Very Switched On! A Week on the Wrist With the Guinand HS109 Skin Diver.
Myron Erickson
Oh, behave!
I don’t recall Austin Powers ever wearing a cool watch, but I like to think that if he had, it would’ve been a skin diver. Watches in this delightful niche are practical, sporty, and fun, leading to their great popularity during Austin’s heyday in the late 1960’s. Gradually, they all but disappeared from watch wearers’ wrists for decades while we moved on to “professional” divers, but the format makes a perfect watch for most people.
The Guinand HS109.
Consider: ample, but not excessive, water resistance for swimming and snorkeling; modestly sized cases; a timing bezel for those random events when timing something other than your life-sustaining oxygen supply could be useful; good lume for after-dark time telling; an oftentimes funky dial and handset design; and, finally, overall design cues that make you think, “Groovy, baby, yeah!”
On paper, at least, these specs are simply those of a diver’s watch, but it’s that last point, the watch’s personality, that is hard to define but makes all the difference between a professional diver and a skin diver. Generally, I look for the cardinal indices to be set off in some graphically notable way, the use of a hip numeral typography, and either the hour or minute hand, or both, to be somewhat unconventional. The archetypical form factor is a thin, arched case with lug apertures that are squared off inside, but any of these details can vary and we will still call it a skin diver. Think of it as a diver lite with more of a Jonny Quest vibe and less of a James Bond vibe and you’re getting closer.
The archetypical skin diver case profile.
Of course, I have nothing against so-called professional diving watches and would be a hypocrite if I did. I love my Planet Ocean 2209.50 and Sinn 613 St in all their unnecessarily pressure resistant and helium-escaping glory. It’s just that I am happy to let the bragging rights go uncontested when comparing notes with someone’s 45 mm Super Mariana Trench Master Diver 5000 Puck-O-Matic. I just want to be able to swim when I feel like it, read the watch in the middle of the night, time a steak, and do it all in a certain style that suggests I am the kind of person who keeps a snorkel, mask, and fins in the trunk of his car, just in case. Is it too much to ask?
Turns out, no, it is not too much to ask, as we are living in the Second Golden Age of the Skin Diver. Yeah, baby, yeah!
A Sinn From the First Golden Age.
Back in the 1960’s, when Helmut Sinn was getting his young company off the ground primarily with pilot’s chronographs and cockpit clocks, he also offered a skin diver. Being virtually a one man show selling contract-built watches, it would seem Sinn the company didn’t produce and sell very many of its skin diver model. I had never encountered it, and I used to spend a lot of time prowling German watch sites looking at vintage Sinn watches. I can only find a few pictures of the watch today, and Guinand says it is one of the rarest watches to have come from their company’s original collaboration with Sinn.
The original Sinn skin diver, ca. 1960’s. Image compliments Guinand Uhren.
The good news for the skin diver shopper today is that there are myriad watches to choose from, ranging from very expensive models with authentic DNA built by premium brands like Glashütte Original, to very affordable pieces from newer micro-brands like Baltic. In between, there are historic skin divers from recently re-booted makers like Airain, Le Forban, and Chronofixe, as well as back-catalog re-issues from established brands like Vulcain and Oris. The world today is once again the skin diver fan’s oyster, and it would seem there is a pearl for every budget.
Note the different “Sinn” logos. Thanks to @selespeed on sinn-uhrenforum.de for the images.
While anyone could go to any of those makers right now and buy a beautifully executed, authentically styled watch, what you can’t do is travel back in time to the mid-1960’s, buy a new skin diver from Helmut Sinn, and bring it back with you to the present. But for 109 lucky people, Guinand has made the next best thing possible.
The Guinand Commemorative LE’s.
September 3, 2016, was Helmut Sinn’s 100th birthday. To commemorate it, Guinand released a limited edition of 100 pieces of a very special chronograph and called it the HS100. The watch was a recapitulation of a famous Sinn chronograph from the 1960’s, which itself was originally produced by Guinand. And every year since, Guinand has continued this tradition. As Herr Sinn would have turned 109 this year, this year’s watch is the HS109 and is limited to exactly 109 pieces. As I have often regretted selling my HS100, and as my current watch mood was very shagadelically stuck on mid-century skin diver, I ordered the HS109 as soon as I saw it.
My HS100. If you have this watch, s/n 051, please get in touch. :)
The Guinand HS109.
Starting from the outside and moving in, the new watch borrows Guinand’s G44 case, which makes sense when you consider how impractical it would be to develop a brand new case for only 109 watches. So although the HS109 may vary from the skin diver archetype with its round case, blocky lugs, and chunky crown guards, the upside of this is a water resistance of 30 bar, a triple-sealed crown, and proven dimensions and proportions that yield delightful wearability for most wrists. Its 40.8 mm diameter and 12.4 mm height are carried by a 20 mm lug width. A serious and modern tool watch it may be, but au contraire, baby, because its playful personality is all skin diver, like something you might spot on the wrist of one of Steve Zissou’s crew.
Legible at any angle. Here on a strap of my own making in Horween’s Saddle color shell cordovan.
