Quill & Pad
Some people understand the benefits, limitations, and mechanics of duty-free shopping for a luxury watch at an airport: they know a deal when they see one. For these savvy individuals, shopping at the airport can and does make economic sense – sometimes. In this article Chris Malburg explains watch shopping at airports for the rest of us.
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What do truffles, Harley-Davidson motorcycles, trout, elephant dung, and green ants have in common? These items and countless more have all been used to make specialist craft gins. Sure, gin needs juniper. But after that it is open slather. Indeed, it is hard to think of a plant, herb, root, flower, leaf, and much more than has not been used to make gin. And some of them are just batsh*t crazy!
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NBA basketball great James Harden explains how he got into watches and why he invested in Vanguart and its first watch, the Black Hole Tourbillon.
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Produced at BMW’s Bavarian plants, The 8 x Jeff Koons’s multilayer paint job requires more than 250 hours of painstaking hand-application by a team of 20 – the most time BMW has spent on the exterior paintwork of any automobile. Y-Jean Mun-Delsalle sat down with the famed artist to talk about this colorful collaboration.
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The Quill & Pad team was invited to a private chat at the Four Seasons hotel with Jean-Claude Biver, one of the most influential and important personalities in modern watchmaking. Biver, now 73, is embarking on what is probably a last hurrah: a watch brand under his own name. This video explains it all in his own words.
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A very special new exhibition opens this week at London’s Design Museum: the OAK Collection (“OAK” stands for “one of a kind”). This exhibition comprises unique and ultra-rare museum-quality timepieces that have been amassed by a single collector over the last 40 years, including the largest number of Patek Philippe timepieces once owned by Henry Graves, Jr. But that is not all.
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We are seeing more and more releases of vintage and prestige cuvees from the great champagne producers. Latest cab off the ranks is the 2014 La Grande Année from Bollinger (and the Rosé from the same year). Ken Gargett tackles questions about it including: where does 2014 rank? Is it a justifiable release? If so, what makes it so?
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At Watches and Wonders 2022, Martin Green was impressed with the Chopard L.U.C XPS 1860 Officer, a striking watch with a yellow gold case and a forest-green dial. So he made a little video for Instagram that went viral. Here he explains why.
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“May I have your full attention? This is one of the most important watches ever.” As Sotheby’s auctioneer Benoît Colson opened lot 72 on May 10, 2022, the room seemed to hold its collective breath for a moment. He continued, “The personal Royal Oak of Gérald Genta – you could not dream of a better provenance for a Royal Oak, an Audemars Piguet, or even any wristwatch.” And here's how the world record price for a vintage AP Royal Oak went down from an eyewitness.
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Trilobe's Une Folle Journée expands upward and outward to expose the mechanical ingenuity behind the dial with a three-dimensional display reminiscent of an exploded view of a movement. Joshua Munchow is a fan and explains why here.
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For many in the watch world, the fairly unassuming Hermès Arceau Le Temps Voyageur – with no tourbillon, no chimes, and nothing insanely in your face – became the watch of the fair at Watches and Wonders 2022. In fact, in our post-fair round table it was the “best in show” for at least half of our on-location team. Elizabeth Doerr takes a closer look at this imaginative opus with practical use.
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After obtaining a Delta Dolce Vita Oversized at the conclusion of his Italian period, Martin Green was a very happy man. The pen served him very well, and he was in love with the looks as well as the writing experience. And while Martin wasn't looking for a replacement pen, it happened anyway . . . with some very famous brands. Read the third part of his writing instrument odyssey here.
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The first Black Tot Day was in 1970, the last day on which sailors in the United Kingdom’s Royal Navy were issued their daily rum rations (“tots”). Pusser's has taken the exact recipe used by the Royal Navy when it discontinued the daily ration on July 31, 1970 and used it to make its rums, the only producer in the world to do so. Here, Ken Gargett fills us in on everything tot - he luckily doesn't go "sipping the admiral," though.
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Imagine that after discovering and rebuilding the (imaginary) Time Viewer originally constructed by Leonardo da Vinci, an inventor saw the need for a navigational clock for time travelers. Well one inventor, Tom Bales, did just that and acted upon it.
