Timex just revived this wonderfully complicated 1990 moon phase watch and it has a tiny surprise on its watch face
So much to look at here
Timex has been digging increasingly deep into its archives in recent years, bringing back everything from unusual digital watches to some of the stranger designs of the 1970s and 1980s.
Its latest revival takes us forward to 1990 with a wonderfully elaborate moon phase watch that looks almost impossibly intricate for something powered by a straightforward quartz movement.
The Timex 1990 Moon Phase Reissue recreates a design that the brand says was comparatively sophisticated for its time, squeezing a moon phase display, calendar information, date window and several different scales onto a compact dial.
It also continues what has become a particularly entertaining run of Timex reissues.
We've recently covered the wonderfully odd 1976 Rotary Phone Dial Reissue, which borrowed its hour markers from an old telephone dial, as well as the Q Timex 1975 SSQ Digital Reissue, a throwback to the brand's early digital watches.
There's a lot going on here
The Timex 1990 Moon Phase Reissue features a cream dial with flowing black Arabic numerals, surrounded by gold-tone hands and detailing.
Further towards the edge, you'll find two densely packed calendar tracks displaying the days of the week and dates of the month.
The obvious focal point is the moon phase display just above the centre of the dial, where a deep blue disc decorated with gold stars and a moon tracks the current phase of the lunar cycle.
It's the considerably smaller detail underneath that display that I particularly like, though, because Timex has also brought back its old-school Timex Quartz wave logo, complete with the tiny blue graphic that appeared on watches from the period.
The rest of the watch follows the same theme, with a polished gold-tone stainless-steel case paired with a dark brown crocodile-grain natural leather strap and an 18mm lug width.
Properly compact proportions
Thankfully, Timex hasn't enlarged the original idea to suit modern tastes either.
The case measures just 37mm across and 10mm thick, with a 42.5mm lug-to-lug measurement that should make it considerably more wearable than many contemporary dress watches.
It weighs only 44.89g, uses mineral crystal over the dial and offers 50 metres of water resistance, which Timex says is enough for light swimming, although the leather strap means I'd be inclined to keep this particular watch somewhere dry.
Underneath all that apparent complication is a battery-powered quartz movement, which feels entirely appropriate given the period being recreated and should make living with the watch rather less complicated than its dial suggests.
The Timex 1990 Moon Phase Reissue (TW2Y99000) is available now, priced at £250 in the UK, €289 in Europe and $299 in the US, while Australian retailers list it for around AU$549.95.
