Sinn makes a lot of watches. The German watchmaker has as many SKU’s as your local supermarket’s cereal aisle. Style-wise, it’s bezel-mania über alles. Or if you prefer, tool watch heaven. Technology is the main differentiator – tegimented steel here, Ar-Dehumidifying there. I’ve selected three watches that represent Sinn’s dress, pilot and dive offerings. I’m sure you’ll find the selection Sinntilating . . .
556 A Red Special Edition $1,180
Act fast if you want to be caught red-handed with a red-handed 556 A – they sell out in an augenblick. And no wonder. Even with its Rolex Explorer-style jumbo 12, 3, 6, 9 indices, Sinn’s entry-level pilot’s watch needs that red second hand to lift it from its otherwise unrelenting blackness, complete with its blacked-out heart of darkness.
The 38mm automatic 556A Red Special Edition embodies the rugged reliability for which Sinn is rightly known, including 200m water resistance (thank you dual-seal crown lock). The transparent caseback showcases a “top grade” ETA movement (COSC-quality without COSC certification). If you want a brutally elegant dress watch, a timepiece that can take der licking and keep on ticken, buy the RSA and Sinn no more. Then again . . .
857 UTC TESTAF Lufthansa Cargo Limited Edition – $2,390
A watch for cargo pilots? How tool watch is that? Don’t get to thinking that the inner dial’s miniature Boeing 777F is a Bell & Ross style needless affectation – it makes the 857 UTC one of the most legible dive-compatible GMT’s money can buy.
I could live without the little plane at the bottom, but why live without tegimented steel and Dry Hold technology, enabling “freedom from fogging” and “overall functional reliability at temperatures between 45 C and + 80 C”? At 43mm, the LC isn’t the shy and retiring type, but it is a Sinngular sensation.
Sinn UX EZM 2 B Hydro Special Edition – $2,460
The hyper-accurate Longines Conquest V.H.P. eliminated my quartz snobbery. Besides, if you want a REALLY tough wristwatch, you do not want all those mechanical bits on your wrist. You want battery power. The UX EZM 2B Hydro’s unique selling point: Sinn fills the quartz movement with oil. It’s dive rated to . . . wait for it . . . 5000m.
No wonder, then, the Hydro SE’s case is made from submarine steel. The bezel’s tegimented and the watch is both shockproof and anti-magnetic. Like the Grand Seiko GMT, the Sinn’s ETA movement is thermo-compensated for [unspecified but stellar] accuracy. At only 13mm thick, the HSE doubles as a dress watch. It’s a Sinnphony of Sinn’s technological bad assery.
At one point, I had my grail a Speedmaster, like many others. When I discovered the Sinn 140 the script flipped. Just…just not black. I don’t get black watches
OKAY, brief (lies) aside: I find myself smack in the middle of the dress/sport continuum, because I like Useful and Functional but I also like Shiny and Patterns. Also, as I’ve mentioned I’m not old and I grew up in a time where ~everything~ was plastic made in China. I like metal. Tells me it’s something real. So I had my share of cheap Walmart watches, and black is something I don’t associate with mil-spec or anything else like that, I universally conflate black with cheap crap.
Moving on, you are completely right, the red seconds hand makes the entire watch for the 556. Good date window, I like that unobtrusive position. I don’t need a GMT but dang if that 857 hits a nice spot. I like planes. I like orange. It’s nicely executed.
Sinn really does have a very strong design language on top of obvious quality. They’re not all winners – that third is just not a distinctive dive watch beyond specs, I don’t think – but I certainly do hope to own one so I can legitimately consider myself a fan.
True: the Sinn Hydro Se isn’t a looker. But c’mon. Seven year battery in a dive watch good to 5000 feet and (I’m thinking) plus or minus 10 seconds per year accuracy? Shock proof? Anti-magnetic? Didn’t you watch The Walking Dead? There’s a need for this sort of thing!
Oh I get the specs! It’s definitely impressive.
It’s just…another…dive…watch…in black…uniform bezel…basic straight case and lugs… At least they aren’t damn dots for the dial markers, it’s just surrounded by so many other similar designs and doesn’t stand out.
Now! If you dive or need that kind of nuclear wasteland watch, fantastic. But I’m landlocked and I deal with kids not radroaches, and like I said I’m in the middle of the spectrum where I like tool watches but I honestly care more about what I’m looking at on the wrist.
Ahhhh, LOVE Sinn…I cherish my 358sa beyond how one should treat a tool watch. But, ironically, I find myself reaching for my EZM 3 twice as often when choosing the day’s watch.
I could probably just keep collecting Sinn and be happy…but there’s so many other choices!
And follow up to the Lum-Tec article, out my deposit down on the B45 GMT so I can have a quartz travel beater. A watch thatceminds me in many ways of the Sinn 856 UTC….
‘vagen
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