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William Wood's Triumph Custodian Edition Opens for Pre-Order at £2,995, Delivering February 2027

A Sellita SW510 chronograph at £2,995, and the only number the maker leaves out is how many.

Image: William Wood Watches

William Wood has opened pre-orders for the Triumph Custodian Edition at £2,995, with delivery stated for February 2027 on the brand’s product page. Both strap options cost the same, and that delivery date sits about six months after the pre-order opened.

Mechanically the brand is forthcoming. It names a Swiss made Sellita SW510 automatic chronograph, 27 jewels, 28,800 beats per hour, 48 hours of reserve, and it publishes Sellita’s own tolerance, plus or minus five to twelve seconds a day, rather than a tidier figure of its own. The case is 41mm across, 16mm thick (16.5mm over the glass) and 49.5mm lug to lug on 20mm straps, gold plated with brushed sides and lugs, though the metal underneath is never named. Water resistance is 100M / 10ATM. The sapphire crystal is tinted a medium blue that the brand ties to the Blue Watch shift its namesake served on at the Newcastle and Gateshead Fire Brigade.

The provenance claims are the brand’s own, and read best as such. William Wood states the crown is “made from a 100 year old melted-down British brass firefighter’s helmet,” and that the olive dial’s etched circle pattern takes its cue from the same helmet’s chin strap. The default green fire hose strap and its Fire Gear alternative fit on quick release levers, their backs stamped “made from rescued materials.” Nothing in the available material corroborates any of it independently.

One number is missing. The brand’s own page description calls this a limited edition chronograph, and it says edition and authenticity markings are applied to the caseback by laser engraving, but no run size appears anywhere on the page.

Source: William Wood Watches

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Kiwame Tokyo Debuts the YANE, a Japanese Microbrand Watch Built Around Temple Roof Architecture

An Asakusa independent founded by a 30-year industry veteran turns rafters and ridge beams into a dial.

Image: Kiwame Tokyo

Most new microbrands borrow a familiar design language, often Swiss, often a diver. Kiwame Tokyo’s YANE (屋根) breaks from that mold.

The brand is based in Asakusa, a Tokyo district shaped by centuries of temple architecture. YANE means “roof,” and on Kiwame Tokyo’s product page the brand describes the watch as drawing inspiration from the temple roofs that have defined the city’s skyline for centuries. The approach reinterprets temple architecture from multiple angles instead of borrowing a single motif.

The result is a restrained lacquer dial with no hour markers, only a single applied index at 12, shaped like a mune, the ridge beam along a roof’s spine. The caseback features a pattern inspired by taruki, the exposed rafters beneath. Two colorways are offered: KURO and ENJI.

Behind the brand is Masaki Watanabe (渡辺雅己), who spent more than thirty years importing luxury watches into Japan and later brought international independents to the Japanese market. His site casts the brand as a conviction project rather than a volume play, a familiar claim given uncommon weight by three decades spent on the trade side of it.

Kiwame Tokyo’s own product pages fill in the hardware, and the proportions are the surprise: a 316L stainless steel case just 26.5mm wide, drawn out to a 44mm lug to lug span and 9.7mm thick, around a regulated Japan made Miyota Cal. 6T27 automatic. Time and Watches lists the same figures. Pre-orders open on 19 August 2026 at 11:00 JST, one watch per customer, with deliveries estimated from the end of December 2026, and Monochrome, which first spotted the launch on 14 August, adds that sales resume in January 2027.

Source: Kiwametokyo · first spotted via monochrome-watches.com

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Oris Announces Big Crown Calibre 113, an In-House Calendar Movement, Without Publishing Its Specifications

A week-of-year complication arrives in the Big Crown case, and the maker's own page leaves nearly every question open.

Image: Oris

Oris has published a page titled “It’s business time”, introducing the Big Crown Calibre 113. According to Oris, this is the first Big Crown case fitted with one of the brand’s in-house 10-day calibres, the hand-wound family that debuted in 2014 as the Calibre 100 Series.

What Oris does describe, however, is the complication set. Calibre 113 displays day, date, and month, plus a 52-week indicator Oris calls a “business calendar.” A week-of-year display is rare in any wristwatch, and even more so in a hand-wound in-house movement from an independent brand that spent most of its history sourcing calibres.

