Quill & Pad
Watchbox’s energetic Tim Mosso chats with Elizabeth Doerr about the watch industry in the time of crisis, and the two share views on canceled trade shows, the increased importance of the internet, how brands might weather the storm, and much more.
Quill & Pad
With the introduction of a white gold variant of the Odysseus, A. Lange & Söhne clearly confirms its intention to make the line a true “sixth family” within the Lange universe, not a narrow collection limited strictly to novel stainless steel watches.
Quill & Pad
R.S.20 is the name of Renault’s F1 car for this season, and elements of the high-tech car’s design and technology are reflected in the four dynamic, limited edition, race-themed chronographs of the Bell & Ross R.S.20 Renault F1 collection.
Quill & Pad
The Bollinger 2012 is fast gaining a reputation as one of the very best vintages of this century. Ken Gargett thinks it's fantastic champagne, and while truly wonderful now it has a great future. 98/100. Just wow! A couple of cases of this and we would feel a lot better about an extended period of isolation!
Quill & Pad
While Martin Green is not a particular fan of skeletonized watches, the Jaquet Droz Grande Seconde Skelet-One has seduced him. Here he explains why.
Quill & Pad
The Breguet Classique 7337 and 7337 take the brand's historic "DNA" and upgrades that with new guilloche and blue dials. But what's that got to do with Joshua Munchow's nose? You'll learn the answer to that here.
Quill & Pad
The Geneva Seal is very old, having been proposed on November 6, 1886 by the Grand Council of the Republic and Canton of Geneva as a way to certify a level of quality for which the canton was becoming known. Every piece produced with the Geneva Seal is equally outstanding, so let's have a look at what goes into attaining this coveted hallmark.
Quill & Pad
It’s no secret that GaryG is a big fan of Vianney Halter and his work. He strongly believes that one of the defining moments of his development as a watch collector was taking the plunge and buying one of Halter's landmark Antiquas in pink gold. But how do two of these rare watches look side by side under the unforgiving lens of GaryG's camera? Find out here!
Quill & Pad
The watches Breguet has created using the exquisitely rare and beautiful cameo carving technique for its Cammea collection should remain heirlooms for the ages. Elizabeth Doerr explains why.
Quill & Pad
Luxury watch brands and groups are stepping up to the plate and doing some real good in regard to the current COVID-19 pandemic. Here Elizabeth Doerr highlights five initiatives.
Quill & Pad
Here are five notable and (relatively) affordable timepieces that Nancy Olson hopes to experience firsthand soon and is pleased to highlight here for your pleasure.
Quill & Pad
The Montecristo No. 3 Cuban cigar is most certainly a good corona. That said, Ken Gargett confesses that it had been a few years since he had tried one. But when a friend offered him one recently, he quickly remembered why they should be in everyone’s rotation and what he had been missing.
Quill & Pad
The point of the large watch fairs is (or was) the sheer scale of their visitor numbers. In no other venue can brands meet with so many clients, collectors and press, and vice versa. If a large fair is limited in visitor capacity by health restrictions, can it still dominate the launch cycles of big brands? Ian Skellern examines likely winners and losers of the brave new world of exhibitions in 2021.
Quill & Pad
Rolex, Patek Philippe, Chanel, Chopard and Tudor have just announced leaving Baselworld to create a new watch show in Geneva with the Fondation de la Haute Horlogerie's Watches & Wonders. The show will be held in early April 2021 at Geneva's Palexpo. This is going to be one interesting year full of new thoughts and ideas. Get out the popcorn!
Quill & Pad
The success of Le Labo can be boiled down to a single scent: Santal 33. It touches everything that Le Labo stands for. When you put a touch of Santal 33 on it smells refreshing yet familiar, and Martin Green explains why here.
Quill & Pad
Joshua Munchow's love for Chinchilla Red petrified wood in combination with red gold might make some believe that he puts it well above the other models in Jaquet Droz's Loving Butterfly Automaton line, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. He adores the opal dials too because they look like interstellar explosions. What else makes them so unique?
