With Dubai Watch Week behind us, the last big watch event of the year is over. This usually means that all the big releases have been unveiled. And as the end of the year is approaching quickly, it s time to start looking back. So, in the upcoming weeks, we ll look back at some of the best releases of the year. This week, we will begin with the best dive watches of 2023. The most popular watch category has seen an impressive number of great releases. We have lined up our ten favorites of the year for our first retrospective list.The list season has officially started! I am a sucker for lists, as you would expect. After all, I have been writing lists for quite some time for Fratello. But when...
Imagine a brand that goes back to 1735 and is the oldest still-existing watch manufacturer. Consider that this same brand launched a timepiece in 1991 that, at the time, was the most complicated wristwatch ever produced. Surely, this brand must be the most famous and prestigious name in watchmaking, right? Wrong. Blancpain is not the most famous and prestigious name in watchmaking. Seniority and the creation of the 1735 Grande Complication, a platinum watch with a 740-part movement that took a year to assemble, didnt propel the name Blancpain to the absolute top of the watchmaking pyramid. What happened, whats happening, and whats about to happen to the brand? Today, we re breaking down the ...
Am I exaggerating from the start with such a bold claim? Maybe not, as it turns out, and as for conquering the subarctic, thats easy for me living in Norway…or is it? Unlike fellow The Grey Nato podcast listener and managing editor Nacho, Im not the most outdoorsy type. But the light and robust Timex Expedition North coaxed me into the harsh subzero woods.We live in an era of eroding watch etiquette, where youll see big 45mm pilot s or diver s watches with sleek suits. Sure, you might not use this fabric-strap field watch with a pinstriped business suit, but on the other hand, you dont need to love the outdoors. A good field watch riffs on many categories, including pilots watches, and...
I know that spec sheets are important to many of us watch fans, but it s first impressions that are lasting. While most brands copy designs that have their roots in the past, only a handful of brands take a different route. Cyrus Geneve is one of those brands. I had a chance to go hands-on with the two new Cyrus Klepcys GMT models that the brand presented at Watches and Wonders this year. To my surprise, the modern timepieces unveil many more conventional traits than you would initially expect. It made the wearing experience one of the most surprising of this year.Straight out of the box, the Cyrus Klepcys GMT models look modern, almost futuristic. I realized that I have recently focused str...
I love alarm watches, and you know that. I always say that a vintage watch collection isn t complete without an alarm watch. Recently, I realized how many alarm watches I have and how different they are. If there were only one vintage alarm watch you could choose, which one would it be?The competition is pretty tough as we re comparing the incomparable here. How is that possible? Well, they are all alarm watches, but the Citizen is disguised as a diver, the Nivada as a GMT, the Vulcain as a dresser, and the Basis, well…I don t even know how to categorize that one. Let s dig deeper into each of them.Citizen Alarm Date ALDS 52902-YI have to say, we have more options to choose from when i...
It s a good time to be a watch enthusiast. No, actually, it s a great time to be a watch enthusiast. Although the enormous number of brands currently in existence might be overwhelming, its also a good thing. More brands mean more options for style, price, quality, and uniqueness. More brands also mean more intense competition and the need for each to excel in something, whether it be coming up with particular colors, movements, or techniques to assemble dials. In 2022, I was blown away by the sheer diversity and creativity of the brands I saw at the New York City edition of the Windup Watch Fair. A few weeks ago, for the 2023 edition of this event, my mind was doubly blown away.?About a yea...
In October 2023, I got the call. No, not from an AD to pick up a long-awaited watch but from the folks at Grand Seiko Europe to join them on the 2023 Media Experience Tour in Japan. I was just as excited - no, even more so. I d never visited Japan before and had always been eager to understand the values behind the Grand Seiko brand better. I always felt that there was something else behind the technical perfection and beauty of the watches - something more profound. Here s what I saw and learned about it.Grand Seiko Media Experience TourI ll skip the 14-hour flight and the subsequent jet lag. Arriving in downtown Tokyo around 10:00 in the morning was quite perfect. The afternoon was free to...
