Nomos Plays the Hits: Introducing the Tetra Origins Collection
Nomos has had an incredibly interesting trajectory among watch enthusiasts over the past decade or so. If you got into the hobby at a certain time, Nomos was almost certainly one of the first “forum brands” that you’d be introduced to as a level up from some of the core enthusiast watches that you might be able to scrounge for in your local department store or pick up on Amazon. Nomos (and Sinn, and a handful of other brands) required a bit more expense, and a bit more effort to get your arms around, but once you did, you really felt like you were part of the club (no pun intended).
And then things kind of settled. The enthusiasts who cut their teeth on Nomos did what enthusiasts always do, and discovered other cool things as the watch community migrated from the antiquated forums to Facebook and Instagram. Nomos never stopped releasing good watches, but there was a sliver of time when it felt like they were improving rapidly and we’d have exciting new releases from them on a regular basis. It didn’t really turn out that way – they’ve largely iterated on core designs, offering new sizes (usually bigger) and sportier specs (bracelets, and better water resistance). The hypothetical Nomos chronograph that I can recall so many anonymous forum users speculating about never materialized, and it seems like the brand has become very comfortable simply being Nomos and making Nomos watches.
Things changed a bit this year at Watches & Wonders with the release of the Club Sport Neomatik Worldtimer, a watch that has been almost universally hailed as the best thing they’ve made in years. There’s been a renewed interest in the brand among enthusiasts ever since, and some genuine excitement about what might be coming in the future. That, I think, is a great thing. I want Nomos to be a brand that is talked about, recommended by enthusiasts, and appreciated loudly on the internet. Because what was true a decade ago is still true today: they make fantastic watches at approachable price points, and offer a truly great ownership experience for new and more seasoned collectors.
That brings us, finally, to their latest release, a new batch of Tetras. This is the kind of release that a few years ago might have had people like me saying that it finds Nomos simply spinning their wheels, remaking watches they’ve made literally from the very beginning of the brand. My perspective these days is a little different. Nomos is one of the small brands that made it, and they did it on the strength of a core group of watches that people love. The Tetra is among them – it was part of the first Nomos collection when the brand launched in 1992. It makes total sense that Nomos would return to it, offering their customers slightly different flavors year after year. Another way to look at it: we don’t criticize A. Lange & Sohne when they drop a new Saxonia, part of their debut collection from right around the same time, and the same place. There’s a similar dynamic here and its admirable and noteworthy that Nomos has continued to produce the Tetra and other core models for so long.
The Tetra, for those unaware, is probably the most under the radar Nomos watch. It has a square case and is most often found in smaller sizes. The new watches seen here, which Nomos is calling the Tetra Origins collection, all measure 29.5mm across and have a case height of just 6.5mm.
There are four dial variants in the Tetra Origins collection, dubbed Terra (red), Salvia (green), Ochra (yellow) and Basalt (black). All have contrasting small seconds scales at 6:00 and the usual surprising splashes of color that Nomos has excelled at in recent years. My favorite example with these watches is the sharp blue second hand on the Terra dial. All of the dials are fairly muted and subdued and dominated by earth tones, however, which feels seasonally appropriate as we creep deeper into fall.
The new Nomos Tetra Origins watches all run on the manually wound caliber DUW 4001, which has 53 hours of power reserve. Retail pricing starts at $2,570 with a steel caseback, and goes up a little if you choose a sapphire exhibition caseback to admire the movement. Nomos
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