If you had gotten the feeling that German brand Hanhart had been in a rut over the past, oh, 20 years, I wouldn’t blame you. It seemed to be releasing small variations on the same chronograph with its red-marked bezel and the in-your-face Primuses. But in the last year or so, the brand seems to be loosening its own leash, with a simple three-hander, a diver, and now a new vintage-inspired chronograph. The trees must be pumping something out in the Black Forest, because Hanhart has been on a tear, especially compared to the decades that preceded the new models. The latest entry is a new chronograph that goes hard on the vintage inspiration for a look that is very unHanhart. The new Hanhart 415 ES 39mm chronograph does away with many of the brand’s signature elements in favor of failsafe vintage cues.
The Pioneer and 417 ES chronographs were not and are not unattractive or bad watches. Having experienced both, I can say without hesitation that I found them excellent chronos with legitimate heritage. But however much they may define the brand, they are played out (and it’s always a precarious situation when a brand finds itself defined by one model — I’m looking at you, AP). So when the 415 ES came along on the heels of the Aquasphere and the Silva, it was a breath of (vintage) fresh air.
The first thing (ok, the second thing after the bund strap) is the total and utter lack of a bidirectional, fluted bezel with a red mark on it. The hallmark of basically every single Hanhart chronograph was cast aside here in the name of accuracy. The 415 ES was originally offered in the 1960s and also came in a stainless steel 39mm case. That’s been maintained, but I’d be absolutely shocked if the original had a case that measured 13.5mm thick like this one. More likely than not, it had a contemporary, thin hand-wound movement that puts the dimensions of modern manual chronographs to shame. 13.5mm is quite thick for a 39mm watch, and while I admire the commitment to the historical size, I wonder whether such adherence makes sense if all the other proportions change?
Also serving to improve the watch are a domed sapphire crystal and a water resistance of 100m. While this is not a diver by any measure, you’d be safe to do so, and I absolutely love the 60-click (!!) bidirectional bezel with its matte ceramic insert. Its tactility kept me fiddling with it throughout the day and at no point did I feel any loosening or shifting. A job well done in recreating that particular element. The pushers operate with the crispness you’d expect from a watch with a Sellita movement and the large crown is graced with a throwback winged logo which is seen in full on the dial. Winding the crown off the bund was easy, but the bund does interfere a bit, so you’ll need to work just a bit to adjust your grip when getting the watch going.
While I cannot find it as an option on the brand’s website, I was sent a 415 ES on a bund strap, so by god, I’m going to review it on the bund strap. Bund straps are not my (or most people’s) cup of tea, but I see the vintage appeal, especially from a German brand. The strap and its bund pad (is that what we call that?) were incredibly soft and clearly of high quality, with Alcantara leather backing for extra comfort. Predictably, it adds a bit of height to the already thick case, but it also makes it seem a bit smaller on the wrist by surrounding the watch and then hugging the wrist. It’s a push and pull: the bund both thickens the presence, making it more prominent and reduces the width, making it less prominent. In the end, it’s a wash, and I think individual comfort with thickness will determine whether you wear it on or off the bund. If you’re wearing it off, you’ll be fine with the included quick-release 20mm strap or anything of your choosing, though I imagine if you have too thin a strap, the 415 ES will look ridiculous.
The original Hanhart 415 ES came in a number of variants, including silver and black dials with dauphine or straight hands. When revisiting the model, Hanhart was particularly drawn to a model with a black dial, straight hands, and a red hundredths track. And by golly, it just went right ahead and remade that dial down to the 30-minute sundial hand. I am fully and entirely here for what is going on.
The dial has a matte black base with sunken registers at 3 o’clock for the 30-minute totalizer and 9 o’clock for the running seconds. The red hundredths scale circles the central dial and separates each rotation of the golden chronograph hand into hundredths; the brand says this has important “industrial and technical applications,” but it’s a head-scratcher for me. At least it provides an attractive dash of color (and replaces the red that’s missing from the bezel, allowing for a very subtle nod to that Hanhart signature). Outside the hundredths scale is a more traditional tachymeter track, though we can call it floating, as it lacks an actual line to which its markings might be anchored. I like the look and, unlike spiral-scale chronographs, it’s not too cluttered.
The hours are marked by fully lumed arrows and numerals in a font lifted right from the original model. This isn’t Old Radium but instead appears to be an orange-ish shade of the Super-LumiNova X1, the highest grade offered. I didn’t find it lasted very long, but it was initially bright enough for me to read in the dark. As people tend to with Old Radium, there will be complaints about the use of “aged” lume. For my part, I simply like the yellow-orange hue and how it plays with the black and red. My favorite part of the dial, though, is the retro wing logo, which offers a bit more excitement than the bold script of the modern logo.
The Hanhart 415 ES chronograph runs on the hand-wound Swiss Sellita SW510 M. This is the manual version of the Sellita 510 3-6-9 automatic chronograph, but in the bi-compax layout, which I have always preferred, even if you get less information. The movement had a nice 63-hour power reserve at 28,800 mph, which you’ll notice when it takes you a few extra winds to get to max power. While this watch is a full millimeter thinner than other similarly equipped Hanharts, and most watches with this caliber are 13.5mm or thicker, I know that this movement can be used in cases that are thinner. Vulcain has proven this to be true, and I would’ve liked Hanhart to push a bit further here to try to get the watch’s thickness down, even if it meant decreasing water resistance to 50m.
Hanhart is still leaning on its fairly deep back catalog, as it has with almost its entire current product line except the Primus. If you’ve got the models and the heritage, I don’t necessarily see anything wrong with that. The Aquasphere diver shows signs of Hanhart’s river branching into more modern offerings, but that doesn’t mean it needs a full pivot that abandons its bread and butter. As did the Silva when it was released in 2023, the 415 ES shows the brand casting off some of the aesthetic shackles to which it had been beholden, from its lipstick bezel to its monochrome color palette. The 415 ES isn’t a flawless watch, but it is an exciting one, both on its own for its history and design merits, and for what it (hopefully) represents for the brand. The Hanhart 415 ES 39mm is priced at $2,680 USD. For more information, please visit the Hanhart website.
