Hands-On: The Nivada Grenchen Antarctic GMT
Nivada Grenchen, the king of digging through historical archives, has announced a new Antarctic GMT. Guillaume Laidet, the brainchild behind the modern revivals of Nivada Grenchen and Vulcain, tells me that this time, the inspiration comes from a 1960s Antarctic GMT our site had offered many years ago, and says that it’s the only place he’s seen one. Two standouts on the watch were the Ervin Piquerez S.A. (EPSA) compressor case and a funky red-and-black straight GMT hand.
The original Antarctic GMT ref. 87013, this late 1960’s example sold on Hodinkee a few years back.
Laidet tells me that this revival was completely designed based on the photos and dimensions in the old Hodinkee vintage listing, as he was never actually able to buy the one to handle in person. But when you are the head of a watch brand, you can make your dreams come true and produce one out of thin air.
The two versions being released November 14th are a limited edition “Tropical” dial variant, with a run of 99 pieces, and the standard production black dial resembling the original reference. Both are priced at $1,600 on the leather strap, but there are other bracelet and strap options as well.
The case is largely faithful to the dimensions listed in that original shop listing – 36mm in diameter, with a 40mm lug-to-lug. Refreshingly, the modern variant is actually thinner than the original model. The original came in at 12.75mm in height, but the modern version is 11.6mm thick. It’s a welcome change for once, in a sea of vintage reissues that never manage to get thickness and diameter right. This is most likely because it’s not a true “compressor” case that uses a sealing system for the case that tightens under higher pressure underwater – though the two signed screw-down crowns may lead one to assume so.
From a design perspective, it’s a slightly more geometric take on a cushion case. The top and sides are fully polished, with the bottom of the case being brushed. It’s fantastically sized, especially for the vintage compressor fans out there. The lug-to-lug is incredibly short, but the fully polished broad shoulders of the case give it a fantastic presence even at 36mm. This thing is certainly a strap monster – a Tropic strap or suede would be perfect.
The Antarctic GMT is water resistant to 5ATM, and sports two screw-down crowns. The first crown, located at two o’clock, rotates the internal 24-hour bezel. Like the original, the internal bezel is black for the night-time hours and yellow for the daytime hours, all set in a plexiglass insert that accentuates the vintage aesthetic. When rotating the internal bezel, I noticed that the crown provided light tactile feedback rotating clockwise, but didn’t have as much of a feeling going counter-clockwise – stronger tactility both ways would have been better, since I found it sometimes difficult to align the bezel perfectly.
The second crown, located at four o’clock, is the traditional time-setting crown. Inside the watch is a Soprod C125 GMT movement with 42 hours of power reserve, which means that the first position of the crown is to independently adjust the GMT hand (clockwise) and the date (counter-clockwise). Nivada is no stranger to using Soprod movements, and this GMT variation makes sense.
Looking at the rest of the dial, the Nivada Grenchen logo sits at 12 o’clock and the stylized “Antarctic GMT” logo sits below the handset at six o’clock. Though hard to notice from the naked eye, if you look closely, the “Antarctic GMT” is printed on a slightly raised surface, giving a three-dimensional look rather than just a standard printed logo. Applied metal indices serve as the hour markers, with SuperLuminova inserts in all of them. They look nice in person, and the facets on the square indices catch light very well and make the dial quite legible. The dial is a matte black, with a date window at three o’clock and a printed minute track between the applied indices.
The handset is also quite faithful to the original, down to the diamond shape of the seconds hand at the center post. While I had assumed the black sections of the hour and minute hands, interrupting the center stripes of white lume, were painted, a quick UV test showed me that they are in fact lumed, though fading much faster than the white SuperLuminova. Of course, the star of the show here is that black and red checkerboard GMT hand.
The striking red and black GMT hand.
One of the big stylistic choices to continue on the modern version is the use of a plexiglass crystal. Now, from a historical perspective, this makes sense. And visually speaking, the dial looks great in bright light with the prominent box crystal providing much less distortion than sapphire would. However, I much prefer a sapphire crystal on a modern reissue, since it’s a material advantage that equates to a much more reassuring wearing experience. I completely understand the brand’s decision to go plexi, but in the few days that I’ve had the watch, I’ve already accumulated two pretty visible scratches and have developed a fear of door handles.
Flip the watch around, and you see a prominent gold-tone engraving of the Nivada Antarctic logo with a penguin. It’s a slight departure from the much more subtle iteration on the original, but this is one of those stylistic choices that I really quite enjoy. It’s on the caseback, it’s fun, I can’t complain.
The signed Nivada buckle.
The watch comes on a perforated rally-style strap.
At $1,600, this is most certainly a fun addition to Nivada Grenchen’s ever-growing arsenal of vintage revival pieces. With this being the first introduction of a compressor-style case to the brand revival’s lineup, I actually think that there is so much more to play with on the platform. It wears extremely well, and offers a very compelling (and stylistically different) to the surprisingly small group of smaller-cased GMTs out there – I think of other brands offering that right now at this price point being Lorca and Farer, though Nivada’s entry is a lot bolder in its retro-vintage styling.
For more information on Nivada Grenchen and this watch, click here.
Hodinkee