Introducing the Nomos Neomatik First Edition, including champagne dials & DUW 3001 Calibre (specs & price)

Remember, a few days after Baselworld 2015, we showed a preview of the new Nomos Minimatik, a brand new design from the Glashutte-based manufacture but mainly a completely new movement, the in-house, ultra-slim, self-winding DUW 3001. We’ve been surprised to see such an achievement from a quite young brand (not so young anymore with 25 yeas of existence) and such a price (below €3,000)… What we didn’t know was that this movement is now the starting point of a new collection, the Nomos Neomatik First Edition (based 5 watches from the brand: Tangente, Orion, Ludwig, Metro & Minimatik) that standardize the DUW 3001 and brings champagne dials.

Reminder about the Calibre DUW 3001

The Nomos Calibre DUW 3001 is a flat movement – a very flat one indeed. And it’s an fully in-house movement, with self-winding mechanism. It’s not the first manufacture movement from the brand, as they already have in stock the complicated automatic calibre Epsilon that can be found in the Zurich Weltzeit or the superbly finished DUW 1001 / 2002 of the Nomos Lambda (fully reviewed here). Nomos also announced in 2014 the in-house production of the escapement modules – balance wheel, hairspring and escapement – known as the Nomos Swing System. The explanation is simple: since the Swatch ébauche moratorium (ETA stopping to deliver movements to third parties), independent brands like Nomos have no other choice to first out-source from ETA-clones manufactures (Sellita or Soprod) or to create their own movements. Nomos chose the latter – and that’s very good news.

With the DUW 3001, we’re in front of a fully in-house calibre (Nomos tenth in-house calibre), from the gear train to the escapement module. More used to manual winding calibres, Nomos now comes with a self-winding, that despite this extra-feature, remains extremely slim at 3.2mm, allowing the watches fitted with this movement to have a very decent height – usually bellow 9mm. Remember that 3.2mm is THIN. Compared to other automatic movement, it’s actually one of the slimmest – for instance the slimmest in the world (shared by JLC, Vacheron and AP) measures 2.45mm, a JLC Master Ultra-Thin Moon measures 4.9mm and a classical ETA 2892 (already quite a flat movement) ends-up at 3.6mm. The Nomos DUW 3001 has 42 hours of power reserve (decent for a slim movement), the in-house escapement and a pleasant finish (Glashütte ribbing on the 3/4 plate, perlage on the main plate, tempered blue screws and (machined) polished bevelled angles). Finally, it is adjusted in 6 positions. Not too shabby, right!

The Nomos Neomatik First Edition

With the Neomatik First Edition, Nomos in fact adds its new DUW 3001 movement to (almost) the entire collection of watches available (excluding the Ahoi, the sporty Club, the superior Zurich and the high-end Lambda and Lux) and not only limits anymore this flat calibre to one watch, the Minimatik. Thus, it’s a new collection into the core-collections of Nomos that is introduced, under the name “Neomatik”, proudly printed on the dials and engraved on the caseback. Overall, it’s 10 new watches, in 5 collection that are about to be launched (Minimatik, Orion, Tangente, Ludwig and Metro). 5 of them are coming with the typical Nomos dials, meaning silvery-white colored base-plates with darken indexes.

However, that’s not all, as we also have something unseen before at Nomos, some champagne dials – called “Champagner” – giving us the 5 missing references. This combination of colour is kind of unusual for a brand that is used to create monochromatic watches. They are all fitted on a cream leather strap and feature neon orange accents on the hands and/or indexes.

The Nomos Neomatik First Edition watches will only be produced in 2015 as an inaugural collection, until the brand will present a new collection in 2016, at Baselworld. They are not really limited (not numbered or limited edition) but limited in time. You’ll have to be quite fast to get your hands-on one of these. Prices:

• Nomos Minimatik Neomatik white dial: 2,770 Euros
• Nomos Minimatik Neomatik Champagne dial: 2,850 Euros
• Nomos Tangente Neomatik white dial: 2,580 Euros
• Nomos Tangente Neomatik Champagne dial: 2,660 Euros
• Nomos Metro Neomatik white dial: 2,770 Euros
• Nomos Metro Neomatik champagne dial: 2,850 Euros
• Nomos Orion Neomatik white dial: 2,680 Euros
• Nomos Orion Neomatik champagne dial: 2,760 Euros
• Nomos Ludwig Neomatik white dial: 2,520 Euros
• Nomos Ludwig Neomatik champagne dial: 2,600 Euros

All the details now online on the Nomos Neomatik dedicated website (where you can even buy them online).