BY HARLAN CHAPMAN-GREEN
With the end of February approaching, it can only mean one thing: Watches & Wonders Geneva is right around the corner. That means that everyone who’s not going, which includes Audemars Piguet and the entire Swatch Group, is getting their new releases out now. This includes Sinn, a German maker of ultra-tough mechanical tool watches. I like to liken Sinn’s watches to that of G-Shock’s. I’m not afraid of wearing my G-Shock (review coming soon) anywhere, but there are some places I wouldn’t take my other watches for fear of them getting damaged. I feel that, if I owned a Sinn, I wouldn’t be afraid to take it anywhere.
The newest T50 watches exemplify this. They’re made of tough stuff, quite literally. Their 41mm x 12.3mm cases and optional bracelets are made of Grade 5 titanium. That is, unless you opt for one with “Goldbronze”, which is Sinn’s proprietary blend of bronze with one-eighth being gold. Not sure why you’d want that, perhaps it doesn’t make your arm go a funny colour in hot weather.
Either way, it’s unusual to see a gold-toned watch that’s fully bead blasted, but the new T50s are. In true Sinn fashion, form comes way after function, so these watches are legible and reliable first and pretty second. They still look good, I like the black dials with very large hands and markers, and the date window has been colour-matched to the dial, which is nice.
Inside the new watches is the self-winding Sellita SW 300-1 calibre, which has a 4Hz beat rate and a power reserve of around 56 hours. These Sinn watches also have a special dehumidifier inside, like Sinn’s other divers, to stop the crystal from fogging up inside during temperature changes.
Perhaps the most interesting technical detail of these new watches is the 500m water resistance, which is certified by an international accrediting company called DNV. The price of the watch, starting at $3,840, is high and puts this into the range of Tudor and Breitling, while Sinn might not have the brand name of those two, it has the technical skill. Only the full Goldbronze edition is limited in production to 300 units, the other two are not limited in production.
Visit Sinn here.
