This is the new Huckberry x Timex Titanium Automatic Field Watch. It was co-developed by the two American companies as an almost indestructible timepiece that’s perfect for use in the great outdoors, as well as around town.
A good field watch is an essential member of the collection for many watch enthusiasts, it offers a watch for almost all occasions with the possible exception of those requiring a tuxedo, however 007 would certainly have no qualms about wearing a field watch in a top and tails.
The watch has an exhibition caseback with Huckberry logo over the classic Timex word mark.
Field Watches: A History Speedrun
Field watches have their roots in military watches, and it would be military watches that were among the first wristwatches made and marketed solely to men. Early wristwatches were developed for women and were typically very small and dainty in their design.
No gentleman at this time would be caught dead without his pocket watch, and the idea of wearing a wristwatch as a man was unthinkable. This began to change due to two factors, bicycles and warfare. The bicycle craze around the late 19th and early 20th century meant that pocket watches weren’t particularly useful, as you needed to be able to see the time when your hands were on the handlebars.
Conflicts like the Boer War and WWI saw men’s wristwatches come into more common use, and for largely the same reason as with the bicycles – a wristwatch allowed you to see the time while your hands were busy doing something else – like holding handlebars, or perhaps a Lee-Enfield.
These wristwatches allowed troops to coordinate carefully and relatively precisely with artillery. This meant they could time the beginning and end of artillery barrages to ensure they wouldn’t be downrange when the shells began arriving.
Many of the soldiers that returned home from war had become quite attached to their wristwatches, and in this way it quickly became fashionable, with many companies capitalizing on the trend with their own lines of brand new designs.
The 41mm case size makes this watch an ideal, low-profile daily wearable. The titanium case and scratch-resistant sapphire crystal mean it can handle some rough and tumble when needed.
Soon there were military-inspired watches coming to market designed for the outdoorsman. These typically featured minimalist dial design with very clear, legible faces, no bezel, large hour markings, and large hands – all designed to be quickly readable at a glance regardless of the lighting conditions.
Some famous early field watch designs include the Rolex Explorer, Seiko Alpinist, Hamilton Khaki, A-11 Military Watch, and a number of Longines models. It’s important to note that there was a lot of overlap at this time between military watches and field watches.
The Huckberry x Timex Titanium Field Watch
The watch you see here is the new Huckberry x Timex Titanium Automatic Field Watch. Though it is a new model it wouldn’t have looked a whisker out of place on the wrist of an early-20th century mountaineer or Arctic explorer.
The watch has a bead-blasted titanium case and a scratch-resistant sapphire crystal that has an anti-reflective coating. It’s powered by a Japanese Miyota 8215 movement, this is an automatic mechanical movement that winds the watch based on your regular daily movement, and it has a power reserve of up to 44 hours.
This movement also has 21 jewels, 21,600 vph, and it’s hand-windable along with the automatic winding function. The watch has an hour, minute, and second hand, as well as a date window at the 3 o’clock position.
There is a discreet Huckberry logo on the screwdown crown.
It’s water resistant to 200 meters, it has a Black dial with printed Arabic markers, an exhibition caseback with Huckberry logo, and Super-LumiNova® C3 lume on the markers and hands. Each watch comes with a pair of interchangeable navy blue and olive green nylon straps and it has a case diameter of 41mm.
The watch is now being sold exclusively through Huckberry with an MSRP of $375 USD – that’s not bad for an automatic watch with a titanium case and a sapphire crystal. You can visit the listing here if you’d like to read more or get one for yourself.
Image courtesy of Huckberry
Articles that Ben has written have been covered on CNN, Popular Mechanics, Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, Autoweek Magazine, Wired Magazine, Autoblog, Gear Patrol, Jalopnik, The Verge, and many more.
Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