The HS109’s bezel insert is hardened stainless steel, engraved with 60 minute markers and a luminous pip at 12 o’clock. Guinand offers two styles for the watch, based on which case finish you choose. If you want to go straight-up mid-century skin diver, then pick the polished case; its vintage style bezel uses small dots for minute markers and a round pip with no surround. I preferred the blasted case, which comes with more modern (but still quite vintagey) bezel markings comprised of smaller numerals, short hachures for minute markers, and a triangle surround on the luminous pip. Both bezel varieties are 60-click and unidirectional. If I had it to do again, I think I’d ask Guinand if they could build one with the satinized case and the vintage bezel…
The vintage bezel option. Note the simple dot markers and no pip surround. Image compliments Guinand Uhren.
The dial is a feast for the skin diver enthusiast’s eyes. At 12, 6, and 9 o’clock we have large, applied, diamond-shaped cardinal markers. I’d love this same treatment at 3 o’clock, but Guinand was being faithful to the original here, so we have a plain date window with a white date wheel at 3. It probably also saved cost, since the movements didn’t have to be modified to avoid a ghost date position. And no doubt Austin Powers would find a date indicator useful, time traveler that he was. Very groovy, baby!
Typically for Guinand, the lume is exceptional.
The minute markers are long, thin lines, and the 5-minute indices are elongated dagger-like triangles. The applied diamond-shaped cardinals and the long dagger indices all draw the eye toward the center and the hand stack. “HS109” appears very discreetly and faintly above the 6 o’clock diamond, a wise design choice that doesn’t distract from the aesthetic beauty of this dial.
Guinand thoughtfully provides two sets of strap bar holes.
The handset is its own treat. The hour hand is a large arrowhead, almost but not quite an equilateral triangle, that seemingly floats over the dial, connected to the center pivot by twin bars, and the minute hand is a long, thin pencil that extends perfectly into the minute markers for very precise reading. The sweep hand is a polished needle of perfection. The dial and hands are generously treated with SuperLuminova C3. The geometrically intricate but perfectly readable dial and handset all combine to take us back to the days of George Nelson wall clocks and Burt Bacharach playing his hits.
Subtle details in the HS109 branding and double-stick hour hand.
Remember the 2824?
When I first saw the HS109, I was amazed to learn that it is powered by an ETA 2824-2, and one that Goldmember would approve of at that, attractively gold-plated. Remember when the 2824-2 was considered ho-hum? Reviewers had to use words like “workhorse” to make this once-ubiquitous movement seem more appealing.
Goldmember’s 2824-2.
What a contrast to the movement landscape today, when the 2824’s most prevalent clone, the Sellita SW200, has almost completely replaced it in modern, mainstream watches made by companies that want to use a Swiss Made movement. Although I have numerous Sellita-powered watches and have come to trust their movements, I can also say that I miss the 2824. Even Hamilton, itself a Swatch Group brand, has dumbed it down with their “H” calibers, which I have definitely come not to trust.
One nice thing about the 2824 receding somewhat into the background of the watch landscape has been the proliferation of new companies producing 2824-ish movements. I am excited to try watches with movements from such companies as France Ébauche, SwissTP, and LaJoux-Perret. Still other companies like Yema, Damasko, and Oris have developed their own movements. Smashing, baby!
Careful regulation at Guinand ensures your watch arrives with its mojo intact.
And because they care deeply about the quality of the final product, Guinand takes the time to regulate each movement in 5 positions. The watch then undergoes a multi-day performance test to ensure it has not lost its mojo. The certified results that came with my watch indicate an average 24-hour timekeeping of +2.8 seconds per day. That’s a bit of alright, baby!
A Week on the Wrist.
When my HS109 arrived, I showed it to my long-suffering spouse, whose initial impression was “it looks a lot like all your other watches,” by which she meant diver’s and pilot’s watches, of which I am guilty as charged. But after just a few moments of studying it, she said “it reminds me of those clocks from the 1960’s…” Yeah, baby, yeah!
My wrist companion for dog walking.
It was the holiday season, and we were preparing for our annual New Year’s Eve family gathering up north. I hacked the HS109 to my trusty atomic clock, we threw our stuff into the Defender, and headed out for a long weekend of fun. I packed my portable martini kit and collection of Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass records, but, as it was winter, skiing gear had to stand in for a snorkeling set.
My wrist companion for a day on the slopes.
And so the holiday week passed with celebration, food, friends, and family, the HS109 my constant companion. I moved it from the excellent vintage-style rubber strap that Guinand provides, to a Cordura strap that I purchased from Guinand as an optional extra, to a nylon NATO, to a shell cordovan strap of my own making. And at the end of a week of 24/7 wear, I re-checked the timing to discover my watch had gained 15 seconds total. Very shagadelic, baby!
Any International Man of Mystery would approve of the Guinand HS109.
If you’ve never bought a watch from Guinand, I highly encourage you to. Matthias and Anne Klüh make it a very personalized experience, and include their best wishes with every watch. I own a few Guinand watches, and have written about my Chrono Klassik and ASFlieger previously. I think the HS109 is still available at the time of writing, so if I’ve convinced you, you should order one here.
A very swinging set of Guinand watches!
Worried about tariffs and importation hassles? Don’t be — for a fee of €100 Guinand ensures that all the duties and brokerage fees are paid in advance, and that there are no surprises with the importation process. Compare this to a quote I received from Laco recently when I inquired with them about buying a Köln model directly from them. On top of the $1440 purchase price and shipping (free at the time because of a promotion), they anticipated I would face a $390 delivery charge for import duties and fees.
This concludes my review of the Guinand HS109. Do you own a Guinand? I welcome your own thoughts and always appreciate factual corrections below. Thanks for reading, and if you have an HS100 you’re looking to re-home, please get in touch. Groovy, baby!