Coventry Obsidian Time

Where Ancient Mineral Meets Modern Material

The Coventry Obsidian Time was the most internally debated piece in the collection's development. For two years, Jack Bodenstein resisted building a contemporary-material watch, concerned that it would represent an aesthetic departure that would weaken the collection's coherence. What changed his view was a visit to a geological collection in which he spent considerable time examining obsidian, the volcanic glass, under magnification. Its depth, its interior darkness, and the way mineral inclusions caught light in it at specific angles struck him as sharing more with fine watchmaking's visual vocabulary than with any material he had yet used.

The dial of the Obsidian Time is treated with a preparation compound incorporating natural obsidian powder at a micron scale. The resulting surface has a quality that standard black dials, however well finished, do not replicate: a depth that recedes slightly under examination, and points of mineral light that appear only when the angle of incidence is precise. It reads geological rather than manufactured, which was the intended effect.

The DLC titanium case is the lightest in the collection, approximately one-third the weight of the gold models. On the wrist, the Obsidian Time has a different physical character, present through its size and the cool touch of the DLC surface rather than through gravitational weight. The luminous hands, treated with a blue-toned Super-LumiNova, glow with a quality that complements the mineral character of the dial at night. For collectors drawn to darkness in the collection, the Black Diamond Reserve and Midnight Royale represent related explorations of the same tonal territory.