Today s episode of Fratello Talks is all about accessories. And no, we re not talking about wallets, scarves, and pinkie rings, don t worry. Listen as your host, Fratello managing editor Nacho, editor Daan, and shop manager Laurits discuss the watch accessories we can t live without. Despite the somewhat hyperbolic title, these are all accessories that we use almost every day. Most watch enthusiasts face the same challenges - storage, transport, and strap changes. So, rather unsurprisingly, all three guys are aligned in their picks. However, there are some twists in the individually chosen accessories to suit their needs. But before we check them out, it s time to see what s on their wrists....
As another Thanksgiving comes around, were swiftly gliding into the holiday season. Hamilton steps up with a festive showcase to bring out the explorer s spirit in us. Featured are six of the brand s popular models, including the versatile Jazzmaster Performer, the sleek Khaki Field, and the retro quartz classics PSR and Ventura. Get ready to be dazzled by a selection that inspires adventure in every gift.This year, Hamiltons festive campaign takes on a dazzling theme highlighted by the enchanting northern lights. Interestingly, its timing couldn t be better in tapping one of the worlds most awe-inspiring natural phenomena. As it happens, the 2023/24 aurora season is set to enter the peak of...
One of the major appealing factors of vintage watches is the way they show their age. Often called patina, it encompasses the subtle marks that hint at the many adventures the watch has been on - yellowed lume, a scratch here and there, maybe some discoloration of the dial or fading of the bezel, and so on. Modern watch restoration technology, however, allows us to turn back the clock. We can make vintage watches look new or even aged precisely the way we want them.That raises some questions. What kind of restoration can be done nowadays? And, of equal importance, should you do it? In this article, I will show some examples and try to help you answer that question for you and your specific v...
It was back in 2016 that Code41 first launched the Anomaly-01 via a Kickstarter campaign. The debut went well, and since then, the brand has had success in making a number of watch models with a wide variety of price points and functions. Today, though, is about celebrating the beginning with the Anomaly-01 Collector Edition.Recently, I wrote about the Code41 Mecascape, a mind-bending piece of horology. It led me to take a closer look at the brand and its different offerings. There s a wide array on the Code41 website, including a tourbillon. However, the Anomaly-01 is the watch that is responsible for the brand s success. When it was first launched in 2016, it easily blew away its funding g...
The new Ming 37.04 Rose Gold is the independent company s first-ever foray into using precious metal. Perhaps that s surprising considering the vast array of innovative materials that have found their way into past releases. Yet here we are and, folks, this is a beauty, albeit one for those with deeper pockets!In August 2022, Ming released its 37.04 monopusher chronograph in titanium. A hundred pieces of this model were made and sold out online as part of the brand s Special Projects Cave. The watches featured a guilloche dial underneath a layer of sapphire. The result was a beautiful watch with lovely, wearable proportions. Thankfully, the team at Ming chose to give us a sequel. This time, ...
Welcome to another episode of Fratello On Air! This week, we re excited because we re recording from the same room, and we re in London. In fact, we re in the Square Mile! Today, we re talking about vintage Excelsior Park watches, movements, and the related brands that used the movements. Enjoy this vintage deep cut! This podcast player is blocked because you did not accept marketing cookies. Change cookie settings Together again! Balazs has made the voyage from the continent over to Blighty, and we ve decided to record an episode before heading off to the year s last Time4APint get-together. We ve been looking forward to this evening for a while, and we promised to each bring watches th...
