Horological Meandering

I found this new Sinn collaboration watch on sale early this morning via a post by Sinn on their IG stories and placed an order as this Bundeswehr chronograph family of watches is one of my favorites.

Introducing the Sinn x the Rake and Revolution 155 Bundeswehr "Dark Star".  This is an LE of 150 pieces.

Photo credit: Revolution magazine

Photo credit: Revolution magazine

The Sinn 155 evolved from the Heuer 1550 SG chronograph issued to West German F-104 "Starfighter" pilots in the 1960s-70s.  A classic (2003) write up of this military-issued chronograph by Walter Manning can be found here.

The "Dark Star" sports a black-on-black star on the dial where previously a red-3H symbol was denoting tritium luminous hence the name.  At 43 mm Ø the case retains the same dimensions as the original Heuer Bund chronograph and has the 4 screws holding the case back to the mid-case. The "fauxtina" or aged luminous on the dial and hands give it a vintage flavor (but this is probably not to everyone's personal taste).  The movement in this new model is a Sellita SW510 automatic which is Sellita's alternative to the workhorse ETA/Valjoux 7750.  I've noticed that over recent years Sinn has been moving away from ETA movements in most, but not all of their watches, and have been using Sellita in their place.

Many years ago I previously owned a Heuer 1550 and also owned Sinn's attempt at an automatic replacement, the Sinn 156 Military chronograph.  Unfortunately for Sinn it was not picked up by the Bundeswehr who eventually chose the Tutima NATO chronograph as the Heuer replacement.  The Tutima NATO chronograph went on to become a storied watch in its own right.  There's quite a long history of these Bundeswehr chronographs.

Sinn made two previous limited edition reissues of the 155 for the Japanese market and for the German retailer Manufactum in 2005 and 2008, respectively.

Japanese market Sinn 155 shown below

Photo credit: Revolution magazine

Sinn 155 created for Manufactum shown below.

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