a dead-beat second indicator just below the balance.
Specifications: Ulysse Nardin UFO
Movement: UN-902 caliber table clock, manually wound movement displaying three time zones, hours, minutes, deadbeat second, 675 components, six barrels, extra-large oscillator (49mm),0.5 Hz /3,600 Alt/H, one-year power reserve.
Case: Aluminum and blown glass measuring 263mm (H) x 159mm. Weight: 15.8 pounds, 75 timepieces
Greubel Forsey debuts its first metal bracelet today as it adds contemporary updates to its titanium GMT Sport. The all-new, fully integrated titanium bracelet echoes the new look of the unusual elliptical bezel, complete with the high level of hand finishing you’d expect from Greubel Forsey.
The new Greubel Forsey GMT Sport, with the brand’s first-ever metal bracelet, here made in titanium.
You might recall that when this high-end watchmaker first showed the world the GMT Sport in 2019, the watch’s distinctive ovoid bezel attracted just as much attention as the watch’s new movement featuring such Greubel Forsey specialties as a Tourbillon 24 Seconds and eye-catching three-dimensional GMT globe.
Likewise, the new bracelet here might garner outsized attention given its premiere status for this brand. Greubel Forsey has devised a three-link bracelet finished with many of the same styles we see on the 45mm-by-15.7mm case and bezel, notably straight graining, frosting and top-tier hand-polished beveling.
Greubel Forsey notes that it opted to frost-finish the lugs to better emphasize how the case and bracelet link directly along an uninterrupted row. The somewhat darker frosting continues along both edges of the bracelet as well, underscoring the visual unity of the two components.
Functionally, the bracelet features a fine adjustment system that allows the wearer to quickly loosen or tighten the bracelet’s fit. The watch will also arrive with a blue rubber strap with text in relief and a titanium folding clasp with engraved logo.
The watch will also arrive with a blue rubber strap with text in relief and a titanium folding clasp with engraved logo.
Clean bezel
While adding a bracelet to the GMT Sport, Greubel Forsey has also removed something: The GMT Sport’s wide, undulating bezel is now free of the raised engraved text espousing the brand’s values. Instead, the elliptical bezel, which curves gently at 12 o’clock and 6 o’clock, is cleaner, sporting expert hand-finished horizontal straight graining on top and a hand-polished frame.
Thus, instead of reading words like ‘perfection’ and ‘harmonie’, the wearer can focus on the GMT Sport’s intricate, multi-dimensional dial components and displays amid the bright new blue and titanium color scheme.
Indeed, the new color scheme of this GMT Sport highlights a matte blue finish on the mainplate, bridges, globe, second time zone dial and 24-second indicator ring of the Tourbillon 24 Seconds. The color nicely contrasts with the polished components of the steel and titanium movement components.
In addition, to draw attention to new blue color scheme, Greubel Forsey has decided to skeletonize the highly visible central suspended arched bridge and the tourbillon bridge.
The blue color splashes across the multi-level dial plates, replacing the dark grey hue of the previous GMT Sport. Between the blue plates wearers can check the time via a central hours and minutes display while eyeing a second time zone at 10 o’clock, a power reserve indicator at 3 o’clock and the GMT rotating terrestrial globe at 8 o’clock.
On the GMT Sport caseback is a sapphire disc displaying city names surrounded by two rings.
The GMT globe, first seen in 2011 and used within the GMT Black in 2015, displays the second time zone (as seen on the auxiliary dial just above at 10 o’clock). When the wearer combines this with the globe’s universal time display, he or she can read the current time anywhere in the world. And of course a wearer can enjoy the whirling Tourbillon 24 Secondes, positioned between 12 o’clock and 2 o’clock, which contributes to the watch’s high level of precision.
Greubel Forsey will make the new GMT Sport with the new titanium bracelet in a limited edition of thirty-three units. The price has not yet been announced, though the previous GMT Sport was priced at $500,000.
