Hands-On: the Chronofixe Astérix

I’ve always had a bit of a thing for character watches. I know they’re divisive, but a character watch — whether it be a ridiculously expensive Spider-Man AP or a cheap quartz Armitron with a basketball-playing Bugs Bunny on the dial — can help create a shockingly profound connection between a watch and its wearer and be (when done well) a fun reminder not to take watches too seriously.

I’ve owned a lot of character watches. Many of my earliest and most favorite childhood watches, if they weren’t Timex Ironmans, were character watches, and even today, I still find myself picking up a character watch here and there, though they rarely stick in my collection for very long. Most find their way to their next owners as gifts — a vintage Snoopy tennis watch went to my mother, while the aforementioned Bugs Bunny Armitron now sits on my younger brother’s wrist most days (though, much to my annoyance, he pointedly refuses to put a battery in it).

Still, most of the character watches I’ve owned over the years have found their way into the trash or were lost in various moves or purges because, for as delightful a thing as character watches are, most aren’t that good, at least as watches. To generalize wildly, most character watches I’ve owned have felt, at best, transient and, at worst, disposable (admittedly, I’ve never owned an AP Spider-Man watch, so I can’t speak to that experience). Still, my love for the concept remains, and when a watch comes along that not only features one of my all-time favorite characters but is also a compelling and competitive entry into the sub-$500 watch market, I take notice. With the Chronofixe Astérix, you have just that.

A New Old Brand

Historically, Chronofixe is a brand best known for its role as one of the few producers of Type 20 pilot’s chronographs for the French military. While today the style is most associated with Breguet, the Type 20 (and its successor, the Type 21) was, like most military spec watches in the 20th century, produced by several different watch brands, including Chronofixe. Like so many brands, Chronofixe eventually went out of business, but not before leaving behind a compelling collection prime for the resurrection.

It’s that stable of archival models that drew longtime collector Jon Cruys to the brand, and with the help of Remi Chabrat (who, among other things, helped bring back Nivada in 2018), he has been hard at work to revive it. What with the brand’s ties to the Type 20, it would hardly have been a surprise to see the French brand lean in that direction for their first release, but instead, they’ve opted to kick things off with the Chronofixe Astérix, a modern take on the brand’s Sous-Marine skin diver with a cartoonish twist, in collaboration with seconde/seconde/.

I first came across the Chronofixe Astérix when it popped up on my Instagram feed around Christmas, and I’m not kidding when I say it grabbed my attention in a way few new releases do. Sometimes, a watch comes along that gets you unreasonably excited. It’s not always easy to predict what’ll do it, but on those wonderfully rare occasions when it does happen, it’s hard to ignore. So it’s with absolute delight that I now sit here typing this with the Chronofixe Astérix on my wrist and the spirit of a height-challenged, mustachioed Gaulois warrior in my heart.

Before the Fun, the Watch

It goes somewhat without saying that the standout feature of the Chronofixe Astérix is (and you might have guessed this) Astérix, but before we get to that — and the myriad other details he inspired across this watch — it’s worth taking a minute to consider the base watch itself. The Chronofixe Astérix is, as I said, inspired by the Chronofixe Sous-Marine, a classic skin diver style watch produced under the Chronofixe name in the 1960s.

The new Sous-Marine hews close to those original watches, with a classic skin diver shape and compact dimensions, though the architecture of the watch has been slightly refined. Like the original, the new Sous-Marine retains the arrow-tipped minute hand, pencil-shaped hour hand, and lollipop seconds hand, as well as the alternating numerals and batons for the markers — though there are some obvious changes at play on that front, but we’ll get to that in a bit — and on the whole, the watch is well, though not excessively, lumed.

The case itself measures 37mm across, though the slightly protruding bezel measures 38mm, with a lug-to-lug of 46mm and a thickness of 12.84mm, including the slightly protruding and domed sapphire crystal. The Sous-Marine is water resistant to 20 ATM, and, in keeping with its skin-diver vibe, has a push-pull crown rather than a screw-down option, which is hooked up to a Seiko NH35 automatic movement. The NH35 is nothing special, but it’s a solid, workhorse movement, and a great choice in a watch that’s really more about the look than the tech.

