Description
Glashütte Original's Seventies range has long been the Saxon manufacture's wild card — a TV-shaped case, an integrated bracelet and a history of audacious colours that reflect the decade it is named after. The new Seventies Chronograph XV goes the other way entirely: monochrome discipline. A matt black lacquered dial with silver galvanised totalisers — a classic reverse-panda — makes this the most restrained Seventies in years, and deliberately so. It is the 15th limited edition of the Seventies Chronograph Panorama Date, created as a regional exclusive for Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
The XV follows last year's Seventies Chronograph X, the panda-dial edition reserved for the North American market, and is conceived as its mirror image — a neat bit of transatlantic symmetry. It is limited to 100 pieces and priced at EUR 17,100 (Monochrome's spec sheet; Time and Watches lists EUR 17,400), available now exclusively from boutiques and retailers in the three DACH countries.
Design
The case is the familiar Seventies TV shape: 40mm × 40mm in brushed and polished stainless steel, a compact 46.4mm lug-to-lug, 14.1mm thick, with sapphire crystals front and back and 100m of water resistance. Because the calibre 37-02 is an integrated chronograph, crown and pushers sit on the same level — a small detail that keeps the case flanks balanced.
On the matt black lacquer, the silver galvanised counters carry the running seconds with power-reserve indicator and the 30-minute totaliser, while the 12-hour totaliser reads through GO's signature arched window above 6 o'clock, next to the Panorama Date with its two non-overlapping discs. White gold hands and applied hour markers are filled with Super-LumiNova. The integrated stainless steel bracelet closes with a fine-adjustment clasp.
Specifications
- Reference: 1-37-02-21-02-70
- Case: 40mm × 40mm TV-shaped, stainless steel, brushed and polished
- Thickness: 14.1mm
- Lug-to-lug: 46.4mm
- Crystal: sapphire front and back
- Water resistance: 100m
- Dial: matt black lacquered, silver galvanised totalisers (reverse panda); white gold hands and applied markers with Super-LumiNova; Panorama Date in black; 12-hour totaliser in arched window
- Movement: calibre 37-02, in-house, automatic, integrated flyback chronograph with column wheel
- Dimensions: 31.6mm × 8mm, 65 jewels
- Escapement: silicon hairspring
- Frequency: 28,800vph (4Hz)
- Power reserve: 70 hours
- Functions: hours, minutes, small seconds, power-reserve indicator, Panorama Date, flyback chronograph with central seconds, 30-minute counter, 12-hour counter
- Bracelet: integrated stainless steel with fine-adjustment clasp
- Limited edition: 100 pieces, exclusive to Germany, Austria and Switzerland
- Price: EUR 17,100 (EUR 17,400 per some outlets)
- Availability: now, GO boutiques and retailers in the DACH region
What's Exciting
The calibre 37-02 remains one of the most under-credited integrated chronographs in series production: column wheel, flyback, silicon hairspring, 70 hours of reserve, plus a power-reserve display and the big-date Panorama complication — a functional density that the usual suspects from Le Brassus and Geneva do not match at this price. Wrapping it in the most legible, least flamboyant dial the Seventies line has ever worn is arguably the smartest move GO could make: the reverse panda strips away the novelty-colour conversation and forces attention onto the watchmaking.
The regional-exclusive strategy — panda X for America, reverse-panda XV for the German-speaking home market — is also quietly clever marketing, creating two mirror-image collectibles an ocean apart. For collectors in the DACH region, 100 pieces of this specification will not sit in display cases for long.
History
Glashütte Original traces its lineage to the Saxon watchmaking town of Glashütte, whose industry was founded in 1845 by Ferdinand Adolph Lange and rebuilt after German reunification, with GO emerging in 1994 as the direct successor to the GUB combine. The Seventies collection, introduced in 2011, channels the optimistic case shapes of 1970s German design — the era of the TV-screen case — and since going chronograph-only has become the manufacture's sportiest statement. The Chronograph XV is the fifteenth limited edition of the Seventies Chronograph Panorama Date, following colour experiments from plasma purple to gradient dials and, most recently, the US-exclusive panda X that this edition mirrors.
