At first glance, the watch on the right is a conservatively styled dressy watch with a clean, uncluttered face. A closer look and you might wonder what the pushers are for, as it appears to lack complications. Via, say hello to a brand we’ve never heard of before, Sjoo Sandstrom. The brand is from Stockholm Sweden, and the watch pictured is the Chronolink Swedish Night.
The really interesting part is hidden from sight: the Chronolink is actually two watches on one. On the front, there’s an ultra-thin Swiss mechanical handwind movement, and underneath there’s a sophisticated quartz digital.
As you might expect, this combination is very unusual and quite compelling. I quite like the idea of elegance and function. Here’s the listed specs:
- Designed for frequent travelers who change timezones often.
- 40mm stainless steel case with titanium caseback for increased alarm volume.
- Luminous insets on the hands
- Leather strap or stainless steel bracelet both available.
- Mechanical movement: SS G2, 21,600 vph, 17 jewels, ultra-thin handwind.
- Digital portion has local time in 25 cities around the world, and was developed in cooperation with Scandanavian Airline Systems. All dot-matrix display with no glyphs or codes, which should help with using it while jetlagged.
- Alarm, timers and ‘the possibility to store important PIN codes.’ That’s novel.
- Of course, the digital also has day, week, month and year.
- Water resistant to 50m (165ft).
- Available in black, white, silver, blue, yellow, brown or orange. Special orders available in custom colors.
- Domed sapphire crystal with anti-reflective coating.
- Unusually, it’s rated to -20/+70C, up to 5000G and acceleration from 0 to 300km/h in 0.2 seconds. I won’t translate those into English units as these are specifications for the Swedish defense industry and therefore it is quite robust. This one should survive just about anything. More after the break.
I have to admit that this could actually be better combo that my previous favorite, the Omega X-33. A flip-up design is less accessible, but yields more display area and allows the use of a gorgeous mechanical movement. I’m hoping to see one of these in person and have sent them an email about a review model; we can hope!
The only US storefront listed is in New York, but a quick internet search finds them for sale for about, ulp, $6,000. Ouch.
You can see more pictures on their Facebook page (an emerging trend for watchmakers to have).
By Paul Hubbard
