Wei Koh from Revolution magazine came up with an idea that excited the Hanhart Team enough to make a new chronograph. Wei Koh wanted Hanhart to breathe new life into a piece of the history of the Hanhart brand: Hanhart chronograph 417, which was first introduced in the 1950s with the historic Hanhart caliber 42.
The aim was to create a homage featuring the details of the historical model as accurately as possible. Except for the essential element. Wei played with the idea of using a housing material that was previously not available in our collection: Bronze. The guys at Hanhart quickly decided on CuSn8 bronze, which quickly builds a patina and is therefore the perfect material for their new chronograph. The case back of the watch is made of stainless steel and the clasp is coated with bronze PVD.
The goal was to restore the appearance of the historical watch while at the same time incorporating modern watchmaking skills and materials. This is reflected, among other things, in the sapphire crystal and the water resistance. The robust and scratch-resistant sapphire crystal, like the plexiglass, has been strongly arched upwards in the past. As with most of the Hanhart collection, the crystal is only coated on the inside. A soft coating on the outside makes the otherwise very hard sapphire crystal more prone to scratches. The new Hanhart chronograph is rated water-resistant to 10 atm, which was a great challenge for the team with regard to the domed sapphire crystal and required a high material strength.
In order to give the chronograph the character of the original, Hanhart opted for a manual winding movement: the Sellita SW510 M BH b, which also features a bi-compax layout like the old Hanhart caliber 42 does. by using the SW510 they were also able to reduce the height of the case to 13.3 mm including crystal, case height without crystal is 11.55 mm. The case diameter is 42 mm and the lug width is 21 mm, although I really wonder why Hanhart did not make the lug width an even 20mm or 22mm lug width. The lug-to-lug measures a reasonable 49.5mm.
The fluted bezel was modeled on the original and contains the classic red marker.
The chronograph has a small second at 9, a 30-minute counter at 3 and a central stop second.
The crown features the Hanhart “h” (the historical logo). The Revolution logo and the Hanhart logo as well as “Made in Germany” are engraved on the case back, while nice for the brands, totally unnecessary for the wearer.
The Bund strap is made of calfskin and the underside is Alcantara.
The watch comes with the known Hanhart travel leather pouch and can only be ordered via the Revolution or Rake Magazine websites.
Limited to 150 pieces and the retail price is €1660