Glashütte Original SeaQ Chronograph (1-37-23-02-81-70) Glashütte Original Watch Review

Hi, this is Tim of the 1916 Company. Welcome and thanks for logging on. If you love this watch, email me, timasso at the1916company.com, for purchase pricing and availability questions concerning this watch. Today, we're discussing a model launched in 2022 from Glashütte Original of Glashütte, Germany. We have the CQ Chronograph. So, the CQ Chronograph is a very simple watch. It offers two things that are broadly popular, a chronograph and a dive watch. Now, it's interesting the Rolex dominates the dive watch segment, that Rolex has never had a diving chronograph, which opens up a field of uncontested competition for brands that want to fuse those two genres. And this is a really great example of it. The timepiece is about the size of a SD43. So, 43 millimeter Sea-Dweller. This is 43 millimeters, 43.2 in steel, in diameter, 17.2 millimeters thick, and then from lug tip to lug tip, we're just talking about the case, 51.6 millimeters, end link to end link, 53.5 millimeters with a 21 millimeter spacing in between the lugs. On my wrist, which is 16 centimeters in circumference, it wears nicely, very comfortably. Although, I will say this, I believe you need a slightly larger wrist than mine to wear this. So, if your wrist is 17 centimeters circumference and up, game on. But taking a quick look, I do believe this is too big for me. In terms of thickness, here's your look. It doesn't feel as thick as it is when it's on the wrist because it has this cupped case back that sort of nestles down. So, I figure it's 17 plus as measured, but really more like 15 millimeters above the wrist for cuff clearance purposes. It's got a very distinctive 60s inspired look because it does, like other members of the Specialist Collection, sort of hark back to late 1960s German dive watches, which is why we don't have a lot of beveling on the edge of the lug. It's why we have these very squared off lug ends, this unusual use of vertical satination profile, a bubble-like sapphire that emulates a vintage plexi. But the timepiece has a full bracelet, a very modern construction. You can see it's conformed to the case by a conforming end link. And then we have a bracelet that's robust and feels solid. There's very little lateral play here. Some of the least I've ever experienced. Taking a look, there's actually quite a bit of adjustability here. You can see many removable links. And then we have a push button micro adjustment mechanism. There's about one centimeter of adjustment in here. You have the ability to move it in and out to fine tune the fit. You can also see the intermediate sized links that allow you to take an intermediate amount of length out of the bracelet if you find that with the primary links are in between sizes. So that's a nice feature. So you press this little button and it activates the micro adjustment. We have twin trigger release here. You can see that the clasp and the swing arm are thick gauge steel. This is all quite redoubtable stuff. Taking a closer look, you can probably see the maker's mark somewhere in here. I believe Brochiali makes these for Glashutte Original. So for one, if you're thinking, I've seen that push button slider before, indeed you have. This is a system used by many brands from a top supplier in the business. The case is water resistant down to 300 meters. And like all ISO 6425 dive watches, each individual piece that meets that standard will have had to have been tested to 125% of the rated depth. So this is 300 meters. So it would have been tested to 375 meters. And this exact one would have been tested to that. We've got a screw down crown. You can see with a combination of polish and media blast, these sort of vintage inspired faceted pump pushers. And then we have a bezel. Let's hear it. It has a very subtle detent, but it's 120 click. So it can be placed very precisely. And it has a nice sharp knurling on the edge with a combination of satin and polish. It's a high grade bezel with a ceramic insert for scratch resistance. And the 120 click allows you to easily line it up with the vintage style broad arrow minute hand. We'll do a loom shot so you can see how this watch is loomed. Notice that the running second is luminescent. So you can tell whether your dive timer is working in the dark. Got a nice vintage style open six font on the numeral at six o'clock. The bezel pearl is quite large and easy to read. And I've always liked the dive bezel because it makes it easier to time things visually, at least to me, than a chronograph. For instance, what if you need to time something that is greater than 30 minutes, but less than 60? That's not as helpful in my opinion as this. I