The New Delma Shell Star Big Date

Delma’s Shell Star dive watch combines the groove of its Seventies ancestor with fashionable specs. A rugged 500m water resistant diving companion, the most recent Shell Star fashions characteristic a brand new complication with a Large Date window at midday and on-trend gradient dials. 

Delma’s first dive watch surfaced in 1969 with the Periscope, adopted by the extra skilled Shell Star and Quattro in 1975, each of which endure to at the present time within the model’s assortment. The Shell Star was relaunched and upgraded in 2016 in a 44mm metal case with a helium valve and 500m water-resistance, and has lately appeared in smaller and lighter 41mm titanium instances.

The most recent duo of Shell Star adopts the bigger 44mm diameter, coupled with a thickness of 13.8mm and a lug-to-lug of 51mm. Product of stainless-steel, the barrel-shaped case is embellished with a finely brushed end and a brightly polished bevel to focus on its profile. The screw-down crown flanked by guards ensures its 500m water-resistance capability and is accompanied by a helium escape valve at 9 o’clock for saturation diving.

Uncommon for a watch with such a sturdy depth score, the caseback is secured by 4 screws and contains a mineral crystal porthole to view the motion. The 120-click unidirectional rotating bezel to time immersions has large notches for higher grip and a black anodised aluminium insert with a luminescent pip within the inverted triangle.

Whereas many dive watches characteristic date home windows, and a few even seem with day-date home windows, the presence of a giant date complication is fairly uncommon. Featured in a double aperture at midday, the Shell Star’s massive date is the massive novelty. An orange (signature color of Delma) body outlines the 2 home windows, and to attract consideration to the massive date, the date wheels are white with black numerals.

One other new characteristic is the gradient impact on the blue and brown dials. In a departure from the matte, grained dials of current editions, the dials of the brand new Shell Star fashions are sunray brushed and have the on-trend gradient impact that has flooded the watch scene. The oblong, orange-framed indices and orange central seconds hand, together with the sword-shaped hour and minute palms, haven’t altered and are handled with Tremendous-LumiNova CN5. Nevertheless, the hyper-precision minutes/seconds monitor has modified format, and its staggered markings look just like the double scales of Moser’s Streamliner Flyback Chronograph.

The mineral glass porthole on the caseback reveals the ETA 2892-A2 computerized motion with a Jaquet 3512 Large Date module. The motion has a 4Hz frequency, a 42-hour energy reserve and a personalized Delma rotor.

The three-link stainless-steel bracelet with brushed outer hyperlinks and a refined center hyperlink has a deployant clasp with pushers. The Shell Star Large Date is a restricted version of 100 items in every colourway and retails for CHF 2,250 or EUR 2,500. Extra info at delmawatches.com.