The 60-click bezel, which, as I said, protrudes slightly beyond the confines of the case, is easy to grip and turns with a pleasant (and clicky) action. The bezel can feel a bit stiff depending on your taste, but I’ll take that over the alternative all day long. The polished black bezel is fully graduated and has a lumed pip at 12 o’clock and numerals at four positions, marking 10, 20, 40, and 50 minutes. I initially thought that the lack of a numerical marker at 30 minutes was a concession to the Roman numerals used throughout the watch, but the choice is consistent with the original Sous-Marine, and it makes for a pleasantly symmetrical dial while avoiding the strangeness of an ever-present ‘XXX,’ which might imply a more adult watch than this is.

On paper, the Chronofixe Sous-Marine is everything I’d have asked for in a sub-$500 skin diver, and in my hands, the build quality of the watch far outpaces plenty of competitors at a similar price — if I had to name a quality comp, I’d say the Chronofixe feels on par with watches like the Lorier Neptune.

Astérix Est La!

But this isn’t a watch that caught my eye because of its specs. Don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled that the watch is good, but I came here for Astérix, and the Chronofixe Sous-Marine Astérix delivers on that front. Designed with the help of Romaric André (better known as seconde/seconde/), the Chronofixe Astérix is replete with details and choices meant to celebrate the French cartoon hero on the occasion of his 65th birthday.

The most obvious point of reference here is Astérix’s presence at the bottom left of the dial, where he is, with what is no doubt some help from his magic potion, punching the 8 o’clock marker across the dial. It’s a classic pose for the character, and the displaced Roman numeral ‘VIII’ streaking across the dial is a worthy substitute for the Roman Legionnaires Astérix spent his time pummeling. I really enjoy that it slightly cuts off the ‘E’ of Chronofixe, a gentle nod (at least in my head) to the idea that Chronofixe itself sounds like a character name in the Astérix universe, but would be spelled without the “E” in that context.

One fun twist with the Chronofixe Astérix is that any numerals found on the dial, bezel, or date wheel are rendered in Roman numerals. It’s a nice play on the anachronisms often found in the Astérix comics, and I particularly enjoy this choice as you get further into the month and watch the date wheel try to cram more and more digits into the same compact space. The date wheel itself is finished in a silver tone, with black lettering, and is framed by a Roman-style cartouche, a familiar visual motif for fans of Astérix. One last touch comes on the crown, which is adorned (appropriately) with a laurel leaf.

Astérix makes another appearance on the case back, whispering, “Résister, encore et toujours…,” a phrase which will be familiar to any French schoolchild from its appearance on the first page of each of the 40 Astérix stories from the last 65 years. The phrase is slightly reworked here but retains its sentiment (if not its punctuation) and translates to ‘Resist, forever and always’ (technically, it translates to ‘Resist, still and always,’ but forgive me some artistic license).

It’s worth noting, considering that Worn & Wound is primarily a US-based publication, that Astérix is a massive deal in the French-speaking world. Astérix bandes dessinées (a term used to describe Franco-Belgian comic books, like The Adventures of Tintin) have sold nearly 400 million copies, and the comics themselves have been adapted into animated and live-action movies. There’s even an amusement park! I’d be hard-pressed to find a French schoolchild anywhere on earth who hasn’t, at one point or another, encountered Astérix.

I know it’s how I discovered him. I grew up going to a French-speaking school outside of Boston, and Astérix was a massive deal in my classroom and eventually in my home. I’ve been obsessed with the character for well over two decades at this point, and I even used to dress up as Astérix (and his friend, Obélix) on a shockingly regular basis, though I will not include pictures here. So, to say this watch hits home for me would be a bit of an understatement.

Evaluating character watches is a tricky thing. These are watches with an inherently limited audience (doubly so in this case, the Chronofixe Astérix is limited to 500 pieces) and which are easy enough to dismiss. Still, by every metric I have to judge, Chronofixe knocked it out of the park with this one, and whether or not the Astérix tugs at your heartstrings like it does mine, it’s worth keeping your eye on this brand because if this is their first watch out of the gate, that bodes well for things to come. Chronofixe