Worn & Wound
Hands-On: the Jacques Bianchi JB300
Last week, Jacques Bianchi released what is probably their most boring watch in recent memory, and the results speak for themselves. Compared to many of the brand’s recent releases, the new Jacques Bianchi JB300 is inarguably their most conventional, forfeiting many of the details that helped set the many iterations of the JB200 apart. But in that simplicity there’s magic, and this latest entry in the Jacques Bianchi catalog is a strong new addition to the military-inspired dive watch category, offering collectors a rock-solid option at a fantastic value. Put simply, the JB300 is a classic military diver in the truest sense, while still managing to hold onto a little bit of the dramatic flair we’ve come to expect from a brand that typically decorates their dials with divers and cephalopods. The JB300 draws the bulk of its inspiration from the original JB300, an early ‘90s dive watch issued by the French Army to combat divers. While not an exact 1-to-1 reproduction of that watch, which seems to have been produced in extremely limited quantities (less than 1000 by most counts), the new JB300 is a very close facsimile. Jacques Bianchi has done a good job updating the original JB300 for a modern audience though, toying with the specifics of both dial and case to bring them more comfortably into the 21st century. Part of this was likely dictated by necessity. A cursory search will find that most vintage examples of the JB300 feature the symbol for l’Armée de Terre (t...
