3,469 articles · 157 videos found · page 108 of 121
Deployant
We give you the low-down and our thoughts on a 2018 fan favourite from Vacheron Constantin: the Traditionelle Complete Calendar in pink gold.
SJX Watches
Though Cartier has a huge range of watch case styles, many are iterations from a handful of original designs that were usually created in the early 20th century. Only a handful stick closely to the design of the vintage originals, most notably the Tank Cintree and Crash, and now the new Santos-Dumont XL, newly launched at Watches & Wonders 2020. Originally (re)launched in last year in two sizes – both with quartz movements only – the Santos-Dumont is now available with a hand-wind, mechanical movement in a larger, but not too large, case. The elegant design that channels the spirit of the vintage original remains, with only the dimensions and movement changed. And the new hand-wind Santos Dumont XL is also well priced enough that it would be a value proposition in more ordinary times. Not only is the new model available in steel, which was absent before, the 18k gold version is almost 30% cheaper than the equivalent from the earlier generation. The Santos-Dumont XL in steel And in two-tone steel and 18k pink gold, which is a very 1980s look Since 1904… The watch gets its name from Alberto Santos-Dumont, a Brazilian inventor and aviator who spent his adult life in Paris. A minor celebrity in France for exploits in planes and airships, Santos-Dumont was a larger than life character: in the family history recently published by Francesca Cartier Brickell, The Cartiers: The Untold Story of the Family Behind the Jewelry Empire, Santos-Dumont is described as travelling betw...
SJX Watches
Trade body Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry (FH) just released its monthly export figures for Swiss watches – a proxy for the broader luxury watch market since Swiss timepieces dominate – and the February numbers are bleak. The month’s statistics illustrate two obvious trends that have shaped in the industry recently: the COVID-19 coronavirus is having a massive impact, and low-cost Swiss watches are being trounced by low-cost smartwatches. An Asian crisis, for now Compared with February last year, the value of exports globally declined by 9.2% – with export volume plunging 22.2% – but as the report notes darkly, the drop “does not yet fully reflect the actual situation in certain markets.” Unsurprisingly, the steepest declines were in the biggest Asian markets – China and Hong Kong – which suffered the worst period of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic in the first two months of the year. The biggest fall was in Hong Kong, where exports fell 42% – the largest monthly decline in 20 years. The city imported just CHF143m of Swiss watches, compared to CHF246m for the same month last year. Exports to China fell 51.5% to CHF73m, from CHF151m for February 2019. February was merely an acceleration of a months-long decline. For the first three months of the year, exports to Hong Kong have fallen 33% compared to the same period last year, while exports to China are down 22%. Though exports to other large markets like the United States, Singapore, and Germa...
Deployant
In the spirit of 'better late than never', we bring you the low-down and our thoughts on the Breguet Tradition 7067 in white gold.
Time+Tide
Picture the scene: it’s a dark night and you’re leaving work when suddenly a man in a balaclava accosts you, waving a 12-inch knife in your face. Give me your Rolex or I’ll “f***ing stab” you, he yells. This was the nerve-jangling scene that confronted Mark Ewart last week as he left his business, … ContinuedThe post What should you do when a knife-wielding maniac tries to steal your Rolex? appeared first on Time+Tide Watches.
Time+Tide
Emerging watchmakers face the near-Sisyphean task of standing out in a sea of low-budget options all vying for market dominance and social media influence. When William Wood’s founder Jonny Garrett launched a crowdfunding campaign to commemorate his grandfather’s heroics in the British Fire Service, the passion in the story clearly resonated with the thousands of … ContinuedThe post HANDS-ON: William Wood The Red Watch appeared first on Time+Tide Watches.
Deployant
In the spirit of 'better late than never', we bring you the low-down and our thoughts on the Duomètre à Quantième Lunaire in white gold from 2016.
SJX Watches
Launched last year alongside the time-only Tonneau, the Privé Tonneau Skeleton Dual Time is classical Cartier in style and execution. The case is a century-old Cartier design that has not aged, while the movement is interesting in aesthetics and mechanics. In fact, the 9919 MC inside is surprisingly novel – it’s a skeleton, form, and curved movement with two time zones. The Tonneau Skeleton is also being produced in a modest limited edition, which means it will remain unusual. But it is hindered by a high price tag. Double fuseau The Tonneau Skeleton Dual Time is modelled on the Tonneau double fuseau (French for “double time zone”) that was produced in a variety of versions, including a 1999 Macau handover commemorative edition, from the 1990s until the mid 2000s. A Cartier Collection Privee Cartier Paris (CPCP) Tonneau dual time zone in white gold, c. 1998. Photo – Sotheby’s Cartier was particularly fond of the twin time zone complication during the period, and the double fuseau was also produced in many Tank case styles, ranging from the Tank Cintree to the Tank Louis Cartier. Despite the diversity, all the double time zone watches shared a common feature – they were powered by two separate small movements – either mechanical or quartz, depending on the model – essentially two tiny watches combined into an extra-large case. Though mechanically unsophisticated, the two-in-one construction made each time zone entirely independent, down to the minute....
