Reintroducing the Fossil Starmaster

When you produce as many watches as a brand like Fossil does – and have been doing so for decades – you have a wide variety of options when it comes to re-introducing watches from the back catalog. And you don’t even have to go that far back. One of the latest additions to the Archival series, the Fossil Starmaster, originally popped up back in the 90s.

And, you know, that makes sense. These sorts of re-issues appeal to folks who had these watches the first go-around, or perhaps wished they had been able to get it back then. The Fossil Starmaster lineup was one that was fairly extensive, and it had a tagline throughout – “It Lights Up!” This was more than some small, weak bulb off to the side of the dial. No, Fossil was bringing full electroluminescent (EL) dials to the party. We more commonly associate that with the Timex Indiglo lineup these days, but Fossil did (and now does, again) it too.

In terms of the watch itself, the Fossil Starmaster presents as what I’d call a basic field watch. You’ve got a clean dial with large (and looks to be luminous) numerals and hands, with lume pips outboard of the numerals, and a smaller set of numbers inboard to give you your 24-hour time. This is all set into a 37mm case, which should make this watch wearable across a variety of wrist sizes.

The Fossil Starmaster is being reintroduced in two color schemes – steel with a cream dial, and a black finished case with an amber crystal that makes the dial look a deep tan. Both come paired onto a dark brown leather strap (20mm lugs, so you can easily swap for whatever you want, if needed). Only 50m WR rating, but this is not particularly a watch you’d be swimming with anyways. Regardless of the version, you’ll only be putting down $119 (for the brown) or $115 (for the cream variant) for the pleasure of putting one of these bright dials onto your wrist (surprisingly, they didn’t provide a photo of the dial lit up). For the steel version, only 1125 examples will be made, while the black version is limited to 875, so choose wisely which one you’d like to have.

With the reintroduction of the Fossil Starmaster, the brand is showing how much variety it had in it’s past, and how much variety can be had today for about the same price. Many of the watches we’ve written about from the brand lately have been at or near this same price, which means you really have a lot of choice. If you want a basic casual watch and find yourself needing to check the time in the dark a good deal, hard to beat an EL dial (unless you go to tritium, and that’s a different ballgame). Glows aside, hard to beat a classic field watch for day-to-day usability. fossil.com

Watch Overview

• Brand & Model: Fossil Starmaster
• Price: $125
• Who we think it might be for: You want a clean, classic field watch with an additional trick up it’s sleeve
• Would I buy one for myself based on what I’ve seen?Not for myself, necessarily, but I could see picking one up as a gift for someone

Tech Specs from Fossil

• Case
  • Case Size: 38mm
  • Case Shape: Round
  • Case Thickness: 11mm
  • Case Material: Stainless Steel
• Dial color: cream
• Movement: quartz
• Strap
  • Closure: Single Prong Strap Buckle
  • Circumference: 200+/- 5mm
  • Strap Color: Black
  • Strap Width: 20MM
  • Strap Material: Leather
• Additional details
  • Collection: The Archival Series
  • Warranty: 2 Year Limited
  • Water Resistant: 5 ATM
  • Interchangeable: Yes
  • Eligible for Gift Wrap: No
  • Origin: Imported