On a weekly basis we receive quite a bit of introductions to new (micro) watch brands. Somehow, it seems that there is a huge interest in them as they are able to quickly raise enough funds to start producing watches after they showed their plans to the public. One of the reasons is perhaps that a lot of these micro brands are able to keep the price very reasonable at the end. Not everyone has $5000 USD to spend on a watch, we are pretty well aware of that after our huge survey last year. See the chart below, which shows that 20,62% of our readers is spending (and obviously interested) in watches with a price tag below $ 1000 USD. Enter micro brands. Besides being able to choose from a varie...
Leading up to A. Lange & S?hne s new model introductions in Geneva last January, I was on the edge of my seat with anticipation. I think very highly of the brand and was ready to be wowed by something special. The brand did not disappoint as they introduced a stuninng piece with my favorite complication: the Zeitwerk Minute Repeater. The minute repeater is the ultimate complication in my opinion. All other complications are visual wonders: whether a tourbillon, chronograph or world timer. The minute repeater, however, is one of the few mechanical complications, aside from the alarm, that addresses your sense of hearing.Normally, a minute repeater is being activated by a slide and will th...
As promised, this month will be straps galore at Fratello Watches! We are thrilled about how successful the series has become and more and more companies get in touch with us to review their amazing products. In the 5th edition of Strap Review we have a very cool brand for your reading pleasure. These guys are not ordinary strap makers; the stuff they produce varies from regular 18mm leather to 24mm bespoke Panerai straps, Natos and so on. But lets not rush into details so fast. Please meet G.L.C. Straps from Rome, Italy.?In the beginning of the series when I was still collecting information about various makers I had already come across GLC but for some reason we did not get in touch. A cou...
It is Speedy Tuesday and today we have Philip Kisloff giving his thoughts and opinions about the new Omega Speedmaster X-33 ‘SkyWalker . This X-33 is already the 3rd generation of this astronaut s timepiece. Where the 2nd Generation model was more or less a little update of the 1st Generation model, both in functionality and aesthetics, the 3rd Generation is a complete redesign and considered to be the real 2.0 version of the X-33 watch.Speedmaster X-33 ReviewThe Speedmaster X-33 has been out for 3 months now, and several owners have already posted their reviews on line. My video was uploaded to YouTube at the end of last year, where I ran through all the operations of the various func...
It was a bit silent around Fortis lately. While this brand from 1912 definitely had great moments in history, in recent years mainly with their Fortis Cosmonautis collection. Watches that are being (officially) used by Russian cosmonauts since 1994.2015 however, will be their year of comeback. Comeback is perhaps a bit dramatized, but we ve been whispered that Fortis will have a new corporate identity, new forms of marketing and appealing advertising campaigns. We are very curious to see which new way the Fortis brand will be heading, but perhaps their new Terrestis Tycoon model will give you an indication of the brand s comeback.Fortis Terrestis TycoonWe don t have all details yet about thi...
Todays article is a lesson in watch esoterica: perhaps not for Seiko addicts, but I hope to bring some attention to what I think is a significant piece of the companys history. Recently, we featured an article about Seikos first professional dive watch, the 62MAS. While I made it clear that this is the undisputable first of firsts, the question of lineage always exists. The simple question is, was there a progenitor to the 62MAS? Lets dive in and find out, but we wont dive too deeply as youll soon see.While I wasnt alive, it doesnt take much reading or social awareness to realize that the mid 1960s were a time of tremendous transition. It seemed to be a period of transition away from the fee...
NOMOS just won another design award for one of their timepieces. This time, the brand from Glashtte received the iF Product Design Award for their Metro watch. NOMOS received iF Product Design Awards in previous years as well, for their Zrich (2012), Tangomat GMT Plus (2013), and Ahoi (2014).According to the official press release, The iF Product Design Award has been bestowed upon outstanding design achievements for the last 60 years and belongs to the oldest and most renowned prizes worldwide. It recognizes modern icons-recipients of the iF label awarded by the international expert jury have successfully demonstrated that the design of their products creates added value. This award repre...
About a week ago, I was contacted by Lawrence, a fan of Speedmaster watches. He started reading Fratello Watches after the kind staff of the Omega Boutique in Natick, MA made him aware of our Speedy Tuesday feature. Now, we get quite a bit of e-mail per week (in all honesty it is on a daily basis) but Lawrence wrote me that he had something special. A watch that belonged to Wally Schirra, the only astronaut to have flown Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions.Wally Schirra passed away in May 2007 (age 84) and just two months before, he was interviewed by my friend Chuck Maddox, who passed away one year later, in May 2008 (read my interview with Chuck here). You can read the interview between Wa...
When I was spending my holidays in Italy last summer, I couldn t resist doing some watch window-shopping in Verona. I came across a big retailer that carried a lot of brands, including Omega. I noticed that they had a number of Speedmaster Professional watches on display, so I went inside and asked about them. When the salesman carried in a couple of trays with Omega watches, there was also a tray with Seamaster Aqua Terra watches. One of the watches from that particular tray that caught my attention was the PGA Golf edition: a beautiful, sleek looking watch with green accents on the dial featuring Omega s caliber 8500 movement. I thought that this might be a perfect watch for everyday weari...
The first Tourbillon in the new generation Big Bang line. Features a beautiful skeleton movement and an added practical power reserve indicator function on the dial side. More horology, more expertise, more innovation, more fusion such is the ethos that drives the Complications department at the Hublot Manufacture. Born of a desire to pursue the path to independence, which means Hublot must be able to design and produce its own movements for all of its product lines, the Big Bang, with its new case (unveiled in 2013), is now available with a tourbillon.Designed, developed and produced entirely by Hublot s micro-mechanics, engineers and watchmakers, this proprietary movement is a traditional ...