Welcome to the first semifinal of Fratello s Seiko World Cup. Four Seiko divers have already been kicked out of the competition. The other four are still very much alive and ready to take on their next opponents. Today, Daan s SPB317 and Thomas s SKX009 will compete against each other. It s promising to be a very close battle, and that s not just based on our intuition. It s actually based on an earlier encounter between these two editors and their Seiko divers.That previous confrontation took place this past February during one of our famous Sunday Morning Showdowns. As it stands now, Daan s SPB317 took the win there with 51% of the votes. Let s see if either Thomas or Daan can come up with...
For its ongoing 40th-anniversary celebration, G-Shock is rolling out loads of attractive new models. This latest four-piece drop has been dubbed the Polychromatic collection. It s a more colorful take on some of the brand s most popular models and should please fans. Let s take a closer look at this kaleidoscope of colors.It s not a surprise that G-Shock has decided to make colorful pieces. After all, there are a number of aftermarket companies offering modified variants, and they re doing it successfully. There s something comforting, though, about buying exactly what you want directly from the factory. The warranty, the quality, and the availability all can make it a more reassuring experi...
Last week, Omega hosted its Planet Omega event in New York and invited an impressive lineup of ambassadors, consisting of actors, athletes, models, and so on. Interestingly enough, actor Daniel Craig showed up wearing an Omega Speedmaster that misled numerous people. At first, it looked like the Canopus Gold Moonwatch, but upon closer inspection, it wasn t.Actor Daniel Craig - Image: OmegaA new white-dial Speedmaster ProfessionalFirst of all, the Canopus Gold Speedmaster Professional has a fully brushed bracelet. It also doesn t have red printing on the dial like Craig s watch did. The hands of Craig s Speedmaster also appeared to be black, but that could be due to a reflection of some sort....
The new Horage Autark Tourbillon is an audacious offering from a company that seeks to provide an incredible level of accessibility to watch collectors. Specifically, today, we re talking about a Swiss-made micro-rotor tourbillon for under CHF 10,000. In a world where watch prices have gone mad, this sounds incredible. Let s take a closer look.For a relatively young company (with watches on the market since 2015), Horage already has an impressive track record. Its catalog consists of accessible watches with in-house movements that are far from run-of-the-mill. As an example, the brand has a self-produced micro-rotor caliber called the K2 as well as a tourbillon, the K-TOU. Prices, especially...
How do you start building? Well, one brick at a time. Therefore, I have limited myself to just one watch. A watch with a staggering $25,000 price tag, that is. You might think that picking just one watch is the easy way out of a complex conundrum, but youd be wrong. Finding the perfect, solid foundation for a future watch collection is not a simple task. I had to go over a long list of brands and models, answering questions regarding timelessness, historical significance, et cetra, et cetera. It all boiled down to the Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso collection and three watches in particular - the Tribute models with a chronograph, a calendar, and the Monoface Small Seconds in gold.I ended up choos...
Today is a great day for fans of Seiko chronographs. Here, we have the brand-new Seiko Speedtimer SRQ047 and SRQ049, which are based on early 1970s models from the Japanese brand. These two new watches ooze 70s charm and have the capable 8R48 caliber running the show.We get a standard-production panda dial (SRQ047) and a limited-edition reverse panda dial (SRQ049). The latter is a limited edition of 1,000 pieces and comes with a secondary leather strap included. Lets see what these two new Seiko watches are all about.A golden age for Seiko chronographsThese two new releases take inspiration from a 1972 Seiko chronograph. You can consider this a bit of a golden era for Seiko chronographs due...
When one starts to dwell in the weird and wonderful world of vintage chronographs, there are quite a few iconic models that pop up almost instantly. The Zenith 143-6 Yugoslavian Air Force is one of those pieces. As someone who holds Angelus and its similar-looking pieces near and dear to my heart, this watch instantly struck a chord with me. The size, the caliber, and the history are all attributes I could relate to. Obtaining one, however, would take a lot of work… Or so I thought until one day when a dear friend sent me a message on WhatsApp. The rest, as they say, is history.Mike (Stockton) and I are both fans of Excelsior Park-operated chronographs, so there was no question that th...
