{"id":823,"date":"2026-08-14T13:52:25","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T19:52:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/orelo.watch\/?p=823"},"modified":"2026-08-17T21:12:59","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T03:12:59","slug":"fears-brunswick-40-5-jump-hour-ultimus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orelo.watch\/en\/fears-brunswick-40-5-jump-hour-ultimus\/","title":{"rendered":"Almost Nobody Builds a Jump Hour. Fears Just Nailed Its Last One"},"content":{"rendered":"

A disc that jumps instantly every sixty minutes, a module manufactured exclusively for Christopher Ward, and a luminous ceramic dial. Orders close on August 17.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Watch the dial a minute before the hour. Nothing happens. Then, with no transition at all, the numeral you were looking at vanishes and another takes its place. That is a jump hour: instead of a hand creeping toward the next number, a hidden disc snaps around at the exact moment the hour changes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Few brands produce it. It is costly to engineer, sometimes awkward to read, and difficult to sell, so most brands prefer to steer clear. Fears has been producing it for three years within its Brunswick collection and is now retiring it with the Brunswick 40.5 Jump Hour \"Ultimus,\" designed in collaboration with watch content creator Andrew Morgan<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is a good exit. The module that drives the jump was developed by Christopher Ward, and the dial, three layers of sapphire over a luminous ceramic centre, is built to show the mechanism rather than hide it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
\u00a9 Fears<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A module on loan from the competition<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The \"Ultimus\" is powered by a 25-jewel Sellita SW200\u2014one of the industry's most widely used Swiss movements\u2014topped with the JJ01 jumping-hour module developed in-house by Christopher Ward. That module originated in 2023 for the Alliance 01, a watch created through a collaboration between the two brands for the Alliance of British Watch and Clockmakers; today, Christopher Ward manufactures it exclusively for Fears.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is worth pausing there. The two houses compete for the same buyer and the same niche in independent British watchmaking: one has spent over a decade developing its own calibers, while the other assembles its watches by hand in Bristol. Instead of keeping the complication to itself, one sells the heart of one of its most distinctive watches to the other. Such a loan between direct rivals almost never happens in established watchmaking, where groups regard their calibers as strategic assets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The real complication lies in that module. The module accumulates energy over sixty minutes and releases it all at once to advance the disc bearing the twelve numerals; the challenge is ensuring that this surge does not rob the balance wheel of amplitude or disrupt the watch's timekeeping accuracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
\u00a9 Fears<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

1924 design, with 2026 materials<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The Brunswick's cushion case comes from a 1924 gentleman's watch held in the Fears archive, and the collection takes its name from Brunswick Square, the Bristol address where the company set up its export department in 1920 and which was destroyed by German bombing between 1940 and 1942. Worth clarifying for readers meeting the brand here: Fears is not a recent microbrand. Edwin Fear opened his workshop on Redcliff Street in 1846, the company closed in 1976, and it was relaunched in 2016 by Nicholas Bowman-Scargill, a direct descendant of the founder, while he was working as an apprentice watchmaker at Rolex. This year marks its 180th anniversary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 'Ultimus' is the only watch in the line without a cut-out window at 12 o'clock. In its place sits a magnifying lens integrated into the domed sapphire crystal, directly over the hour disc. There is a single hand, for the minutes, in black PVD, one half mirror-polished and the other frosted so it reads at any angle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
\u00a9 Fears<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Reference<\/td>BS240.500A<\/td><\/tr>
Case<\/td>316L steel cushion, 40.5mm, 47mm lug-to-lug, 12.8mm thick to the top of the domed crystal<\/td><\/tr>
Crystal<\/td>Domed sapphire, ARdur anti-reflective coating on both sides, integrated magnifier over the hour<\/td><\/tr>
Dial<\/td>'Phantom White', 33mm: sapphire disc with black gradient, semi-transparent minute ring, luminous ceramic centre<\/td><\/tr>
Caliber<\/td>25-jewel Sellita SW200 with Christopher Ward's JJ01 jump hour module, automatic<\/td><\/tr>
Frequency \/ power reserve<\/td>28,800 vph (4 Hz) \/ 38 hours<\/td><\/tr>
Water resistance<\/td>100 m<\/td><\/tr>
Strap \/ bracelet<\/td>Obsidian Black Epsom leather strap, handmade in Belgium; optional five-link steel bracelet<\/td><\/tr>
International price (excl. UK VAT)<\/td>\u00a33,708.33 on strap \/ \u00a33,958.33 with bracelet<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\u00a9 Fears<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

What you need to know<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

At this price, three things deserve a straight look. The power reserve is 38 hours, short for a watch hovering around $5,000: leave it on Friday night and it's stopped by Monday. The case, dial, hand and crystal are made in Hong Kong, with hand assembly happening in Bristol. That is legitimate and common across the industry, but worth knowing when a good part of the sales argument rests on British heritage. And production isn't limited; the order window is. That's scarcity by calendar rather than by unit count.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
\u00a9 Fears<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Latin America and Spain Perspective<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Fears sells direct from fearswatches.com<\/a>, with free DHL Express shipping and 2 to 10 day delivery outside Europe. Buying from outside the UK removes the 20% British VAT, putting the international price at \u00a33,708.33 on the strap and \u00a33,958.33 with the bracelet: roughly $5,005 and $5,343 at the August 14, 2026 exchange rate (GBP\/USD \u2248 1.3497, a figure that shifts daily). In Mexico that's about 85,300 and 91,000 pesos before import taxes; adding 16% VAT and a general duty near 20% brings the total close to 116,000 pesos. Treat that as an estimate: customs decides the tariff classification, and it's worth confirming with the carrier. In Spain, buyers pay 21% VAT plus duties on UK imports. Fears has no distributor in Latin America or Spain, so direct import is the only route. The United States is the exception, where the brand states it covers duties on inbound shipments: that leaves a Spanish-speaking reader in Miami or Los Angeles as the best-positioned buyer in our audience. Orders begin shipping in November.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A jump hour doesn't tell time better than a hand. It tells it differently, through a gesture that happens once every sixty minutes and that almost nobody catches. Maybe that's the most honest thing a mechanical watch can offer in 2026: not efficiency, but a reason to look at your wrist on purpose.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A disc that jumps instantly every sixty minutes, a module manufactured exclusively for Christopher Ward, and a luminous ceramic dial. Orders close on August 17.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":832,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[72,73,42],"class_list":["post-823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-independientes","tag-fears","tag-hora-saltante","tag-inglaterra"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orelo.watch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/orelo.watch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/orelo.watch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orelo.watch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orelo.watch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=823"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/orelo.watch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":836,"href":"https:\/\/orelo.watch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823\/revisions\/836"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orelo.watch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orelo.watch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orelo.watch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orelo.watch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}