Hodinkee
It's a Perpetual Party, and we'll cry if we want to.
Revolution
Fondation de la Haute Horlogerie calls off Watches & Wonders Geneva in view of the latest developments concerning the worldwide spread of the COVID-19
SJX Watches
Watches & Wonders Geneva (WWG), the trade show formerly known as SIHH, has just announced its cancellation. Scheduled to take place in Geneva from April 25 to 29, the event was canned due to “the latest developments concerning the worldwide spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus”. Organising body Fondation de la Haute Horlogerie (FIHH) said in a statement that the decision was made “to protect the health and wellbeing of all our guests, press, partners and teams.” Its announcement comes not long after Switzerland confirmed its first patient with the coronavirus on Tuesday, alongside a sudden spike in cases in Italy. A scene from SIHH 2019 WWG is the second major Swiss event to be cancelled, following the Swatch Group’s decision to call off Time to Move in Zurich, a launch exhibition of its new watches, which was scheduled to take place from February 28 to March 2. Industry insiders now expect Baselworld 2020, slated to take place right after WWG, to follow suit. Several exhibitors at Baselworld, including Bulgari and Citizen, have already pulled out of the fair. But as of February 20, the world’s biggest watch and jewellery trade show is still going ahead.
Deployant
This just in: The Fondation de la Haute Horlogerie has just cancellec Watches & Wonders 2020! Here is the official Press Release.
Quill & Pad
To celebrate its 65th anniversary, Corum invited a few people to its manufacture in La Chaux-de-Fonds to look at some lovely vintage pieces and talk about what the brand has meant to the history of watchmaking. Elizabeth Doerr shares her visit, and visuals, here.
Time+Tide
While the Coronavirus outbreak certainly offers a number of reasons for the watch industry at large to be concerned, its effects haven’t been severely felt yet. According to recent data from the Fondation de la Haute Horlogerie (FHH), the first month of 2020 has seen strong watch sales, with a 9.4 per cent increase in … ContinuedThe post BUSINESS NEWS: Swiss watch exports unaffected by Coronavirus outbreak yet, according to FHH appeared first on Time+Tide Watches.
Quill & Pad
SIHH 2019 provided an instructive example to Tim Mosso of architecture’s low-key role in watch design relative to well-worn tropes. For him it was the third year in a row that parts of Geneva’s Palexpo felt like a Southern California cars-and-coffee event. But there are a few watch brands that do architecture well, and Tim takes a closer look at some of them here.
SJX Watches
Switzerland has a well-earned reputation for producing high-quality machinery and engineering, mostly produced by small and medium-sized businesses making equipment like machine tools, printing presses, and lifts. For the same reasons, Switzerland boasts world-class watch companies, most of which share the same prowess in manufacturing and engineering. As it happens, a Swiss company was an industry leader in cryptography machines for several decades in the late 20th century. Founded by a Swede in Switzerland, Crypto AG sold mechanical encoding devices to some 120 countries, including Iran, India, and the Vatican. Although digital cryptography has now rendered cryptography hardware obsolete, such machines were once crucial to international diplomacy, intelligence, and espionage. Crypto AG was a key producer of these machines, helped by the fact that Switzerland is a neutral country. But a recent investigation by the The Washington Post and German public television network Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (ZDF) have revealed that since 1970, Crypto AG was secretly owned by the CIA and Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), Germany’s federal intelligence service. The news has since spiralled into a scandal in Switzerland – where neutrality has been a national policy since the 19th century – with the government setting up an inquiry to investigate just how much former officials knew. Building in backdoors According to the Post, Crypto AG founder Boris Hagelin had once hoped to pas...
