Following the revival of Nivada Grenchen in 2020, Guillaume Laidet is relaunching another historic — albeit lesser-known — watch brand.

Excelsior Park is the latest of Laidet’s watch revival projects and is launching with five chronograph references that have 1950s vintage styling offered in aptly sized 38.9 mm x 12.85 mm (13 mm open caseback) stainless steel cases.

Compared to Nivada Grenchen, Excelsior Park is slightly more upscale, with intricately detailed dials and high-grade Sellita SW510 M BH B (Elaborate) manual wind chronograph calibers. Generally speaking, compared to new micro watch brands, companies like Excelsior Park — which required that Laidet purchase a license to the brand name — provide a better value because the name comes with provenance. Like Nivada Grenchen, Excelsior Park is not a Kickstarter brand created in a short time period and with no history, and that matters to certain buyers, myself included.

There will be five new vintage-style bi-compax re-edition chronographs, with attractive dial options, all presented in conservative stainless steel cases and paired with leather straps to choose from. There are three white and one black dial, all featuring syringe-shaped hour and minute hands, and embossed indices, and on these four iterations, the hour marker at 7 o’clock stands out due to its unique “coat hangar” style font. In contrast, the final dial option is Salmon-colored, with a brushed finish, blued stick-shaped hands, and transferred indices, with a standard 7 o’clock numeral.

Each Excelsior Park chronograph has a sapphire crystal protecting the dial, a depth rating of 100 meters, an option to choose a solid steel or clear caseback, and will retail for $2,470 when pre-orders begin in December 2021. Stay tuned as Professional Watches will be fully reviewing one of the new chronograph re-editions in the near future.

 

Photos by Excelsior Park.