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The Watches

Citizen Boosts Solar Energy with New Navihawk

Citizen launches a new limited edition pilot’s watch this week in conjunction with 1% for the Planet and Everybody Solar, two energy conservation organizations.

The watch, which joins the Promaster series, is an Eco-Drive (light- powered) Limited Edition Navihawk. The 48mm black ion-plated steel watch boasts a cobalt blue dial with pilot-friendly orange accents.

The new Citizen Promaster Eco-Drive Limited Edition Navihawk.

The watch includes not only fully synchronized radio-controlled timekeeping technology (which will update time automatically in twenty-six time zones) but also a chronograph, a complete perpetual calendar, 12/24-hour time options, a power reserve indicator and day/date display.

Citizen’s Eco-Drive technology, demonstrated here, powers the watch using only light.

Sales of the watch will benefit the two conservation organizations and Citizen’s new “Purposeful Power” ad campaign. For every #mylight moment shared to @citizenwatchesus, Citizen will donate $5 to Everybody Solar towards the goal of 100% funding of a solar installation project next Spring. This would be the second joint project  between Citizen and Everybody Solar. In recent months, Citizen’s donations helped complete the new 35 kilowatt (kW) array at Glacier National Park’s headquarters.

“Our message of Purposeful Power is aspirational so as to reflect the desire of both the Citizen brand and our consumers to treat the planet, and those around us, with respect and to make a positive contribution to the world,” says Jeffrey Cohen, President of Citizen Watch America.

Citizen includes a matching Citizen clock with each watch.

Citizen is limiting production of the watch to 1,500 pieces worldwide. As an added bonus, Citizen is also including a matching Citizen clock with each watch. Price: $850.

 

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The Watches

Waldan Adds Pastel Dials

American-based Waldan has added a trio of eye-catching pastel-dialed models to its Heritage Professional series of dressy, 40mm quartz-powered steel watches.

Offered as limited edition of 100 pieces in each of three colors, the new Waldan Bright Pastel series retains the high-value allure of the Heritage Professional line, but now adds a colorful twist with a choice of pink, yellow or light blue dials.

The three Waldan Heritage Professional Bright Pastel models.

The new series also underscores its fashionable mission with the advent of interchangeable contrast-stitched Elbamatt leather straps, now with quick release spring bars.

Each strap is equipped with a quick-release spring bar for easy mix and match options. Additional straps are $30.

Hand crafted in Italy, these straps add a matching finish to any watch in the series, and present the wearer with the option of purchasing additional straps to mix and match as desired. The straps are $30 and available from the Waldan website.

Waldan continues to power each watch in the series with an all-metal American- made Ameriquartz Caliber 70200 movement. Fine Timepiece Solutions, the Arizona-based manufacturer of the Ameriquartz movements, guarantees that its all-metal calibers are defect-free for a full five years. Price: $299.

 

Specifications: Waldan Heritage Professional Bright Pastel

(Three colors, each limited to 100 pieces)

Movement: American-made Ameriquartz caliber 70200 quartz movement, all metal, hand made, assembled and tested individually in the United States. Fully serviceable and warrantied for five years.

Dial: Canary Yellow, Sky Blue or Blush Pink with white applied Arabic numerals, steel hands, white outer dial rim with applied SuperLuminova plots. Sunken and diamond-cut subdial above 6pm for sub-seconds register with small red hand. Signed ‘Waldan, New York,’ ‘AMERIQUARTZ’ and ‘USA MOVT’.

Case: 316L stainless steel, two-piece, double stepped case with screw down back and Anti-Reflective treated flat sapphire crystal. 40mm diameter x 8.6mm thickness x 20mm lug width. Mixed finish with polished case and brushed lugs. Knurled crown signed “W” with multi gasket system for 5ATM water resistance. Case back signed.

Strap: Genuine Ambra Elbamatt leather with quick release spring bars, stainless steel buckle.

Price: $299

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The Watches

Eone Expands its Modern Montre à Tact

By Gary Girdvainis

When Eone watches first launched the Bradley edition, the design created by the recent MIT graduate Hyunsoo Kim was a modern quartz watch that made it easy for a sightless person to read the time. Kim developed a tactile system that allowed the wearer to relate the position of two mobile steel balls with fixed tactile points around the dial.