The power reserve demands attention. Oris notes that every movement in the Calibre 100 Series runs for ten days on a single winding and features “a patented non-linear power reserve indicator.” This applies to the series as a whole, not to Calibre 113 specifically. Treat it as lineage, not as a spec.

Everything else is absent. Oris gives no reference number, no price, no case diameter or material, no water resistance rating, no dial variants and no availability date. The page carries no dateline either. Nothing has been withheld under embargo as far as we can tell. The information simply is not there.

Oris notes the Big Crown has been in production since 1938, made originally for gloved airmen, and now, in the brand’s words, “a watch design icon.” Collectors will take the movement seriously. They will need considerably more before they can judge the watch.

Source: Oris

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Straum's Expedition Appears on the Maker's Own Site With No Specs and No Price

Every concrete number circulating about the Norwegian brand's new tool watch traces to somebody other than Straum.

Image: Straum

Straum, the Norwegian independent known for its Jan Mayen line, has listed its Expedition watch on its own site. The Expedition White Lume appears under a collection labeled “Expedition New,” which the site confirms contains just one product. This confirms the model exists as a current SKU, and the site’s underlying store data also lists two variant prices, though these do not appear in the visible page text.

What the page omits, however, is nearly everything a buyer would need. No case dimensions, material, movement, water resistance, power reserve, lug width, clasp type, lume brand, or reference number, though the site’s underlying store data lists prices of 35,000 NOK (titanium) and 31,000 NOK (rubber). The rest consists of navigation, shipping/returns policy, and Journal links.

There’s also no dated launch post. Straum’s Journal, as captured here, carries no Expedition announcement at all; the newest dated entries are four Jan Mayen models from March 2025 and the brand’s Micro-Adjust Clasp from December 2024.

All circulating specs originate elsewhere. Oracle of Time and Gear Patrol both report a 38.2mm grade 5 titanium case, a La Joux-Perret G100 automatic and 100m water resistance, with Gear Patrol putting pricing at $2,750 on rubber and $3,100 on the titanium bracelet. Oracle of Time adds a roughly 68 hour power reserve and a 200 piece Midnight Blue launch edition. Fratello alone gives a 42.5mm lug to lug and BGW9 lume.

Credible outlets, credible numbers, but no maker confirmation. Until Straum publishes its own specs, these remain provisional.

Source: Straum · first spotted via augustman.com

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IWC and Mercedes-Benz Celebrate 140 Years With a Limited Big Pilot Perpetual Calendar

IWC's ProSet module, a first major revision of Kurt Klaus' perpetual calendar, debuts in a co-branded anniversary piece.

Image: IWC

On 13 August 2026, IWC and Mercedes-Benz unveiled a limited edition under the latter’s “140 Years of Innovation” banner. The Big Pilot’s Watch Perpetual Calendar ProSet “140 Years” Mercedes-Benz (ref. IW329603) is limited to 140 pieces. IWC’s press release links the 140-piece run to Mercedes-Benz’s 140-year history, one watch per year.

A quick note on the math. The 140 years are the carmaker’s, counted from Carl Benz’s 1886 automobile patent. IWC itself dates to 1868. The two companies have worked together since 2004, and IWC has been Official Engineering Partner of Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS Formula One since 2013. CEO Chris Grainger-Herr describes a relationship in which “what began as a partnership has grown into a friendship.”

The mechanical highlight is the ProSet module, first shown at Watches and Wonders Geneva earlier this year and now presented in this new execution. IWC describes it as a calendar “based entirely on gears and protected by four patents” that can be corrected forwards and, for the first time, backwards from a single crown position. It is a significant update to the architecture Kurt Klaus designed for IWC in 1985.

The 42 mm steel case mixes brushed and polished finishes. The dial is black, with gold appliqués and gold-plated hands over a white-printed minute track. Through the sapphire back sits the 1926 laurel-and-star emblem marking the union of Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft and Benz & Cie.

IWC’s release stops short of water resistance and price, though it does state the caliber (82665) and power reserve (60 hours). Figures are circulating elsewhere. We would rather wait for IWC’s own spec sheet.

Source: IWC

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