Growing up in the late ‘90s and early ‘00s, there were plenty of things I missed out on. I was too late to see the Rangers win the Stanley Cup, was rarely allowed to sit in rear-facing seats in the back of a car, and Nickelodeon’s Legends of the Hidden Temple was in re-runs before I was old enough to compete. According to my parents, I also missed out on one of the great toys of their youth — quicksilver.
Growing up, they would often tell stories of cracking open a thermometer to play with the mysterious liquid metal inside, before making it very clear that the element also known as mercury was strictly off-limits. Now, thanks to a collaboration between Revolution and Isotope, we all have the opportunity to re-capture some of the fun of that elusive metal.
The Isotope x Revolution Mercury draws inspiration from not only the aforementioned element but also the iconic Mercury Streamliner train designed by Henry Dreyfuss and the Roman god Mercury, from whom both the train and the element take their names. The result is a unique watch with a level of polish I’m not sure I’ve ever encountered before — though the Sartory Billard and Grail Watch SB07 “Ghost” sure comes close.
The Mercury answers the question of what a dress watch from Isotope would look like. The Art Deco-inspired cushion case of the Mercury measures 38mm across, 44.5mm lug-to-lug, 10mm thick, with a 20mm lug width, and is 100 meters water resistant. It’s also fully mirror-polished. And when I say fully, I mean fully.
The standout feature of the watch is probably the mirror-finished convex dial which, according to the brand, is the first of its kind. It also had a stunningly high failure rate of over 50 percent — Isotope had to make over 350 dials just to produce the 150 needed for this limited edition. Matching the polish of all the watch’s component parts was also a particular challenge, and required experimenting for more than half a year to achieve the perfect finish.
Looking past the rather remarkable shine reveals a host of other details that help set the Mercury apart. Among other features, a unique leaf handset comes together once an hour to form one whole laurel leaf, teardrop lugs evoke the shape of Isotope’s “lacrima” logo, and a small droplet next to the applied three-dimensional Isotope logo on the dial is reminiscent of quicksilver skirting across a mirror.
Inside the Isotope x Revolution Mercury, and visible through the concave sapphire caseback, is the hand-wound caliber I-7, a modified version of the ETA/Peseux 7001 produced for Isotope by Landeron. Here, the rather utilitarian (though reliable) 7001 has been finished with straight graining, perlage, and blued screws. The watch comes on a handsome steel gray suede strap, complete with a mirror-polished pin buckle.
The Isotope x Revolution Mercury is available now in a limited edition of 150 for $2,400 through both Isotope’s website and the Revolution Watch Shop.
