Introducing the The Bamford × Peanuts “Beagle Scout” GMT Limited Edition for Hodinkee

Cartoon character watches?  Really?  Come on; watch collectors are serious people.  They have their favorite watchmakers and fiercely defend them, spending hours of impassioned typing on forum after forum, calling in incoming fire on anyone who dares dis them.  The chances of them taking to a cartoon character watch are about the same as a Rolex diehard going over to the Bienne dark side (or vice versa – don’t come for me, it’s only a metaphor).  Except when it’s Snoopy.  Snoopy is, as far as anything can be said to be universal in Watchworld, OK by everyone.

Perhaps surprisingly for a dog who doesn’t own a watch, it’s hard to name a watch firm that hasn’t produced a Snoopy watch since the first rolled off the bench at US maker Armitron in the late 1950s.  Famously, Omega’s link with NASA (who began using Snoopy as a keystone of a safety campaign) right the way through to Timex, the cartoon dog with attitude has turned up on watch face after watch face.  And the newest collaboration with Charles M Schulz’ creation features on the dial of a collaboration of two arch collaborators themselves, Hodinkee and Bamford Watch Co.

This is Bamford and Hodinkee’s second outing for their take on Snoopy.  The first came earlier this year with everyone’s favorite beagle featuring as Joe Preppy, a wry dig at the default watchnerd™ uniform of tweed hacking jacket and chinos.  The “..Joe Preppy alter-ego has long been a favorite around the HODINKEE office for its irreverence and the uncanny resemblance it shares to the quintessential… reader and watch collector.”  Now he turns up as a Beagle Scout, complete with hat and accompanied by his faithful foil Woodstock.  

One hopes that Snoopy in full Beagle Scout rig is rather better at telling the time than where north might be – after all, on his first outing he gets spectacularly lost, has to be rescued and finally admits he thought “N” on his compass stood for ‘nowhere’. 

This seems like a pretty safe bet. Sellita are providing the movement for this one – an SW330-2.  It’s a GMT caliber where you can move the GMT 24 hour hand independently of the main time hour hand.  This GMT hand is a little different from most, though, as it features an eternally circling Woodstock at its end; Coleridge fans will surely approve.  We say ‘eternally’, but you get 56 hours of power reserve should you decide to give the little chap a rest and take your watch off once in a while. That’s 14 hours more than its stablemate the SW330-1 powering the Joe Preppy.

The automatic quick-set 330-2 is the same 28,800 bph, 4Hz movement that pops up in several of Farer’s GMT watches, a few Christopher Wards and a Sinn or two.  It’s based on the ETA 2892-A2 and is absolutely none the worse for it.  As we’ve often mentioned, movements like this are good news; reliable, solid, easy spares availability and serviceable by almost any watchmaker.  With a 100m water resistance rating, incabloc shock absorbing system and antimag, anti-corrosion balance and balance spring, your Beagle Scout should certainly be good to take hiking, even if that’s only as far as the nearest bar.  

It’s a robust thing all round;  it’s a decent 40mm across and nearly 12mm thick and nearly 47mm lug-to-lug.  The GMT crown gets a single shoulder in the 316L brushed stainless case and the winding and Bamford logo setting crown is chunky enough to look after itself.  That GMT crown will turn the inner GMT bezel (split into a light color for day and a dark, appropriately, for night) so it’s easy to keep an eye on several time zones.  Talking of dark, the dial’s a cinch to read at night or in low light with Swiss Superluminova Grade X1 GL C1 for hands and dial markers. 

Strapwise, you get a green cordura version of the Preppy’s brown fabric, so very much the same family feel. Bamford shun boring presentation cases and this one is no exception.  Each of the 250 numbered pieces turn up in a replica of Snoopy’s doghouse, covered in green fabric and featuring the Hodinkee, Bamford and Peanuts logos on its walls and roof.  That’ll be the same roof that Snoopy is so often seen on, typing away on his ancient manual typewriter.  So does this now make him the patron saint of watch writers? We hope so. 

The Bamford x Peanuts “Beagle Scout” GMT Limited Edition for Hodinkee is available as a 250-piece limited edition for $1,850. Hodinkee.