SJX Watches
Almost exactly a year after Breitling announced the Navitimer Ref. 806 remake – a spot-on remake of the first Navitimer and a smash hit – the watchmaker has applied the same formula for the AVI Ref. 765 1953 Re-Edition, a limited edition of 1,953 watches in steel. Introduced in 1953 and produced in several variants until 1965 when it was rebranded the Co-Pilot, the AVI ref. 765 was typical of mid 20th century pilot’s chronographs, with large Arabic numerals, syringe hands, and a steel rotating bezel. In fact, it is reminiscent of the Type 20 chronographs supplied by Breguet, Auricoste and other firms to the French navy and air force during the same period. Remade exactly And the AVI ref. 765 was oversized for the era, with a case measuring 41.1 mm. According to Breitling, the AVI Re-Edition replicates the original to the smallest detail, down to the tenth of a millimetre of case diameter. The steel bezel is even secured by three screws in exactly the same spots as on the original. Only two external elements on the remake have been changed: one is the removal of “Geneve” from the dial, a necessity given Breitling’s location; and the other is the increased water resistance of 30 m. That being said, modern production techniques and materials mean that rather than being perfectly identical, the replica is probably better in fit and finish than the original. The lacquer-filled engraving on the bezel, for instance, is more precisely done on the modern version. The vi...
SJX Watches
Slim, elegantly and typically Breguet in style – the gently off-centre dial echoes asymmetric pocket watches – the Classique Tourbillon Extra-Plat 5367 was originally launched with a guilloche dial, before being given a white, fired enamel dial. And last year Breguet debuted a striking variant with a fully skeletonised movement decorated in a surprisingly elaborate manner. For 2020 Breguet has returned to its traditional look, albeit with a twist: the dial has been transformed into deep blue enamel for a boutique-only edition. Similar to the makeover applied to the time-and-date Classique 5177, the blue dial is grand feu enamel – vitreous enamel set by firing it in an oven at temperatures over 800°C. The dial starts as a disc of solid gold, which is then painted with a mixture of enamel powder, water and oil. It’s then baked in an oven, and the process repeated several times until the deep blue colour is achieved. The surface is then ground down by hand to give it a mirrored finish, before undergoing a final trip to the oven. The star and lozenge minute track is inspired by the same on vintage pocket watches Then the markings on the dial – including the symbols of the minute track and Breguet numerals – are printed in powdered silver, which gives them a granular, metallic sheen. And faintly etched by laser just above the tourbillon is the Breguet “secret” signature, a feature devised in the 19th century to distinguish genuine Breguet pocket watches from ...
SJX Watches
Auction catalogues often offer early 20th century pocket watches of impressive, refined quality that bear the names of unfamiliar Geneva firms. Amongst the most prominent are Agassiz, Ed. Koehn, Haas Neveux, and Touchon. Despite their obscurity now, these brands were once amongst the best in the world – arguably the equals of Patek Philippe or Vacheron Constantin, producing or retailing highly complicated and extra-thin timepieces. All of them, save for one, are now defunct and long forgotten. In fact, most went under long before the Quartz Crisis. A single name has survived and prospered while remaining a family business, by evolving its business over the centuries – Golay Fils & Stahl. A familiar name As an avid reader of auction catalogues, I had come across Golay Fils & Stahl on several occasions, and the name stayed with me because of the high quality of firm’s pocket watches (Haas Neveux being another). Then in November 2019, Phillips sold the Patek Philippe ref. 3652 minute-repeating wristwatch. Not only was the watch relatively recent, having been made in 1985, it was a unique reference powered by a reworked vintage movement – and signed “Golay Fils & Stahl” on the dial. Few retailers get their name on modern Patek Philippe watches, let alone a one-off, custom timepiece. It piqued my curiosity. The ref. 3652 – essentially a Calatrava ref. 96 minute repeater By sheer chance that curiosity was satisfied when Melissa Wolfgang Amenc got in touch after see...
Time+Tide
While watches equipped with a moon phase complication aren’t without their detractors, for the astronomically inclined, they are wonderful devices. And, from an aesthetic standpoint, timepieces just tend to look better when they sport some form of moon on their dial. Don’t believe us? Well, take a look at these four watches … maybe they’ll … ContinuedThe post Out of this world: These are 4 of the most attractive moon phases money can buy appeared first on Time+Tide Watches.
Quill & Pad
Jaeger-LeCoultre supports ‘The Supermarket Of Images,’ the latest exhibition at the Jeu de Paume arts center in Paris, which exhibits and promotes all forms of mechanical and electronic imagery. The exhibition’s central premise is that our lives are increasingly saturated with images. The impact of this is the story that this exhibition tells.