Quill & Pad
When they hear the name Fabergé, most people immediately think of the Imperial Easter eggs. This is logical because even today the breathtaking craftsmanship and detailed execution of these objets d’art are the stuff of legends.
Quill & Pad
If you’re like GaryG, you’ve been spending some time during the current pandemic-driven lockdown monitoring online watch publications, including Quill & Pad, and you’ve likely seen at least a few comments in response to posts that go something like this, “How in the world can you possibly be focused on something like watches at such a terrible time?” Well, Gary is here to tell you.
Quill & Pad
With the two big Swiss fairs’ very existences hanging in the precipice thanks to past mistakes and the global pandemic COVID-19, and with no inkling of a clear way forward, Elizabeth Doerr looks at the turbulent first three months of 2020 and shares how brand managers are reacting to the 'new normal.'
Quill & Pad
Colin Alexander Smith highlights the fact that both electric guitars and watches share the timeless debate over whether to restore an item showing its age or to preserve it “as is.” And John Mayer is mixed up in both; but how?
Quill & Pad
Despite their resilient nature, modern tool watches show no lack of subtle details and sparkle with refinement as these three brand-new pieces prove. Here, Sabine Zwettler introduces a trio of instrument watches by Bell & Ross, Breitling, and Panerai.
Quill & Pad
The Parmigiani Tonda 1950 Double Rainbow Flying Tourbillon pleases the heart and the eye with its complex and well-finished movement, but Martin Green thinks that it also tantalizes with its unique design and innovative use of colored gemstones.
Quill & Pad
Main Ridge Estate has been considered as producing not only some of the Mornington Peninsula’s best Pinot and Chardonnay, but some of the best anywhere in Australia, pretty much from day one. Small quantities of its wines do manage to make their way to international markets, but you’ll need to search for them. Ken Gargett explains why you might want to do just that.
Quill & Pad
For those unaware of the work of clockmaker Eric Freitas, Joshua Munchow describes his aesthetics as a combination of the styles of Guillermo Del Toro, Tim Burton, Salvador Dalí, and the entire production design of Jim Henson’s 'The Dark Crystal' if they were combined into an intense mechanical wall clock. Who wouldn't want to have a look at this?
Quill & Pad
In the old, pre-COVID-19 watch world, the far-too-prevalent low standard of press material supplied by brands to journalists was amply counterbalanced by the sheer number of journalists and collectors around the world supplying lots of hands-on, third-party information, opinion, and photography. Now that's gone, so it’s time for brand marketing and communication teams to lift their games. Ian Skellern shares three easy ways how.
Quill & Pad
To my longtime friends in the watch hobby, and perhaps to regular readers here as well, the mention of my name may conjure up a number of connotations: patron of the independents, fan of A. Lange & Söhne, admirer of Patek Philippe grand complications, and longtime customer of Jaeger-LeCoultre, among other characterizations more or less favorable. But vintage?
Quill & Pad
Martin Green highlights three new watches that we would have seen for the first time at Watches & Wonders 2020 had the fair run: the new Montblanc Heritage Monopusher Chronograph, the Cartier Santos-Dumont XL, and Roger Dubuis's Excalibur Twofold that introduces a new material to watchmaking: LumiSuperBiwiNova.
Quill & Pad
Are you ready for fine high horology with a bit of glamour? Here are two of the more affordable and elegantly sporty models from two of watchmaking’s finest brands: Audemars Piguet and Patek Philippe.
Quill & Pad
As just about every watch event has been canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic, Elizabeth Doerr highlights five new watches for women here that we would have seen for the first time at Watches & Wonders 2020.
Quill & Pad
It seems a bit ironic to Ken Gargett that, as the world goes into an unprecedented lockdown to deal with the novel coronavirus pandemic, he reviews a wine, the Yalumba The Caley Cabernet Sauvignon Shiraz 2014, which celebrates one of the most peripatetic members of the wine industry. Yet here we are.
Question, suggestion, or just want to say hi? Drop a note.