Holy TrinityIt all started with the Angelus Hungarian Air Force watch. I talked about it thoroughly so I do not get into details but that was the catalyst. I came across it, liked the look and the historical connection to my home country so I decided I need one. Searched for it for a while, studied the piece read about the movement and with luck I found one though a friend. Because of that piece I dug deeper into the history of Angelus. I learned about various models, got to know a handful of amazing people and even took part in this great project. One thing led to another and before I knew it, the holy trinity of Angelus watches (collectors like to give such names to pieces, so heres my con...
In the past couple of years FIDES, the investment group that owns the Geneva & Hong Kong branches, has been carefully getting this group back on its feet. An interesting development since Antiquorum NY has been completely separated from Antiquorum Geneva & Hong Kong, is the newest divide line has been drawn: the websites have been totally separated. The NY company is keeping the www.antiqurorum.com and Geneva has launched the new www.antiquorum.swiss to differentiate itself as a separate company. I thought it would be annoying, but its really not. The Geneva based auction house has also launched its own app and looking forward to seeing how this new independence continues to evolve.F...
Today, well take a look at another vintage inspired piece from Baselworld 2017, the Hamilton Intra-Matic 68. I know that its #TBT day today, but I figured Id continue to sprinkle in these new retro-styled pieces over the next month or so in case youre tired of fruitlessly searching eBay for the originals. We enjoyed this Hammy a bit more than most, so we thought it was worth a look.The Hamilton Intra-Matic 68 is BigFirst off, the Hamilton Intra-Matic 68 is controversial. When first shown a couple months back, it was a love at first sight internet darling and then-the record needle abruptly skidded across the platter to a complete stop when fans came across the size. The formerly Lancaster, P...
There was a time that a watch had no logo on the dial. This was mainly the case with pocket watches, perhaps a few of the first wristwatches also lacked a logo on the dial. The pilot s watches of the 1940s, the so-called ‘Beobachtungsuhr or B-Uhr is also known to have no logo on the dial. Only a few manufactures made these watches according to German specifications: A. