For just this once, we turn Speedy Tuesday into Seamaster Tuesday, to introduce you to the new Omega Seamaster Planet Ocean Deep Black collection. However, before we take a thorough look at the new Omega Seamaster Planet Ocean Deep Black, let s give you some background on the Seamaster collection and the Planet Ocean in general.Seamaster HistoryYou probably know that Omega introduced the Seamaster in 1948 and that it looked nothing like the dive watches of today s collection. Actually, those first Seamaster models were based on Omega watches that were supplied to the Royal Airforce during WWII. The British required reliable watches with high precision movements and, water resistant cases. R...

Announcement: Prints of?Watches & Pencils artworksBefore we take a look at?the panda?I would like to start of with an announcement.?Last months I received a lot of questions about prints of the artworks presented in?the Watches & Pencils feature. Unfortunately I wasn t able to handle all the individual requests and therefore I decided to open an online shop. In the shop I ve placed a selection of my artwork, which will be updated now and then. Since the payment, printing process and shipping is handled by a professional third party with quality products (RedBubble), buying a print should be a breeze from now on (several materials and sizes available). Please take a look around at the...

Vintage watches are hot, it is beyond hype and especially the interest in watches from yesteryear is still increasing every day. I ve been occupied with watches since the 1990 s, the last couple of years on a full time and professional basis. With great interest I saw the ‘masses also start to buy and collect vintage . Some because they were told this is the big thing, others because they sincerely love the look and feel of vintage watches.I am not talking a million dollar Daytonas here, but just the vintage GMT-Master 1675 or a nice Submariner 1680 for example. But even those can cost you an arm and a leg, especially when something is not right about them and you want to have that...

You are not a real watch guy unless you own a C you hear this comment pretty often in our community. Up to a certain extent I can agree with this. ?is the only brand everybody knows regardless of their country, status, annual?income, gender etc. you name it. For over a 110 years (the company was established in 1905) has been a leader in the world of watches with lots of innovations and patents and is able to make people literally run to their booth at the annual BaselWorld exhibition to be among the first to see what s new.?This weeks #TBT is about the famous GMT-Master 1675. GMT-Master 1675We all know the story how PanAm commissioned to make them a watch that they could equipped their p...

On April 18th 1891, a train crash in?Kipton, Ohio took the lives of 11 people?and was caused by railroad engineer s watches not being in sync (4 minutes difference). This accident led to new strict standars for railroad watches in 1893. Where today s trains are controlled by high-tech systems using GPS, in those days the network heavily relied on the railroad watches to safely operate and control the train time table.Due to the 1891 accident (and many accidents before), the?Railroad Timepiece Standards Commission presented new guidelines, referred to as the General Railroad Timepiece Standards. These guidelines consisted of:Be open face (no lid over the dial), size 18 or 16 (size 18 equals 4...

Are you looking to buy an Omega Speedmaster but don t know where to start? We re here to help! Over the past 65+ years, Omega has created many variations of one of the world s most famous chronographs. The classic 42mm Moonwatch has been in the collection since 1965, and to the novice eye, little has changed since then. But if you look a bit closer, you will find that the Speedmaster evolved quite a bit in the decades that followed.In this Speedmaster guide, we ll give you an overview of the most important references of the Speedmaster (Professional) and some of its variations. Although this article isn t meant as a pricing guide, we will give some hints, of course. If you re already a knowl...

During Basel World 2016 Mike already gave you a summary of the latest novelties weve seen from Fortis this year. It is no secret that we?have a soft spot for the brand. Not because we have to, just because in recent years the company completely changed its orientation. And we are loving it. I will be clear with you, Fortis to me has always been an interesting brand, a name that has been around for over 100 years now but I could not keep up with their collections?and different watches. It was a bit crowded and overflowing in my opinion.Luckily, I wasnt the only one who felt about the brand that way, the guys at Fortis also thought it was time for a change. Last year we already reported about ...

Normally, I refrain from writing separate articles on variants of the same watch, but when I picked up a second Gallet Multichron 12 Valjoux 72, I felt it was time to spread the news. On #TBT, Ive had the pleasure of covering an Excelsior Park 40 EP40 Multichron and it is one fantastic watch with an equally stupendous movement.? My fondness for these watches was also shown when we named the Gallet one of our 5 More to look for in our Top 5 Vintage Chronographs article. However, as the 1960s are really my wheelhouse when it comes to chronographs, the V72 truly speaks to me. Yes, Ive said it before, this is essentially the Chevrolet 327 V-8 of watch movements C used all over and still relative...

One of the watches that impressed me most during Baselworld was the Glashtte Original Senator Chronometer with blue dial in white gold (reference?1-58-01-05-34-30). Blue dials are hip & happening again since a while, and Glashtte Original decided to jump on that bandwagon with this Senator Chronometer with this distinctive dark blue grainy dial.The danger with dials that have a color other than silvery white and black is that they might become out of fashion at some point, or that you simply get bored by it after a few years.?In the 1990s?we saw a lot of colored dials like red, yellow, green etc. No burgundy red or racing green with a sun burst pattern, no, just red and green. These wa...

A bit of horological news from The Netherlands. The Netherlands? Yes, the country that brought you Christiaan van der Klaauw, Gr?nefeld and some more. Watchmaking and The Netherlands go way back, to the 17th century actually, when Christiaan Huygens invented the pendulum clock in 1656 and a few years later, the balance and spiral spring in watches. In 1673 Huygens published his book Horologium Oscillatorium, his major work on pendulums and horology.Now, I happen to live in the exact same street as where Huygens lived and worked and every day I am surrounded by statues and buildings that remind me of watchmaking. However, only few people outside The Netherlands know of have heard about him, e...

Today marks a special day, not only is it the birthday of my beautiful daughter, it is also the fourth anniversary of our Speedy Tuesday feature and the 70th birthday?and?the last working day of Stephen Urquhart, CEO of Omega.Stephen Urquhart was born May 31st 1946?in Trinidad and has both Swiss and British nationality (Scottish father and a Portuguese mother).?He started working for Omega in 1968 as an International Account Manager and – as he told me during an event last year – he got to communicate with NASA during that time because of his perfect English, which was something quite uncommon in Switzerland in those days. He worked for Omega for 6 years (must have been an exciti...

Love watches? Consider yourself a watchnerd all the way? Then, the guys over at Ace Jewelers have something for you to show the world you are a true #watchnerd. These caps, produced by the Danish State of Wow brand, have #watchnerd on the front and ‘I like to watch on the back.The hashtag watchnerd is a popular tag on Instagram, over half a million(!) images are marked #watchnerd. Another often used hashtag with similar meaning is #watchgeek, which ‘only has 445,059 images on Instagram at this moment.?An example can be found below, of instagram user @orangedial17 and a picture of this Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Chronograph with salmon dial that he tagged with #watchnerd (among a...

Probably not as unexpected as the Citizen – Frederique Constant takeover, nevertheless interesting. After being absent for approximately 10 years Swatch decided to revive the POP-Swatch. No less than 9 different models are introduced, from black & white to fluorescent colours and many shades of that in between.The original POP-Swatch was introduced in 1986, and was meant as a fashion product. The name POP not only came from the fact that POP was kind of an equivalent for fashion, however as well because the watch could be POP-ed out of it s frame. It then could be separated from it s strap, and with the frame connected to your clothes or where ever else.(picture of a 1987 model use...

Eterna is proud to present its new Super KonTiki Chronograph, the latest in a long line of iconic KonTiki timepieces that embody the thrill of adventure and the reliability of Eternas watchmaking savoir-faire. With the in-house 3916A flyback chronograph calibre, the new Super KonTiki Chronograph continues a voyage that started almost 60 years ago, seducing decades of watch lovers with its daring design and horological innovation.A new featFollowing a long line of KonTiki timepieces, the new Super KonTiki Chronograph remains true to the collections design codes while demonstrating a powerful and distinctive personality of its own. With its eye-catching design, this new chronograph is a bold s...

Today on #TBT well talk about a watch thats become a real easy go to piece C one that looks good with just about everything because it looks so good C the Hamilton 600 diver. Hamilton is a brand I like to feature because of its historic link to Lancaster, Pennsylvania: a place where Ive spent a lot of time. However, its not just the American tie but its also the fact that the brand made some really nice watches that exercised a high level of constraint in their execution as well as what Id call quiet confidence. Hamilton was such a powerhouse at one time in the United States that even though they were flagging by the late 60s and the onset of the quartz/Japanese invasion, they still designed...

Let me start by telling you this is a crazy watch, in a very positive way. Maximilian Bsser and friends (in this case Alain Silberstein, Kari Voutilainen and Eric Giroud amongst others) introduced this Legacy Machine version ‘LM1 Silberstein today.Knowing MB&F a bit, the internet will be flooded with this novelty today. And that is justified, as the combination of MB&F and?Alain Silberstein makes my horological heart tick faster. You read that correctly, I am not only into (relatively) affordable watches or chronographs from a specific brands, I love these awesome MB&F timepieces very much so as well. It is also hard not to love these watches, as they are the result of so...

The job of a watchmaker is a dream of many of us watch enthusiasts and collectors. Sitting behind the light green desk, observing the movement through a loupe and making like minded people happy again by returning their watch repaired or completely overhauled. If possible, a nice view in the background, like the Swiss Alps for example.Not for Jacob Thompson, he is in Australia and therefore the Swiss Alps are lacking but all other boxes can be ticked off. He loves the watchmaking job and is occupied with repairs and overhauls for us, watch collectors and enthusiasts.Jacob is the owner of his recently started company Thompson Watch & Clock Repairs in Sydney Australia, after having worked ...

One of the fun things about Speedy Tuesday is that there are so many models and references, we will probably never run out of material to cover. We started on May 29th 2012, almost four years ago, and it doesn t take much time to think of a new subject to cover each single week. If there isn t a new Speedmaster to talk about, we try to answer a Speedmaster related question from one of our readers or focus on something vintage or special. I also believe that the Speedmaster is one of the few watches around that makes it possible to give it weekly coverage, for almost four years now.A few weeks ago, Bert and I visited the Davidoff Brothers in Geneva to have a look at their extensive Speedmaste...

Last Friday?we visited the Watch 2016 event, held by Dutch retailer Schaap -/- Citroen at the Okura hotel in Amsterdam. This event, from Friday 20th of May (VIP evening) till Sunday 22nd of May, is being organized for a couple of years now, showing the SIHH and BaselWorld novelties to those who don t have access to these Swiss exhibitions.Brands like A. Lange & S?hne, Baume et Mercier, Breitling, Cartier, Hublot, IWC, Jaeger-LeCoultre, Omega, Panerai, Patek Philippe, Piaget, Roger Dubuis, and Zenith for example, show their novelties to the visitors of Watch 2016.The VIP evening of the Watch 2016 event was meant for some member of the press and for Schaap -/- Citroen s important clients....

Tissot Navigator YachtingRoughly 5 months ago I published a #TBT about a vintage Tissot Navigator. That article was titled ?before. Anyone who read that piece knows exactly why I gave that name to the write-up. The watch I bought was in sorry condition, the crystal was cracked and it was not original, the bezel was damaged, the case was dirty and scratched up and last but not least the movement was rusty and in such a condition that it really was screaming for a restoration. We decided to feature it anyways then have it serviced so we would be able to compare the before and after shots and show you dear reader that even a lost case can turn out to be a success story. As the great roman philo...