GMT from Guinand: The time travelers from Rödelheim

A.It’s been there before – this wisdom applies to both fashion and the watch industry. The designers make sure not to indulge in a clumsy copyist existence. Rather, what has been in such cases always serves as a source of inspiration, as it is said. This is especially true if this spring once bubbled in your own home. Which brings us to Matthias Klüh: The owner of the Frankfurt watch brand Guinand leafed through an old catalog of the manufacturer, which was formerly based in Switzerland, and discovered the model for his latest creation GMT in addition to all kinds of pocket watches: a pilot’s watch with the sober name Guinand Ref. Klüh uses a much more flowery language to praise the GMT on his website: They talk about the “resurrection of a legend”.

The GMT is one of a series of aviator chronographs, and it is no coincidence. Under the long-standing leadership of the Frankfurt watch pioneer and flight instructor Helmut Sinn, Guinand primarily brought out pilot’s watches. Klüh, who took over the brand a little more than five years ago, maintains the tradition. This applies to pocket watches, but above all to aviator chronographs.

So-called Tricompax watch

The design of the GMT is reminiscent of sporty watches of this type from the sixties and seventies. It is a so-called Tricompax watch, characterized by three totalizers next to the “3”, the “6” and the “9”. They measure a period of 30 minutes in one case, an hour in the second, and the seconds in the third. The product is also equipped with a large stop second.

According to Klüh, the outwardly special and technically complex thing about the totalizers is that they are bevelled and sunk into the black dial. Since they are silver-plated, they stand out nicely from the dial and also give the watch a sporty retro character.

It is powered by an automatic movement from the Swiss manufacturer Selitta, which is not only very popular with Klüh. The caliber called SW 510 works with 28,800 vibrations per hour, has an Incabloc shock protection and 27 ruby ​​jewels. A flat sapphire crystal should not only prevent the watch from slipping undesirably on the arm, it also allows a view of and into the movement, the rotor of which is decorated with the Guinand logo. The manufacturer states that the power reserve is 48 hours. The owner can leave them there for almost two days without fear of downtime.