Kurono Tokyo Unveil Special Projects Réserve de Marche SENSU NOS

If you’re unfamiliar with Kurono Tokyo, you’re seriously missing out on some world class watchmaking. It’s the project of Hajime Asaoka, one of the most renowned Japanese watchmakers working today, known for his extremely exclusive and expensive watches. However, Kurono is an outlet for a different side of his creativity, focussed on more accessible timepieces available in larger numbers, designed to get his designs into more people’s hands so that collectors both large and small can enjoy his watches. Kurono’s latest release is the new Special Projects Réserve de Marche SENSU NOS.

I know I just mentioned how Kurono watches are designed to be more widely available than Asaoka’s other watches, but within that scope the Special Projects subcollection are their most exclusive watches. For the SENSU NOS, the reason for its limited availability comes from the three latter acronym at the end of its name – NOS, New Old Stock. This is a watch industry term that refers to old movements that have never been used in a watch and which are often out of production today, hence they are new (never been used) old stock.

The reason for using a NOS movement here is that Asaoka was looking for a very particular type of movement. He wanted the watch to have a Japanese-made calibre with a power reserve indicator, central hands, a 24-hour subdial and no date. However, no modern calibres fit that description and the closest he could find was the NOS Premium Automatic Cal.9134.

Although even that wasn’t a perfect match as it was equipped with a date function and so the Kurono team modified it to remove that function, making this the first Kurono watch with a movement that was modified in-house, now renamed the Cal.9134PWT. Due to the fact that the original base calibre is no longer being produced by Citizen, the Special Projects Réserve de Marche SENSU NOS is by necessity a limited edition. They physically cannot produce any more Cal.9134PWT movements than are available.

But zooming out, why was Asaoka so particular about the movement housed inside? Well, so that the dial could run absolutely wild with the degree of finishing on display. There are multiple style of guilloché on display, another first for Kurono. There’s the traditional Clous de Paris hobnail pattern in the centre of the main time display and 24-hour subdial, circular graining along the rings of the scale and a sharp, fluted style for the power reserve indicator. It’s actually the latter finishing that gives the watch the other part of its name, SENSU means Japanese hand fan.

In terms of colour, there are two versions available. The first is a cream rendition with Arabic numerals and the second is blue with Japanese Kanji. The colour of the hands and positioning of the Kurono logo are also different between the two versions. In terms of availability, Kurono say that there are ‘low hundreds’ of each variant available and there’s also a strict one watch per customer policy and either version counts as your single allocation. On top of that Kurono has one of the strictest anti-resale policies in an endeavour to prevent scalping and maintain a relatively affordable price point.

That price is $2,150 (approx. £1,600), which for a full guilloché dial is pretty incredible value. They can achieve prices like this due to the base Citizen/Miyota movement with its 40-hour power reserve and the 38mm steel case. Compare that to a watch like the Omega Bronze Gold, which has a similar aesthetic but in gold with a METAS movement for £11,300 and it highlights the value proposition. The Kurono Tokyo Special Projects Réserve de Marche SENSU NOS goes on sale on 10^th October at 2pm London (BST).

More details at Kurono.