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The new Montblanc Patron of Art Homage to Victoria & Albert limited edition pen collection comprises two 4810 and two 888 editions, with one honoring Victoria and the other Albert within each edition. The LE100 and the LE8 editions each honor the royal couple together as one pen. Nancy Olson explains what makes them so special.
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As both a Marvel junkie and a big fan of Jaeger-LeCoultre, Elizabeth Doerr is excited that the JLC Master Ultra Thin Perpetual Calendar will feature again in the new Marvel film, 'Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness.'
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One of the great positives about Grower Champagne is that more and more stars continue to emerge. And one name that has been appearing on the radar more often is Laherte Frères. Ken Gargett takes a closer look and a few tastes.
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Urwerk is developing an artistic design series to honor historical cultures that have related to time. The first is the UR-100V Time and Culture, which focuses on the Aztec sun stone.
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De Bethune’s watches can be equally as technical and eyebrow-raising on the outside as they are on the inside. Nonetheless, Elizabeth Doerr is still surprised every single time that she catches a glimpse of one of the Kind of Blue beauties: the depth, shimmer, and shine of this particular color is mesmerizing. And surely not only to her. Find out how she felt wearing one of these for a while!
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At the 2016 World Whiskies Awards, Teeling Whiskey was awarded “World’s Best Irish Single Malt” and then in 2019 “World’s Best Single Malt.” Ken Gargett takes a look at (and a few drams of) a couple of the company's wonderful whiskeys and explains what makes them so exceptional.
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George Daniels was an iridescent figure, often setting the tone of good horological taste during his lifetime. The rich tapestry of published works and timepieces continue to fascinate horologically minded people everywhere. And now there is a series of Daniels videos on Web of Stories that are well worth checking out!
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In case you missed it, the last Friday in April has been declared International Viognier Day. So in honor of the occasion, Ken Gargett takes a dive into the vat of this often-overlooked white wine that nearly died out but was thankfully resurrected again.
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Bovet has always been a brand with a particular fondness for watches that show multiple time zones. And Martin Green has always appreciated these Bovet models with multiple time zones because they integrate the complications so effortlessly. And the new Orbis Mundi, created to celebrate the brand's 200th anniversary, is no exception.
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Patrik Sjögren of GoS was already active on Instagram in support of Ukraine in early March, at which time he saw an opportunity to help in the form of a collaboration with artist Matthew Miller (@sunflowerman.watch). The result is the GoS Northern Lights for Ukraine Norrsken unique piece now being auctioned by Sotheby's. Elizabeth Doerr explains what it is and how it came about here.
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The Louis Moinet Memoris Spirit chronograph is an aesthetic and mechanical update to the classic Memoris chronograph that may end up being the most sought-after model yet. Joshua Munchow takes a closer look at how it arrived here.
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Here Elizabeth Doerr brings you the results of Ineichen's Precious Blues auction on April 23, 2022, including eight less mainstream picks.
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Back in December 2020 a teaser trailer was released for a then-upcoming feature documentary called 'Keeper of Time.' Elizabeth Doerr was quite excited by the trailer and couldn’t wait for its final release. Well, that release has finally come, and she has had the chance to preview it. She shares her (very positive) thoughts about the film here.
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Rarely has the term sports watch been as appropriate as when applied to the BR 03-94 Multimeter from Bell & Ross. This nifty chronograph displays five different scales on the dial to measure various things. In that sense, it is a modern-day version of the vintage chronographs with “snail scales” that did the same, though not in such an elaborate way.
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Why watches? Ask what makes a watch enthusiast tick and the idea of the “soul” of a watch might well feature in the response – the idea that something elevates the watch from a cold object of engineering to something of greater import. Here Ryan Schmidt tracks "soul" down and gets contemplative on its nature along with some very special imagery.
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If you attended Watches and Wonders 2022, you may have noticed the large exhibition called Time Design right near the entrance, which was organized by the cultural arm of the Fondation de la Haute Horlogerie. If you missed the Time Design exhibition at the fair, you may now see it until May 8, 2022 in the FHH’s space at Pont de la Machine right in the center of Geneva. It is free and open to the public.
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