like having them both. The dial is what Glashutte Original calls radiant blue. And indeed it is that sunburst metallic blue. We have sunken registers. If you look very carefully, you can see one of the quirks of this movement is that we have a unusual non-alignment between the two pinions, the Now we also have two flush date discs. On a lot of Geo watches, that double digit date requires a pusher adjuster and a tool, whereas here you have the ability to rapidly and quickly and in incredibly instantaneous and precise fashion, snap two different dates. And I really do love that flush disc arrangement. A lot of companies that haven't gone all the way with this type of date, they'll put the discs in different planes. This is the better way to do it. If you pull the crown out all the way, you do activate hacking or stop seconds. So if you wish to do so, you can stop everything and set the watch to a reference time. You'll note that the timepiece features all applique indices and numerals for a high-grade modern dial, vintage inspired, but very modern in materials, fit and finish, and the dramatic camber that Sapphire designed to evoke a vintage plexi. Interesting feature here. For many years, I believed these to be vertical clutch. And recently it was brought to my attention by one of our viewers that the system's actually an oscillating pinion clutch. And so I was trying to eyeball this and say, well, there's almost no jump or no jump at all when you activate the second sound of the chronograph. So it must be vertical, but in fact, it's an oscillating pinion. It's a type of lateral clutch that has almost no play and can be virtually indistinguishable from a vertical clutch in its precision of operation. It is however, a column wheel system, by the way, oscillating pinions having a big renaissance. Gio, De Bettoon, F.P. Journe, Richard Mille. It's become very in fashion now, the oscillating pinion style clutch, because it's a combination of packaging efficiency and it's smooth engagement. On the case back, you can see this movement, which is large and in-house. This is an impressive movement that if you were to measure it across, it's 31.6 millimeters. So properly sized for a big watch. You can see, we also have this bubble-like Sapphire on the case back. I don't know how well you could see this, but there's a little on-off indicator off to the side for the chronograph. This is a unique quality of the Gio Caliber 37, whose purpose I've never fully understood, but it's a feature and more is better because this is luxury and we are talking about things no one needs. The column wheel, visible off to the left, is very crisp. We have a four hertz beat rate, an anti-magnetic silicon hairspring, a five position chronometer style adjustment, polished steel swan's neck fine adjustment mechanism, though most of the adjustments are used effectively by means of variable inertia screws on the balance. So functionally, this is a free sprung balance. We have a 70 hour automatic winding power reserve, six position adjusted. I think I said five before, this is one better than that. Remember chronometer, ISO 3159 would be a five position adjustment, then timing for two weeks in five positions. Six positions takes away one of those sort of, I guess you could call it weasel opportunities, where a bad watchmaker or a brand that knows it's got a problem can actually hide all of the inaccurate running in one untested position. It's a lot tougher to flush all of that inaccuracy out of six tested positions. So crown left, crown right, dial up, dial down, and then crown up, crown down. Those are the six positions. The movement's nicely done. And as you can see, there are some elements like Lasuta stripes on the edges of the bridges. You could see there's snailing. We also have polished and blued screws. We have both, which is always nice to have. This reduction wheel is part of the winding system, features a sort of spiral snailing, which is absolutely gorgeous. It's a type of solarization really. 47 pivot joules, a fairly complicated movement, but one that gives a lot of value. And you can see there's a combination of satination, polishing, stripes, snailing, and media blast on the movement, which is well executed. Gio, a complete manufacturer. They make their own dials. They make their own movements. They make their own tools. They even run schools to teach watchmakers and tool makers. So this is a company that has a lot of heritage existing sort of on the periphery of the Swatch group. That's fine by me. Hopefully Swatch will never know they own this company and won't screw them up as a result. Gio is a hidden gem and super underrated. Reach out to team also at the1916company.com for purchase and pricing details.