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I think it might have been a business plan cooked up and approved during the crazy overheated market days.

They’d clean up if they made a Polerouter at the same price as a Datejust or Aqua Terra, but they’re starting from zero, and assuming a new movement, that’s a terrifyingly large investment, even outsourced to Kenissi or LJP or whoever.

With a brand new microrotor movement I could see them asking maybe 10k on a strap in the current market (which is about where the new Ingenieur is, on a nice bracelet but with an ordinary movement) but 15+ is quite spicy. We’ll see.

I definitely don’t think UG should stick to chronographs. One of the defining aspects of vintage UG is the sheer range of different watches and different styles they made.

I know about the three they’ve made (I wrote about them in my Substack, did I mention I have a Substack, lol) - I am hearing that $15-20k is allegedly going to be the price for a regular steel Polerouter (not gold) when they relaunch. Sounds like the plan is to position UG well above Breitling.

I couldn’t tell you, I know next to nothing about Breitling!

I am hearing rumours that the starting price is going to be $15k-$20k for a Polerouter

Think he means the one in my previous post.

@Sumo it’s a Breitling with what I assume is the crest of some national air force or squadron or suchlike. You can’t really tell from that photo but it was basically mint.

Edit: I think it’s the AOPA - https://www.aopa.org/

Closer look at that Clapton…

There were some really good Breitlings too

V v nice colour variant of those. Love my Group B, would be tempted if mine wasn’t so similar.

Very nice work.

It’s just the shape of the hour hand as seen on any number of Rolexes. The circle section has three bars like a Mercedes-Benz badge. The bars are there so that the area of lume isn’t too big/fragile, at least, that was the reason originally.

(If you’re talking about the original MB badge, the three lines are meant to point to the air, land and sea, the three types of engine they made.)

https://www.bobswatches.com/rolex-blog/just-because/rolex-mercedes-hands.html

They're smaller than on a lot of the vintage snowflake dials, not sure they're too small for the watch! The triangle being narrower is worse, for me, because the sides of the triangle aren't parallel to the square markers at 1 & 11.

The snowflake hand is something Tudor revived from their vintage divers' watches. Originally Tudor used the Rolex layout with rectangles and dots, a triangle at 12, and Mercedes hands (and of course, actual Rolex cases and crowns).

In the 60s they wanted to differentiate themselves as a brand, rather than "Rolexes with cheaper movements", and came up with the famous snowflake Submariner. They changed their logo to the shield shape they use now and totally rethought the hands and markers. Twelve is an isosceles triangle (more or less), 3/6/9 is rectangle that's twice as long as its width, and the intermediate hour markers are squares. So it's all very geometric and mostly based on squares, hence the hour and seconds hands (which became known as snowflake hands for some reason) using rotated squares as large lume shapes. It was quite a cool and modern design at the time.

Modern Tudor have revived that basic design for the Pelagos line (although the triangle is a bit thinner than it should be), but they also just slapped the square hour hand on the more vintage styled Black Bay. Everything else on the Black Bay is aping the pre-Snowflake designs, except clearly Rolex have decided they don't want them to use a Mercedes hour hand anymore. So you end up with this odd collision of retro and modern.

The Seiko Navigator Timer GMT is on Black Friday sale from Seiko themselves, £999 from £1500 -

https://www.seikoboutique.co.uk/product/prospex-navigator-timer-limited-edition-mechanical-gmt-spb411j1/

My next newsletter is about that watch, I'm obsessed with it

Thanks! I definitely agree.

Cheers. Yeah, it seems crazy, especially for Swiss brands when you think of the reputation Switzerland has for design and typography, but it's really just the natural consequence of the brands bringing the dial production in-house (with the few major Swiss dial makers being bought out) and traditional design skills being lost in the move to digital.

Interview with me (!) on Fratello today

https://www.fratellowatches.com/just-my-type-an-interview-with-watch-typography-designer-samuel-baker/

Really like that. The red 24h numerals are quite unusual, assume it’s a railway issue watch.

Yeah, that’s what I was implying

Looking at the seller's history, it's almost certainly a fake/scam. No activity for a year, only low value clothes stuff listed in USD, and suddenly 3 listings in GBP for luxury stuff at large discounts.

Oh damn I had completely forgotten that thing existed

Very GS in style isn't it. Quite handsome though. How big is it?

Happy Friday, Group B on today

Depending on taste / personal style, also worth looking at Mr Jones Watches (their shop is on Neal Street in Covent Garden), Paulin and Seiko (upstairs floor at the Grand Seiko boutique on New Bond Street).