Time+Tide
Well, this is a bit different to a normal What Sealed The Deal … seeing as this Baume & Mercier Capeland Chronograph is actually my watch. I purchased it late last year after a particularly dogged haggling match that started with a seemingly innocuous Gumtree.com ad. Anyway, I’ll spare you the deets of the torrid exchange … ContinuedThe post What Sealed The Deal – James’s Baume & Mercier Capeland Chronograph appeared first on Time+Tide Watches.
Deployant
Chopard celebrates three decades of partnership with the Mille Miglia race, la corsa più bella del mondo which is raced over a 1,600 km loop running from Brescia to Rome and back.
Hodinkee
Coronavirus concerns are a factor. But sister LVMH group brands Hublot, TAG Heuer, and Zenith say they’ll stay.
Time+Tide
The Bulgari booth is among the most grand at the Baselworld fair. Opposite TAG Heuer at the entry to Hall 1, it is a glittering sentry to what was only a few years ago the highlight of the yearly calendar for the world watch industry. Peak glamour. Peak PR. Peak hype. As of this morning, … ContinuedThe post Coronavirus chaos as Bulgari pulls out of Baselword 2020, and Australian boutique openings cancelled appeared first on Time+Tide Watches.
WatchAdvice
Nomos is the brand of entry level luxury Bauhaus design. Typically offering decluttered dials, no nonsense design and some of the best value in the luxury watch world. So is the Nomos Tangente power reserve the German watch for you? Case The Nomos Tangente power reserve features a stainless steel case, 35mm in circumference and only 6.6mm thick. The case itself takes an interesting shape having a raised band of steel around the center of its construction leaving depressions above and below the mid case. This offers some visual interest to what is already a remarkably slim and slender watch. The model weighing only 40grams including the supplied leather strap, offers the wearer the opportunity to constantly forget that it’s on their wrist. The stainless steel is finished to a high polish on all sides. There is the presence of a typically industrial and lets face it, German no nonsense crown, which features deep cuts for easy manipulation. Everything about the case on this watch screams German watch design, nothing is overdone, nothing is unnecessary or flamboyant. That is, until you see the lugs. The lugs are a strong statement in design from the Glashutte manufacturer. They protrude from the case and drop sharply at 45 degrees. They give the watch a much longer stance than the 35mm case size would suggest. Because of this design choice the watch wears 44mm lug to lug. When on the wrist I found the face of the watch appears about 2mm too small for the lugs. Although t...
SJX Watches
Timor, best known as one of the 12 watch brands that supplied wristwatches to the British Ministry of Defence (MOD) during the Second World War, is making a comeback with the Heritage Field, a faithful remake of its most famous timepiece that’ll be offered on Kickstarter in mid February. Widely known as WWW, short for “Watches Wristlet Waterproof”, the British army-issue watches were dependable, no-nonsense instruments that have been reproduced by other revived brands, but the Timor remake is probably the closest to the original. The WWW Now being brought back to life by British entrepreneur Benjamin Briggs, Timor was originally a trademark of J. Bernheim & Co. of La Chaux-de-Fonds, which like many other small- and medium-sized watch brands of the time, assembled cases and movements produced by specialist suppliers and sold watches under its own brand name. The Timor WWW, for instance, was equipped with the cal. 6060, an AS 1203 made by A. Schild, once one of Switzerland’s leading movement makers. The remake (left) and an original WWW But like much of the Swiss watch industry, Timor went bust during the Quartz Crisis in the 1970s. Now it has returned, but Timor is not alone. With the values of vintage WWW watches having risen to a level where remakes are viable – it is hard to sell a reproduction for more than the original – Timor is not the only resurrected brand making a WWW. Timor’s revival follows that of British brand Vertex, another supplier of the WWW...
Time+Tide
While Patek Philippe are kept most popularly in the mind today through a handful of steel sports watches and the lyrics of chart-topping songs, the company has a history of remarkable innovation that is sometimes overlooked. In the middle of last century - 1950 to be precise - the Genevan firm released a solar-powered table clock, an … ContinuedThe post RECOMMENDED READING: The remarkable innovation of the Patek Philippe Solar Clock appeared first on Time+Tide Watches.
Hodinkee
18th century mechanics with 21st century aesthetics.
Time+Tide
You’ll be familiar with the misadventures of Spinal Tap over their 1982 album, Smell The Glove. The original cover artwork is problematic. Featuring the image of “a greased, naked woman on all fours wearing a dog collar”, the cover is knocked back by retailers who flatly refuse to display such a sexist image. Without the … ContinuedThe post The end of the road – Luke’s exit watch appeared first on Time+Tide Watches.
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