Sinn and Revolution Team Up for a Blacked-Out Take on a Classic Chronograph

Welcome to Dialed In, Esquire's column bringing you horological happenings and the most essential news from the watch world.

Sinn is a name well known in the nerdier parts of performance watch circles. Founded in 1961 by Helmut Sinn, a veteran pilot and flight instructor in Frankfurt-am-Main, it specialized in its early years in cockpit clocks and chronograph wristwatches with a rugged built-for-purpose demeanor, including the iconic Bundeswehr 155 Bw Chronograph. Selling direct to consumers before that was even a thing, Sinn bypassed traditional retailers and found a healthy market in both military and civilian circles.

Tracing the story of the Sinn Bundeswehr watch is both tortuous and fascinating. It was based on a two-register chronograph watch issued to the Italian Air Force around 1964. Known as the A. Cairelli for the name of the Roman store that supplied the watch to Italian pilots, it was made by three companies: Leonidas, Universal Geneve, and Zenith. In 1967, Heuer (which had bought Leonidas in 1964) started making the near identical Bundeswehr 1550 SG for German armed forces, with Heuer on the dial. Sinn only became part of the Bundeswehr story in the 1980s, when an enterprising Helmut Sinn began buying up decommissioned military Heuer Bundeswehrs, refurbishing them, and selling them (as the 155 Bw) to the public with a Sinn logo added to the dial. The Bundeswehr 155w design became the polestar of Sinn chronographs, spawning multiple variations.

Last week Sinn released a special-edition collaboration with Revolution Watch, one of the leading specialist magazines for watch collectors. The Sinn 155 S Bright Star Tegiment (155 S Revolution II) is the second collaboration with Revolution. It’s also only the third time the 155 Bw itself has been recreated in any form. In 2019, Sinn and Revolution introduced the Dark Star, a watch based on the classic 1550 Bundeswehr Chronograph. So named for the blacked-out star (Revolution’s logo) on its black dial, it had a subtly aged look with creamy Luminova numerals and a slightly faded bezel.

The new Bright Star watch, available in a limited edition of 300, is a different kettle of fish. Without any of the vintage vibes of its predecessor, the Bright Star (the star logo lights up green at night) has all the hallmarks of the original 155 Bw but comes with the kind of niche technical advances with which Sinn has long been associated. The 43mm PVD-coated steel case features a little-known treatment called Tegiment by Sinn. Historically, the difference in hardness between PVD coatings and the underlying steel has led to cracking of the surface coating under stress or after knocks. Tegiment (it’s a proprietary Sinn thing) hardens the surface layers of the steel case before the PVD is applied, making the relative difference in hardness negligible and reducing the propensity for chipping or cracking.

While original Bundeswehr Heuers from the '60s or '70s in good condition command upwards of 6,000 dollars these days, the modern Sinn version in this special edition is a relatively affordable $3,600—with some rather nifty technological advances included.

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