TIMEX 25th Hour Watch. Everything Is About To Change.
TIMEX "25th Hour" watch, April 1, 2019. 25 hours on the dial. "What would you do with an extra hour, every day?" #25thHour
Hi, this Alan. Thanks, as always for reading these pages. This is a special watch. I hope you will like it. My contact information is at the far bottom.
This is a TIMEX that released at midnight* on April 1, 2019 US Eastern Time, and was sold out within hours. The official name on the timex.com website is: "25th Hour 40 mm Leather Strap Watch."
All photos of the watch, unless specified are taken by myself, of my own watch. All graphic design images and movies are by TIMEX.
Although the watch released on April Fool's day, it is a real retail watch. Unlike most April Fool's jokes, where a company announces a product or technology that doesn't exist beyond their drawing rooms, here there is a real durable-goods product ($79, model number TW2T81300JR).
This, the fact that the announcement was about a real thing, has allowed TIMEX to maintain a kind of cheeky "willful unawareness" - or probably more accurately, "plausible deniability," - of this being in part tied to an April Fool's joke, in a kind of "whatever do you mean?" sort of way. They are played it well, with humor, while at the same time asking an interesting question: "What would you do with an extra hour?"
On this page I will show pics and give descriptions of the watch itself, but will also delve into and try to understand the "viral marketing" behind the launch, which may be as interesting as the watch. I may even offer some of own armchair philosophy about the concept of having an extra hour of time per day, every day.
As often on these pages, the order of presentation may seem (probably because it is) sometimes haphazard, but I'll do my best, and to be as complete as possible, if sometimes haphazard. Thank you for your understanding.
TWENTY5TH HOUR TIMEX 40 mm gunmetal grey bespoke 25 hour dial with a 12 hour movement APRIL FOOL'S but not really this is real, WHAT WOULD YOU DO WITH AN EXTRA HOUR?
Thank you for reading.
I hope you will like it.
Alan
Contact information:
Website: Alan's Vintage Watches
The viral marketing: the first inkling I had that something was going on was from an Instagram post four days before April 1, by the main TIMEX account. The post announced, "Coming soon. The next generation of timekeeping. We've made the impossible, possible. Stay tuned for our big announcement."
People wondered, was it a new automatic movement, an atomic watch, something called MEMS, or some other technological improvements on a basic watch. At least one person replied to that initial post, "I'm pretty sure this is gonna be part of an April Fools joke."
I laughed at this a little, but didn't for a minute believe it would/could be in any way related to April Fools. TIMEX then posted 3-4 similar "teaser" posts on IG, about this coming big announcement, without revealing anything.
Then, after it turned April 1 in Japan, while it was still March 31 for most of the rest of the world, the Instagram for the TIMEX Tokyo Store posted this TIMEX video, which revealed that the big announcement was existence of a "25 hour watch!" This happened sometime in the evening Eastern/Central time in the US, on March 31. I saw their video/post, thought it was wild, took a screen shot of the watch, and posted my own "regram" of a sort, but with only a still photo, not the video.
But what was this? At first, I'll admit, I believed that part of "joke" meant that this was a watch with an actual working 25 hour movement, that the wearer would have to set forward once a day, as it would fall behind an hour a day, from non-fictional time. As much as a hassle that would be, I truly thought that that was what it might be. I wasn't the only one. But it later became clear, the movement was a standard 12-hour type (as you can see at the edge of the dial is a normal 12-hour chapter - which I totally failed to see at first).
Well, I thought, I'd like to get one of these crazy things, But how? Well, in their 3-4 IG posts leading up to the announcement, they had listed a a page (https://www.timex.com/comingsoon/) where you could find out more, when the time came. By this point, late evening March 31, it seemed fairly certain that this watch would go on sale midnight March 31 / April 1, through timex.com. So I kept checking (refreshing) the comingsoon page at that TIMEX URL about ten minutes before midnight Eastern Time (TIMEX HQ is in Connecticut) which was just before 11 pm where I am (Central Time).
But even before midnight, when the comingsoon page was refreshed, it redirected to another URL ending in 25thHour, which allowed you to buy the watch. I quickly navigated the sales flow pages, and ordered myself a watch. I was pleased to see, in the below confirmation email from TIMEX, that It was timestamped 11:58 pm Eastern Time on March 31. (10:58 on my local computer as I'm Central.) So, I can say that when I purchased the watch, it was not quite April 1, and therefore I can claim that I wasn't April Fooled by anybody!
The watch sold out quickly. I'm not sure how long it took to sell out, and I'm not sure how many pieces were made (does anyone?) I do know that it was only available at the US-serving timex.com (which ships only to US,) not at any of the numerous other worldwide TIMEX e-commerce platforms. I do know that some people abroad tried to get the watch, even trying to use various tricks to get around the US-only constraints, but apparently to no avail.
Well, maybe a bit more about the viral marketing and promo for this later, but lets talk about the watch itself. Setting aside the special dial for the moment, it's a $79 TIMEX with a quartz movement, 40 mm case diameter, 20 mm lug distance, in a matte finish "gunmetal grey" case. It has a black leather strap, mineral glass crystal, is water resistant 30 meters, and has the Indiglo night-light feature. The case material, underneath the gunmetal coating, is described as "low lead brass."
The dial, the dial, the DIAL! The most obvious feature is, of course, the 25 hour dial, with 25 positioned where 12 usually lives. The 25 is highlighted by an orange sector between 2400 and 0100 hours. The orange sector makes an arc of 28.8 degrees.
The font for the numerals is relatively plain, with small flourishes at the top of the 1. Notice 25 is slightly larger than the other numerals. Same orange color for the seconds hand, and portions of the minute/hour hands, which have a grey color similar to the case.
TIMEX, and TWENTY5TH HOUR on dial. Outer chapter 1-12.
Image: TIMEX
The INDIGLO is pretty good. I think TIMEX has done something to improve INDIGLO over the last 8 years or so. I like the way the orange sector remains clearly orange.
On the back, there is TIMEX TWENTY5TH HOUR. along with the question, WHAT WOULD YOU DO WITH EXTRA TIME? That's a pretty nice touch, I'm really glad they included a bespoke caseback. It also tells you that this watch is derived from the STANDARD COLLECTION of watches, more on this below. SST BACK for steel (we already know the case is "low lead brass.") You can't see it in this light, but the model number is etched very finely, as is the number 62. This 62 corresponds to production date February 2019.
Image: TIMEX
Here is another watch in the STANDARD COLLECTION. Same numerals font (note the flourish at the top of the 1,) same shape of lugs, case must be identical. Same onion crown. Hands are also the same, just different colored.
Black leather strap, signed TIMEX on one end, and S.B Foot Tanning Co., (1872) Red Wing, Minnesota, USA, on the other end. S.B Foot does not make straps, they supply finished leathers. Strap actually made in China using S.B Foot leather, where they then embossed the S. B Foot details on the back.
*** THEY ARE ALSO TIMEMAKERS ***
Quick-release springbars. You just move the tiny ball inward, and it releases the pin, to take out the strap easiy.
There is also a smaller size version, 34 mm, with rose gold-tone case, and a sliver dial (not INDIGLO) The 28.8 degree colored sector is a kind of pinkish.
(Just more INDIGLO love.)
Above photo by TIMEX. Box is nice. Cuboid, with the grey/orange color of the dial replicated for the box. TIMEX TWENTY5TH HOUR on front, and TIMEX across all four sides of the inside orange box part.
Inside the top box is a sort of manifesto about the 25th Hour.
I always remove these stickers (and the sometimes tenacious adhesive) from the back. Here, it tell us the movement is from Philippines, and strap made in China.
Above and below two pics are not of my watch, pic from TIMEX. I had a hard time showing what looks like a stylized TX on the crown, presumably to mean TIMEX.
Kind of nice how the promo materials for the 25h Hour watch features the same two colors as the colored sector on the 40 mm and the 34 mm watch.
So please do have a look & listen to this ridiculously great short video from TIMEX. It features several senior people at TIMEX talking about the development and significance of the 25th Hour watch, called PROJECT 25, by the CEO, Tobias Reiss-Schmidt. They tell of how TIMEX discovered the 25th hour, culminating in project that began as far back as 1854.
STARING US IN THE FACE. FOR CENTURIES. Here, they tell us about the origin-story of how TIMEX began searching for the 25th Hour. It started when an engineer named Archibald Bannatyne suddenly noticed something unusual, IN THE BELLY-BUTTON of Da Vinci's (or even Da Vinici's) Vitruvian Man ("Le proporzioni del corpo umano secondo Vitruvio"). Can the story be any greater than this?
Can you see the compass point IN THE BELLY BUTTON of Vitruvian Man? I cannot, and it's no wonder that the secret to the 25th Hour lay hidden for centuries, until discovered by the observant and no doubt brilliant Archibald Bannatyne.
I found very little information about Archibald Bannatyne, but I did find his obituary.
What is this place, you ask? Well, it is the portal from where the 25th Hour watch sprung, the TIMEX warehouse in a place called Plainfield, Indiana, from where the TWENTY5TH HOUR WATCH was sent out to the world. Or at least to the United States.
It's a great philosophical question, isn't it. What would you do with your 25th hour? They don't stipulate that it has to be the same thing, every day. So hopefully it can vary, as our lives naturally vary from day to day, week to week, month to month, and through the years and decades. Other question that remain unasked, would you tell anyone about your extra daily hour. And could you sell it, from time to time? If so, at what price? Or does time even have a price. There are more questions, and I encourage you to ponder this, with an open mind, and ask your own questions.
(Above pic, TIMEX)
Double click here to add text.
So, on April 1, 2019, TIMEX created time. That one hour.
But this wasn't the first time they altered physical reality. Twice in 2016, and then two more times in 2018, they reversed time. Yes, they reversed time. Take a look at the above dial. They did get help from Engineered Garments. More on this earlier discovery. Who knows that else TIMEX has in its toolkit, and what more we may have to look forward to.