Specifications: Greubel Forsey GMT Sport
Features: In titanium, blue movement, limited edition hand-wound movement with three patents, GMT, 2nd time zone indication, rotating globe with universal time and day-and-night, universal time on 24 time zones, summer and wintertime indication, cities observing summer time, 24-second tourbillon, hours and minutes, small seconds, power-reserve indictor.
Movement: Greubel Forsey manual-wind caliber with 63 domed jewels in gold chatons, Tourbillon inclined at a 25° angle 1 rotation in 24 seconds, 72-hour power reserve, 21,600 bph,
Case: 45mm (with bezel) by 17.8mm (with crystals) titanium with curved synthetic sapphire crystal, three-dimensional, variable geometry-shaped bezel, hand-polished with hand-finished straight graining, 100-meter water resistance. O back is a sapphire disc displaying city names surrounded by 2 rings
Bracelet: New three-row metal bracelet in titanium, folding clasp with integrated fine adjustment, engraved GF logo. Also: rubber with text in relief, titanium folding clasp, engraved GF logo.
Frederique Constant this week unveiled a groundbreaking one-piece silicon oscillator that effectively replaces the traditional mechanical movement’s twenty-six-piece escapement assortment, and has developed a new movement around the high-tech component. The new movement, automatic Caliber FC-810, will power the Slimline Monolithic Manufacture Collection of 40mm watches, available this September.
The gold-cased model of the new Frederique Constant Slimline Monolithic Manufacture collection.The silicon oscillator appears at 6 o’clock.
Debuted after three years of research and development, Geneva-based Frederique Constant’s new oscillator beats at the ultra-high rate of 288,000 vibrations per hour, or 40 Hz, about ten times faster than traditional mechanical movement oscillators. And since it is created as a single friction-free, anti-magnetic, lightweight component, both the oscillator and the movement demonstrate ultra high efficiency.
The oscillator beats at the ultra-high rate of 288,000 vibrations per hour, or 40 Hz, about ten times faster than traditional mechanical movement oscillators.
As a result, when teamed with a standard winding spring in the new movement, watches in the new Slimline Monolithic Manufacture collection realize a full eighty-hours of power reserve.
High-tech team
Frederique Constant teamed with Nima Tolou, CEO of the Netherlands-based micro-engineering firm Flexous, to develop the silicon oscillator. Frederique Constant’s watchmaking department asked Flexous to develop a unique, flexible oscillating system in a size comparable to a traditional balance. Furthermore Frederique Constant set specifications, including: the highest possible frequency; an 80-hour power reserve; and a cost-effective formula allowing the manufacture of significant quantities at a reasonable price.
Flexous met the requests, devising a component that measures 9.8mm in diameter and 0.3mm thick, approximately the size of a conventional regulator. As noted above, the new oscillator incorporates all twenty-six components that make up the typical assortment, including the traditional balance, spring, anchor and rubies. And, echoing the traditional escapement, the new oscillator’s frequency can be fine-tuned by adjusting two tiny weights.
The watch
The first collection Frederique Constant is fitting with the new movement is the Slimline Monolithic Manufacture, a three-hand watch with a pointer date. The 40mm round watch offers a classic Swiss dress dial with a central guilloché hobnail pattern, printed Roman numerals and Breguet-style hands.
The design of the Slimline Monolithic Manufacture echoes the brand’s pioneering use of open dials that expose portions of the movement. When it debuted in 1994, the Frederique Constant Heart Beat was the only serially produced non-skeleton Swiss-made collection that boasted an open dial.
Where that collection displayed the automatic caliber’s escape wheel at the 12 o’clock position, the new collection displays the new pulsating silicon oscillator through an aperture at 6 o’clock.
On the reverse side, a clear sapphire caseback offers an unimpeded view of the automatic FC-810 caliber, which is Frederique Constant’s thirtieth in-house movement. The brand decorates the movement with traditional Geneva stripes with perlage; the oscillating weight is open worked.
Frederique Constant will make the Slimline Monolithic Manufacture in three limited editions, projected to be shipped starting in September. The editions include 810 pieces in stainless steel with a blue dial ($4,795) and 810 pieces in a steel case with a silver color dial ($4,795). Also, an 18-karat gold model with a silver-colored dial will be made as a limited edition of 81 pieces ($15,995).
Ten years after debuting its first Legacy Machine, ground-breaking independent watchmaker MB&F debuts LMX, a new dual-dial Legacy Machine that echoes the premiere Legacy Machine, but with new dial angles, a dual-display power reserve indicator and updated precision.
The new MB&F LMX, in rose gold.
Like the first MB&F Legacy Machine, the new LMX also features two white lacquer dials displaying hours and minutes in two different time zones. But where those dials were flat on that first model, the two white dials on the new LMX are tilted at an angle, much like dials we’ve seen on the MB&F LM Flying T and LM Thunderdome. This meant MB&F needed to add conical gearing to the movement in order to transfer the energy from the horizontal movement to the tilted dials.
Where the first Legacy Machine featured a somewhat traditional dial plate, the new LMX shows off its battle-axe-shaped escapement bridge and components of the gear train. Specifically, MB&F exposes three large wheels, namely the two gears that rotate when setting each dial, plus the gear at 6 o’clock, which is the common seconds wheel.
New power indicator
Also new is a much more complex power reserve indicator. While the first Legacy Machine itself broke new ground with a three-dimensional power reserve display, the LMX offers a nod to that debut with a three-dimensional, hemispherical display that is also customizable.
The wearer can select between two modes of counting down the power reserve. Here we see the days of the week. The opposite side is numbered 1-7.
The wearer can select between two modes of counting down the power reserve. MB&F places two markers on opposite sides of the hemisphere. One features a scale numbered from one day to seven days, and the other scale shows the days of the week.
The new display, likely the first of its kind on a wristwatch, allows wearers to choose their preferred mode of power-reserve indication.
Through the sapphire case back the viewer can see three barrels placed evenly around the center.
Finally, MB&F has built a new balance wheel for the LMX. The exposed balance, hanging from arched titanium bridges, is for many the primary characteristic of the first Legacy Machine and is repeated throughout the decade-long Legacy Machine lineage. MB&F has built a new balance wheel measuring 13.4mm in diameter with inertia blocks rather than more traditional screwed balances. MB&F explains that this choice “offers greater accuracy to the watchmaker in regulating the heart of LMX.”
MB&F is offering the new LMX in two limited launch editions:
– Eighteen pieces in red gold with black NAC treatment on plates and bridges ($128,000);
– Thirty-three pieces in titanium with green CVD treatment on plates and bridges ($112,000).
Specifications: MB&F LMX
Movement: MB&F three-dimensional manual winding with three mainspring barrels. Power reserve of 7 days (168 hours), new 13.4mm balance wheel with inertia blocks floating above the movement. Balance spring is traditional Breguet curve terminating in mobile stud holder; balance frequency is 18,000bph (2.5Hz), gold chatons with diamond countersinks, superlative hand finishing throughout respecting 19th century style; internal bevel angles highlighting hand craft; polished bevels; Geneva waves; hand-made engravings; polished arms of the straight bridges exposed on the dial plate, manually finished to a curved “bercé” profile on their upper surfaces.
MB&F has opened the watch’s dial to expose more of the movement’s most active gears and components
Dial: Completely independent dual time zones displayed on two dials. Unique hemispherical power reserve with choice of weekday or 7-day indication; rotates to adjust the preferred power reserve indication. Left crown at 10 o’clock for setting time of left dial; right crown at 2 o’clock for setting time of right dial and winding.
Case: 44 mm wide x 21.4 mm in two launch editions: 18-karat 5N+ red gold case limited to 18 pieces or grade-5 titanium case limited to 33 pieces. High domed sapphire crystal on top and sapphire crystal on back with anti-reflective coating on both sides.
Strap: Black hand-stitched alligator strap with 5N+ gold folding buckle for red gold version, and grey hand-stitched alligator strap with titanium folding buckle for titanium edition.
On the reverse side, a clear sapphire caseback offers an unimpeded view of the automatic FC-810 caliber, which is Frederique Constant’s thirtieth in-house movement. The brand decorates the movement with traditional Geneva stripes with perlage; the oscillating weight is open worked.
