Hublot & Hodinkee Debut Limited Edition Titanium Watch

A revamped take on a fan favorite.

For as much as the watch world is about exclusivity and rarity, there are times when a watch on the wrist is a matter of pure necessity: A totem, if you will, and your wrist might not feel the same without it.

For instance, when a watch goes away for factory service, what’s a timepiece enthusiast to do? Hublot came up with a solution years ago via its Hublot Atelier, a “loaner” watch for the Hublot customer to wear in the meantime.

Here’s the catch: The “Atelier Watch”, which was marked as “Not For Sale” on the dial, proved wildly popular, with “countless requests” from customers curious about snagging one for themselves.

It was so popular, in fact, that Hublot teamed up with Hodinkee on a revamped version of the “loaner” watch, the Classic Fusion Titanium Limited Edition for Hodinkee.

Hublot and Hodinkee stuck closely to the original Atelier Watch in terms of design, updating its look with a monochromatic grey dial and rubber strap.

So far, the watch is proving just as popular: It’s currently sold out online via Hodinkee.

The dial design is also largely the same, including Hublot’s distinctive logo at 12 o’-clock, “Swiss Made” at 6 o’clock, and the fun, updated phrase “Not For (Re)Sale,” in a nod to the covetable nature of the rare timepiece (only 100 units were up for grabs).

The watch’s red seconds hand is also an eye-catching nod to the company’s first “loaner” watch, adding some flair to a timepiece that Hodinkee notes is “streamlined, pleasantly minimalistic, and entirely unchanged from the original.”

Finding one now looks to be about as difficult as getting Hublot to offer the original “loaner” watch for sale, but all good things take time.

And of course, there’s a chance this watch very well might end up a collector’s item on the resale market.