Paulin Mara Limited Edition for Hodinkee: a period gilt dial and what it costs the diver
Unveiled on 19 October 2026 and sold out the same day it went on sale, the Paulin Mara Limited Edition for Hodinkee is limited to 250 numbered pieces. The Scottish dive watch receives a gilt dial produced by galvanic bath, where the gold is not ink but gold-plated brass exposed beneath a blackened layer. The process is nothing new: it was used on tool watch dials from the late 1930s to the late 1960s, including those of Submariners delivered to the US Navy and the Marine nationale. To achieve it, the Mara switched calibres, lost two-thirds of its water resistance and nearly two millimetres of thickness. It was offered at $1,000, around €860.
Two hundred and fifty pieces, a single day of sales
The Paulin Mara Limited Edition for Hodinkee was unveiled on 19 October 2026 and the entire series found buyers within the day. Sold at $1,000 under reference PAULINMARAXHODINKEE, it numbered 250 numbered pieces, offered on pre-order, with deliveries announced for mid-November. At Watches of Switzerland, the listing under product code 27040001 now shows out of stock. More than the run size, what draws attention is the dial around which the entire watch was reorganised: a gilt dial produced by galvanic process, a technique that left dial workshops by the late 1960s.
From three sisters in Glasgow to the anOrdain workshop
Paulin was founded in Glasgow in 2013 by three sisters, Charlotte, Eleanor and Elizabeth Paulin. The founders left the company in 2023, the year the brand joined anOrdain, owned by Lewis Heath, Charlotte's husband. The two houses have since shared a production workshop and studio in Glasgow's Southside, with most assembly done there and a small part in Vancouver at Roldorf & Co. Hence the importance of typography on the watch: the dial and bezel text is set in Wim, the house typeface designed by creative director Imogen Ayres, and the hour hand echoes the shape of the dot and stem of the ‘i’ in the Paulin logo.
A diver born of a conversation and tested in the Hebrides
The idea for the Mara dates back to 2023 and a conversation with journalist and diver Jason Heaton about what makes a good water watch. Testing showed that certain print colours altered the tone of the Super-LumiNova and reduced underwater legibility. The watch was then tested in May 2025, during a multi-day trip through the Outer Hebrides, from Skye to Harris. Launched on 22 August 2025 at £1,200, or $1,650 excluding tax, the standard Mara is now listed at €1,040 on the brand's website, in black or blue. Its name means ‘of the sea’ in Scottish Gaelic.
A cushion case derived from the Modul model
The Mara's case derives from Paulin's Modul model, reworked for marine use. In 316L steel, it measures 39.7mm in diameter and 48mm lug to lug. Its unidirectional bezel with 120 clicks, topped with a grey-tinted double-domed sapphire insert, overhangs the case at 12 and 6 o'clock so it can be gripped with gloves or wet hands; its flank is carved with spherical indentations echoed on the screw-down crown. The caseback, closed, is engraved and numbered. The watch ships on a 20mm black and grey striped NATO strap with a steel buckle signed Hodinkee, while the standard version comes with two straps, a moulded HNBR rubber one and a Tide fabric one made from recycled fishing nets, lined with Alcantara and sewn in Glasgow.
Discover the full specifications of the Paulin Mara Limited Edition for Hodinkee
Gilt is not a gold ink
On a gilt dial, the golden colour is not printed: it is the underlying metal revealed in negative relief. The design is laid down in a non-conductive soluble ink, the plate is coloured in a galvanic bath, the ink is then washed away to reveal the metal, and a varnish protects the whole. Under a loupe, the result is recognisable by slightly blurred lettering edges and the step separating the black layer from the exposed metal. Nothing about it was a luxury signature: it was the standard production method, used from the late 1930s to the late 1960s, before being abandoned for cost and volume reasons. Rolex switched to matte dials with printed white text around 1967.
The dial worn by navy divers
This dating has a direct consequence: dive watches delivered to military navies in the 1950s and 1960s carried this type of dial, not out of nostalgia but because that was the production of the day. The Tudor Submariners issued to the armed forces were ordinary catalogue references, with no specific development, distinguished from civilian models only by a caseback engraving: a 1964 Oyster Prince Submariner 7928 bears on its back the U.S.N. marking, the unit code ST-2/015 and the date OCT.68, while pieces issued to the French Marine nationale display the initials M.N. followed by the last two digits of the year of delivery. By reviving the galvanic bath, Paulin is not referencing an ornament but an industrial technique that military use made familiar.
How this particular dial was made
Production, entrusted to Paulin's German partner, starts from a gold-plated brass plate on which the railroad track and text are printed using a chemical resist. The plate passes through a galvanic bath that blackens the unprotected areas, then the resist is removed to reveal the gold beneath the surface, sandblasted to a matte finish where the masked inscriptions remain polished. The hour markers are hand-painted in aged-tone Super-LumiNova, matched to the hands and bezel. The design follows the same logic: the standard Mara's geometric markers, triangles, squares and circles, give way to classic diver iconography, the depth rating is written in metres before feet, in the manner of pre-1969 models, and the ‘Glasgow’ mark at 4 o'clock becomes ‘Hodinkee’ in gilt.
What does this return to gilt actually cost?
The price is not the only thing to read on the label. The standard Mara is powered by a Swiss La Joux-Perret G101 with 68 hours of power reserve; the Hodinkee version receives a Japanese automatic Miyota 9039, 3.90mm thick, with 24 jewels, beating at 28,800 vibrations per hour for 42 hours of power reserve and a stated accuracy of -10/+30 seconds a day, with hand-winding, hacking seconds and three hands. Water resistance drops from 300 to 100 metres and thickness from 13.5 to 11.8mm: the catalogue diver becomes a skin diver with period proportions, matched to the dial it houses. What remains is the trade-off, $1,000 for the limited series versus €1,040 for a regular Mara that is more water resistant and has a longer power reserve.
Paulin Mara Limited Edition for Hodinkee: when a production technique becomes a selling point of rarity
Gilt tells of a time when a dial's look came from a manufacturing process rather than an aesthetic intention. The dive watches issued to navies wore this gold because dial workshops worked that way, and it vanished as soon as cheaper methods better suited to volume took over. Reviving it for a series of 250 pieces inverts the logic: what was once ordinary becomes the very reason for the purchase, and the rest of the watch is reorganised around it, at the cost of water resistance reduced to 100 metres and a calibre with a shorter power reserve. The choice holds up as long as one knows what is being traded: slimness and a period silhouette against the technical capability of a contemporary diver. For a Glasgow brand that designed its first water watch in dialogue with a diver and tested it in the Hebrides, the exercise goes beyond mere styling.
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Editor: Éric Barse
Journalist, entrepreneur, and founder of the websites www.cafe-racer-only.com and www.scooter-3-roues.com, Eric Barse divides his time between his passions: motorcycles, travel, and watches. A graduate of the Saint-Cyr military academy and the 2nd RPIMA (Parachute Regiment) before pursuing a career in communications and digital media, he has a true passion for authentic watches that have accompanied his two-wheeled adventures for many years, from the Indian Ocean to Africa and Latin America!
