Timex Puts an Affordable Spin on a Unique Vintage Watch Style

By now, we should all be pretty familiar with Timex’s vintage watch reissue strategy. The brand remakes its mid-century designs that generally come from one of two camps: dress watches that could’ve been worn by Don Draper, and sporty dive-style watches that were budget alternatives to the icons of the day.

But for the brand’s latest Q Timex vintage reissue, the brand has come out of left field by resurrecting a bizarre and largely forgotten watch style from decades past.

Say hello to the Q Timex 1975 Enigma Reissue, AKA, the rebirth of the “mystery dial.”

Timex

Timex Q Timex 1975 Enigma Reissue

• $199 at Timex

What is a mystery dial watch?

Put in the most simple terms, a mystery dial on a watch is a dial that disguises the workings of the hands in such a way that the operation of the watch appears almost magical.

The concept was first seen in 19th century clocks but became a somewhat popular for wristwatches in the mid-twentieth century. Most often, these types of watches — popular examples of which were produced by brands like Longines and Jaeger-LeCoultre, among others — used one or more plastic discs in place of traditional hands.

Zodiac

These discs would have a marker printed or applied on them, often appearing simply as a dot, that would appear to “float” around the dial. As the disc rotated, the marker would rotate with it, creating an intriguing effect with an air of mystery. This was especially the case if the floating element functioned as the seconds hand, as its rotations around the dial were much faster and more perceptible (and therefore, mysterious).

Timex’s take on the mystery dial

Timex’s reborn mystery dial watch is a simplified version, but the effect is similar … if a little less mesmerizing.

Rather than utilizing rotating transparent discs on the dial, the Q Timex 1975 Enigma Reissue instead uses traditional hands that are color-matched to the dial. The tips of the hands, however, are in high-vis contrasting colors — white for the hour and minute hands and red for the seconds hand — to give the illusion that they’re floating in space.

Timex

Timex heightens the mystery a bit more thanks to a navy dot painted on the underside of the crystal. This dot, like the hands, matches the color of the dial perfectly and is there to conceal the hand stack so you can’t see where the hands are mounted. This adheres to the mystery dial’s tradition of hiding the workings of the watch.

Few modern examples of mystery dial watches exist. Zodiac has resurrected its 1960s Astrographic a few times in recent years, but doesn’t currently offer the model. Perhaps most notably, British boutique brand Mr. Jones makes a wide array of modern mystery dial watches — though they’re not often described as such — that use extensive, often whimsical artwork to depict floating characters and objects in place of hands.

There is certainly room in the market for a traditional mystery dial watch from Timex, and while the new Enigma looks fun, I don’t think it’s as good as it could have been.

Is there such a thing as too faithful?

Timex

The new Q reissue is very faithful to its 1970s forebearer, but to me, that’s the problem. If Timex had chosen to go with a clear disc in place of at least one color-matched hand, I think the watch would be a lot more visually interesting. I believe the use of an mechanical movement would also be preferable here, if for no other reason than the spectacle of a sweeping floating seconds indicator is much more compelling than one that ticks once per second.

Somewhat frustratingly, Timex already has the technology to make both of those changes with what I assume would be minimal effort. Its Snoopy Tennis Marlin is a hand-cranker with a floating tennis ball seconds hand. It’s cool as hell and costs just 30 bucks more than the Enigma Reissue at $229.

Of course, if Timex were to make those changes to the Q Timex 1975 Enigma Reissue, we would have a different watch. It wouldn’t be entirely faithful to the original, it wouldn’t be part of the Q line (since Q Timex watches are quartz-powered by definition) and it would cost a little more than its current $199 SRP.

Timex

But I think that’s all fine. I am less interested in seeing Timex perfectly recreate every watch it made 50 years ago. It’s much more interesting when the brand simply makes really cool, fun, great-looking watches that are super-affordable. If they’re faithful vintage reissues, great, but I don’t think the brand needs to always be such a captive of its own history.

Now, all that’s not to say the Q Timex 1975 Enigma Reissue is a bad watch. It’s not, at all. I still think it’s a fun and compelling watch with buckets of retro style and good sizing. And it doesn’t really look like anything else on the market. Finally, for only $199, it’s pretty hard to argue with the watch — or expect perfection.

Timex

Timex Q Timex 1975 Enigma Reissue

Specs

Case Size	37mm
Movement	Quartz day-date
Water Resistance	50m

• $199 at Timex

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