News · Sheffield Watches

Sheffield sends US$100 of every US$258 chronograph to a scholarship foundation

A green sunburst mecha-quartz chronograph designed around a first watch given to a four-year-old, with the donation doing far more than a charity edition usually does.

Hen & Mills Editorial · 4 min read · 19 August 2026

• Sheffield has built a green sunburst chronograph in memory of Brian LaViolette, with the dial designed by the watch photographer Ty Alexander.
• The 40 millimetre steel case runs 48 millimetres lug to lug on drilled 20 millimetre lugs, with sapphire, a screw-down crown and 100 metres of water resistance.
• It sells for US$258 direct from Sheffield, which donates US$100 from every watch to the Brian LaViolette Scholarship Foundation.

Almost everyone in this hobby can name the watch that started it, and almost none of them were good watches. Mine was a plastic thing with a compass on the strap. The whole business of collecting tends to trace back to some object handed over by a parent at an age when you had no idea what you were being given, which is exactly the story sitting behind the Brian's Sheffield Chronograph, a green-dialled special edition from the American brand Sheffield.

A dial designed by a photographer, which explains a lot

The dial is a green sunburst, and the credit for it goes to Ty Alexander, a watch photographer who was introduced to the project through a long friendship with the LaViolette family. That is an unusual credit to find on a watch, and it shows in the choices. Sunburst green is everywhere at the moment, so the interesting decision was to run gold on the seconds hand and the subdial hands rather than the more obvious white or silver, which is a small nod to the Green Bay Packers watch that got Brian LaViolette interested in watches at four years old.

The green swings between a bottle-glass depth in shade and something much brighter and grassier when it catches a lamp, which is the whole point of a sunburst finish and the reason it photographs so well. Gold against that green is a warmer combination than it sounds, closer to the trim on old racing livery than to anything dressy. Swiss lume on the hands keeps it readable once the light goes.

Forty millimetres, drilled lugs, and no wasted centimetres

Sheffield has built it in 316L stainless steel at 40 millimetres across, 48 millimetres from lug to lug and 13 millimetres thick. That lug-to-lug figure is the one worth dwelling on, because 48 millimetres on a 40 millimetre chronograph means the case is not sprawling out past the edges of a normal wrist the way so many chronographs of this size do. The lugs are drilled and 20 millimetres wide, which is a detail that costs a brand nothing and saves an owner an afternoon of scratched spring bars.

An anti-glare sapphire crystal sits over the top and the crown screws down, giving 100 metres of water resistance. That is not a diving specification and it is not pretending to be one. What it does mean is that the watch survives the ordinary indignities that kill lesser chronographs, namely rain, washing up, and getting into a pool without thinking about it first.

The mecha-quartz argument, settled honestly

Inside is the Seiko VK64, which is the mecha-quartz movement that has quietly propped up an entire tier of affordable chronographs. Quartz keeps the time, a mechanical module handles the chronograph, so the seconds hand sweeps smoothly while it is running and snaps back to zero the instant you press the lower pusher. Purists will point out that it is not a column wheel, and they are right, and they are also describing the reason this watch costs what it costs rather than four times as much.

Turn it over and the steel case back is engraved. The strap is quick-release FKM rubber, which is the good stuff, the material that does not go chalky or start smelling of anything after a summer. On a watch at this price the strap is usually the first thing to be economised on, so its presence here is a fair signal of where the money went.

What the hundred dollars actually does

Sheffield donates US$100 from every watch sold to the Brian LaViolette Scholarship Foundation. That is not a rounding error on a US$258 watch, it is close to two-fifths of what you pay, and it is worth stating plainly because charity editions in this industry are very often a small donation attached to a large marketing push. The foundation was established by Brian's family after Brian died in a swimming accident at fifteen, and Sheffield says it has awarded more than 1,200 scholarships in the years since.

I am generally sceptical of watches sold on a cause, because the cause tends to do the heavy lifting that the design should be doing. This one survives the test I apply to all of them, which is whether you would still want it with the story stripped out. A 40 millimetre steel mecha-quartz chronograph with drilled lugs, sapphire, 100 metres and a properly considered dial, at this money, is a watch that stands up on its own.

Brian's Sheffield Chronograph pricing and availability

The Brian's Sheffield Chronograph is US$258, sold direct by Sheffield, on the quick-release FKM rubber strap. Sheffield has not published a figure for how many will be made, and no Australian price or local distribution has been announced, so ordering from here means dealing with the brand directly. The US$100 donation applies to every watch sold.

The restraint is what makes it work. A small emblem above the six and a set of gold hands are the only places the story shows up on the dial, with the engraving kept to the case back, and the result reads as a watch first and a tribute second. That is a much harder balance to strike than adding more, and getting it right is the reason this one will still be worn in ten years rather than sitting in a drawer with its documentation.