UNION GLASHÜTTE Belisar DATE SPORT

Whenever we hear the name Glashütte associated with a diver’s watch, we know that we are going to see something exceptional; at least in terms of manufacture.

The small town of Glashütte is what the Jura Valley or perhaps La Chaux-de-Fonds is to the Swiss watch industry. It is the birthplace of German watchmaking.



Even within the humble sphere of diver’s watches there’s: Glashütte Original, Glashütte Tutima, Wempe, Mühle-Glashütte and newcomer, Cronus.

Today we can add one more brand to that esteemed club of dive watches produced in Glashütte.



However there is one final piece of background info. to depart before we take a look at this lovely new German dive watch.

Union Glashütte has been owned by the SWATCH Group since 2000 - that’s two decades already!



Introducing the Belisar Date Sport, Glashütte Union’s debut diver’s watch boasting two SWATCH Group innovations;

a Sapphire crystal bezel inlay which was first introduced for the Fifty Fathoms more than a decade ago and later adopted by Omega for the Ploprof 1200M –



and an Si Balance Spring such as those now seen on the whole spectrum of SWATCH Group divers from the humble new Tissot Powermatic 80 to the Blancpain Bathyscaphe, allowing the movement to be resistant to magnetic fields without the use of a Faraday-Cage.



In addition to the above diver’s features and thanks to its: screwed crown and screwed Sapphire crystal case-back, the Belisar Date Sport’s (45mm x 12.5mm) Stainless steel case is water-resistant up to a pressure of 20 bar (200 meters).

The sporty character of the watch is further highlighted by the screwed-on flanks, a style element typical of the Belisar collection, coated with black rubber on this model.



Power comes from a hardy UNG-07.S1 automatic movement providing a power reserve of up to 60 hours and featuring said silicon balance spring -

which in addition to its anti-magnetic properties is also particularly lightweight, temperature-stable, corrosion resistant and not mechanically deform-able.



A small gold plaque on the balance cock indicates that silicon has been used while brightly glowing SuperLumiNova can be found on the watch’s hands and indices.

Finally, the Belisar Sport Date can be worn on either a black rubber strap or a second strap made of brown vintage calf-leather.



The straps can be easily changed without tools just like the SWATCH Group’s new Longines Hydroconquest. ;)

The Belisar Date Sport has an MSRP of €1’980.



Thoughts? The best of both worlds’? I couldn’t really say that it’s like buying a Lambo before Audi took over because I’m sure that any watch hailing from Glashütte would be more than up to scratch

but those SWATCH Group innovations certainly don’t hurt. Despite this a very Germanic-looking offering; I quite like it. What do you think?