Watchuseek team has written extensively about Archimede pilot watches in past Flieger Friday articles. In late 2018, Archimede established a collaboration with Worn & Wound blog in the U.S. W&W has a WindUp shop concept which sells mid-priced watches and accessories from independent watch brands, both online as well as pop-up shop in New York and other cities.
So how did this collaboration come about? Zach Weiss, Creative Director, stated that W&W team had a discussion with Ickler family (based in Pforzheim, Germany) in the fall of 2018 and felt that Archimede brand was a great fit for their WindUp shop. He stated that Archimede offers an excellent German quality for the price with an option to customize the watch as per W&W specifications.
Archimede WindUp pilot watches are offered in various case and dial configurations. The Pilot 42 is available in “A” format with Archimede logo and date, “H” format with no logo or date (sterile), with the latter coming in steel or bronze. The Pilot 39 is available in “H” format with no logo or date (sterile).
Archimede pilot watch cases are crafted in-house, from solid blocks of stainless steel. The three-piece brushed stainless-steel case is either 42mm or 39mm in diameter, and due to its height of about 10mm, it is comfortably worn under the cuffs. The crystal is a flat sapphire crystal with AR coating on the inside.
The dial is typical for modern flieger watches with a matt black color and white triangle at 12’o clock. Indexes, numbers, and all hands are coated with bright C3 (light green) SuperLumiNova for “H” version, and BWG9 (blue) for the “A” version. The minutes track, markers, and numbers aren’t just printed onto the dial – they are all on a raised surface.
The shape of the hands is a homage to classic flieger hands, but unlike original flieger, the hands are fully coated with lume, down to the pivot. WindUp Pilot features high quality in-house manufactured thermally blued-steel hands, which offers a striking contrast against the matt black dial. The crown is also a homage to the classic large diamond-shaped flieger crown and signed with the brand’s logo.
Archimede pilot is powered by the reliable Swiss-made automatic ETA 2824-2 movement which features hacking seconds. The see-through case back has a sapphire crystal and engraving of “Archimede for WindUp Watch Shop”.
The WindUp Edition comes with two straps – a riveted leather classic pilot strap, and an American-made black ADTP strap ($43 if purchased separately). The 42mm and 39mm pilot in stainless steel case is $760, and 42mm pilot in bronze case is $999, all with free shipping in the U.S. Visit WindUp shop for further details.