There are actors who wear their favourite watches often during the shoot of movies giving headaches to costume designers; just think of Stallone (Schwarzenegger and technically the entire cast of The Expemdables 3) and the famous Panerai Luminor or Tom Selleck with his GMT-Master 1675. Alain Delon loved his Audemars Piquet Royal Oak Jumbo so much he sported the same watch in many of his movies.Other stars have an endorsement deal with a brand so sporting a certain watch is a requirement; the most obvious example is Ian Flemings 007 secret agent James Bond and his association with Omega C among many other brands like Aston Martin or Walther (more related James Bond brands can be found here)....
I am happy to announce the 2014 WatchStars Award winners, voted by almost 50 international and independent jury members.An independent international panel of experts selected timepieces in five categories, from Swatch to Patek Philippe via Kari Voutilainen. The almost 50 international jury members (click here for an overview of all jury members) were free to choose any brand, model, reference number for these five different categories.Classic Stars –?Three-handed watches with no functions other than a date and/or power reserve indicator are included in this category. All watches in the Classic Stars category must have mechanical movements. Only watches that were launched between Januar...
Ask watch lovers which brand has been on the biggest roll over the past several years and theres a good chance theyll say Tudor.Since 2010s breakthrough introduction of the Heritage Chrono, Tudor has continued its streak by releasing exciting pieces such as the Black Bay, Pelagos, Advisor, and the Ranger.? Coinciding with these new models, Tudor has also upped its marketing game by actively reaching out to passionate collectors (especially versus its parent), sponsoring a racing series and, more importantly, reentered the high profile US and UK markets.Above, a snippet of the Top 50 most requested brands between $ 1000 and $ 3000 Euro in the United Kingdom, based on Chronolytics watch consu...
We love our watches, theres no doubt about that. Thats why youre here, right? There are all those other things surrounding them though; watch winders, watch rolls, tools perhaps but most importantly straps. No decent watch site can function without a strap review. That was in my head when I came up with this idea and presented it to the team.Nevertheless we gave it a twist. We would like to introduce some of the lesser known craftsmen to the wider audience. People whose work we find interesting or out of the ordinary. Who C most of the time C create their products at home by hand, educate themselves and improve their skill all the time. When you put one of these hand-made straps on your wris...
One of my first encounters with the Zenith El Primero movement was in the late 1990s, when my watchmaker picked up a watch of mine wearing his EL Primero Chronomaster in gold. This model, probably reference 17.0240.410/01.C495, had a full calendar on board including a moon phase indicator.The Zenith El Primero was one of the first automatic chronograph watches that was introduced back in 1969. Ever since, Zenith has been developing and enhancing their flag ship chronograph caliber. You might have missed our visit report of the Zenith manufacture in Le Locle (click here), as I already have written it there, but the level of craftsmanship in the Zenith El Primero movement was pretty amazing to...
If there is such a thing as the Seiko bug, then Ive clearly been bitten and now have a serious case of malaria.? However, it wasnt always this way.? Ive been travelling to Japan at least annually since 2004 for business and while my evening and weekend watch pursuits were not nearly as fervent as today, I did not really notice Seiko until 2012.? I bought a quartz Seiko tuna in Fukuoka and have never looked back: adding a large, yet affordable, collection of vintage pieces along the way.Since that time, whenever work took me to Japan, Id notice a rather austere display case in most brightly lit (think of an overdose on fluorescent lights and youre getting close) Japanese camera stores selling...
EQB-500 – The watch that links with the smartphoneThe EQB-500 is the perfect companion for both business men and globetrotters. The watch communicates with smartphones using Bluetooth? 4.0 technology and the free Casio Watch+ app that enables world time settings to be easily set. It only takes one click of a button to set the watch to local time. A second time zone can also be set using the world map of around 300 cities which is included in the app. Thanks to two displays on the watch face, which are both visible at the same time, your own local time and that of your business partner on the other side of the world can be read at a glance. Frequent flyers can easily set the watch to ai...
Although we already did an in-depth article of the Omega Speedmaster Mark II Co-Axial that was introduced last year, including a comparison to the original Omega Speedmaster Mark II, we thought it was about time to actually wear one for a while and share our experience.To be totally honest with you, when Omega announced their new Speedmaster Mark II Co-Axial I thought to myself that it could be wise to buy an original model as these were available under $ 1000 Euro on the market. Although I never warmed up to the Speedmaster Mark II – but I have to say it was probably even before 2003 when I tried one on for the last time – due to the shape of the case, I decided to pull the trig...
Not too long ago, we did an in-depth review on the Longines Conquest Heritage 1954. A beautiful watch of a collection that referred to those very first models of this collection. However, not everyone is into these watches with retro designs. The Longines Conquest Classic Moonphase is something different though. This model grabs back to some ingredients of its heritage but is also a modern and up-to-date timepiece with regards to its appearance.Longines is – to us – a watch manufacturer that is able to create watches with very interesting complications at an affordable price. I don t want to use the phrase ‘affordable luxury too much, as I don t like the term luxury, but t...
Along with New York, London, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Singapore, Frankfurt stakes its claim as one of the worlds banking centers. With this distinction comes a large pocket of substantial wealth, which naturally makes luxury goods such as watches quite popular. As one who spends a lot of time in Frankfurt, I can tell you that its a strange city as far as watches. Yes, there are a lot of high-end watch shops and brand-specific boutiques. However, aside from the recent influx of these single brand stores, Ive generally found the others to lag behind other large cities in carrying new releases. Perhaps these shops have voluminous black books with waiting lists for the newest pieces or the lack, or ...
