The journey of the Supersede GMT is coming to a close. The final shipments of watches have gone out and it's now officially sold out.
A Look Back
The Supersede GMT was an incredible community project that enabled us to achieve a high-performing and beautifully refined timepiece at an incredible value.
The Supersede GMT was the first watch to house our K2 micro-rotor movement and with a movement of just 3.6mm it delivered the functions of GMT, Day/Night Indicator, Power Reserve Indicator and Big Date. Functions aside the K2 micro-rotor is the most efficient Swiss Made micro-rotor on offer today thanks to its on-wrist rewinding capabilities and silicone escapement that help enable K2 to achieve a greater than 72-hour power reserve.
The Journey
The Supersede GMT journey was nothing short of Epic, from announcing the watch with its first animations in autumn 2021 followed by an entire year of community-involved product development.
There were many battles in development that we shared with you. The ups, downs and moments of frustration were all shared, but together as a community, we persevered.
A memorable live stream with Supersede designer Thomas Funder. The quality of the streams also improved in time.
The Unknowns
There were high hopes for the project out of the gate with some audacious unknowns. Such audacities were reaching 200 meters of water resistance, optimizing for a precious metal rotor and the development of an entirely new micro-adjustment clasp, all of which our team of engineers, watchmakers and designers pulled off.
The Horage proprietary micro-adjustment clasp.
The platinum rotor upgrade. Read the forum post by clicking the image.
Sharing many details on our use of silicon and escapements.
Looking back it was a little crazy, maybe more than a little, but that's what differentiates us from the crowd. Many make watches, but few, very few create, develop and share the movement and watch development from the ground up. Horage is likely an outlier in that we transparently communicate movement development and the sharing of details of watch production that would be regarded as highly secretive by others.
Case Refinement
Personally, I feel such projects are the glue that binds us to our values and commitments to the watch community. We learn so much and through your patience and faith in us, we can better our design, quality and service.
There were of course as with any living product challenges that were not calculated for such as the refinement that was needed for the case profile.
Details of the updated case construction shared via live stream.
The goal for Supersede was to be an ultra-refined watch finished to the highest standards and the original case profile was not up to that standard so it required a modification that in the end proved to be the right call. We shared the updates and the community could see the changes in real time albeit not overnight as real-time in watchmaking is far from what one would hope for or expect.
Magic Orange
Luminous of all things also reared its ugly head as we looked for the perfect luminous finish for the second's hand and day/night indicator. We tried multiple formulas that proved to underwhelm and at one point we looked at non-luminous options such as the very limited red-hand option. However, in the end, and with a stroke of luck the right formula was found and the "magic orange" luminous colour as we called it was born.
Click the image to view the back story on Magic Orange.
The Orange Rubber Strap
Matching a rubber strap to that exceptional orange highlight on the hands was an ongoing request from the community. Our designers looked for just the right blend throughout the project and eventually, we were able to offer a beautiful orange FKM rubber strap to complete the Supersede look.
Will the Supersede GMT be available again?
The first chapter of Supersede has now closed with the completed sell-through of the Supersede GMT. In future times we will likely see a return of the Supersede GMT, but for now, we have new things planned for its predecessor.
It would be wonderful to hear what your favourite Supersede GMT development moments were. As well feel free to share your Supersede wrist shots below.
Until next time...
Landon Stirling
this is a surprise to read. I was expecting the Supersede to be a regular production watch like the Autark and run for many years. Why did you decide to only produce a limited run? And roughly how many did you produce? 2000 - 3000? Less then the daily production of Rolex 😀. A rare watch then?