While this honorable cause may have birthed the design, the idea of a watch that could relay the time via touchpoints on the case is certainly not new. Notably, Breguet had created watches that could indicate the time via touch with his Tact watch, sold starting in 1799. In this pocket watch original the function was more for discretion while checking the time than servicing the blind.

An example of an early Breguet ‘montre à tact’ cylinder watch.

For Eone, success came quickly. A Kickstarter campaign in 2014 funded Eone to more than half a million dollars. With rave reviews by the watch and popular press, Eone firmly established itself in the watch world. Clearly the watch designed with a cause had found a much wider audience, and during the years after its launch the company developed variations on the theme that could be appreciated by both the sighted, and the sightless alike.

The new Eone Switch, with a replaceable ring on the top of the watch that allows you to change the look of the watch in seconds.

The Switch

Since 2014 Eone has refined the functionality of the original Bradley design with subtle changes like opening the groove on the perimeter for easier visual and tactile access to the hour ball.

Beyond the refinements, Eone has most recently developed its new Switch model that features a removeable/replaceable ring on the top of the watch that allows you to change the look of the watch in seconds. While the rings do need to retain the tactile hour markers for time reference, the potential for changing the look of the watch with a quick twist of your fingers has major appeal.

Eone sells the new Switch with two rings that you can easily interchange (without any tools). You can also buy them separately if you want to add new variations to your collection and transform your one cool watch into many.

Extra rings available for the Eone Switch.

Prices: $360 including two rings. Extra rings are available at $40 per and the entire Eone line ranges from $260 to $360.   Read more about Switch here.

 

 

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Featured News

Accutron Offers Spaceview Puzzle

Accutron has teamed with Vermont-based Stave Puzzles to create The Accutron Challenge, a hand-cut wood jigsaw puzzle inspired by the 2020 launch of new Accutron Spaceview.

The Accutron Challenge wood jigsaw puzzle, made by Vermont-based Stave Puzzles.

The puzzle offers seven separate challenges, including a “Beat the Clock” multiple design puzzle, with the final products creating seven different colored Accutron timepieces.

Accutron launched a new series of Spaceview watches last year to commemorate the original 1960 tuning-fork-powered Spaceview,  the first electrically powered wristwatch. The new Accutron Spaceview is powered in part using electrostatic generators.

The Accutron Spaceview 2020.

Accutron adds Stave Puzzles to its expanding list of U.S.-based collaborations, which also includes Hudson Whiskey, La Palina Cigars, and Esterbrook Pens.

The Accutron Challenge is priced at $745 and can be purchased from Accutron’s website.

 

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The Watches

Grand Seiko Expands Elegance Collection

Grand Seiko’s latest additions to its Elegance Collection include these two unisex 34mm models (SBGX347 and SBGX349). Each watch sports this brand’s characteristic and highly light-reflective diamond-cut markers and hands. Grand Seiko sets a white or a royal blue dial within the slim (10.7mm) steel case with a thin bezel and boxed, retro-inspired sapphire crystal.

The watch’s straight-forward design belies a great deal of technical detail, including the use of Caliber 9F61, Grand Seiko’s famed high-end (and hand-assembled) quartz caliber with an ultra-precise accuracy of +/-10 seconds a year.

Grand Seiko caliber 9F61.

And Grand Seiko protects this movement against potentially destabilizing magnetic influences to an especially strong level of 4,800 A/m, not typical protection among watches in this price range.

 

Both Grand Seiko Elegance debuts are priced at $3,300.      

 

Specifications: Grand Seiko Elegance

 

Case: 34mm by 10.7mm steel, box-shaped sapphire crystal, 4,800 A/m magnetic resistance, 30 meters of water resistance, screw caseback with lion emblem.

Dial: Royal blue or white.

Movement: Quartz Caliber 9F61, hand-assembled, high-torque.

Strap: Crocodile leather with buckle.

Price: $3,300.

 

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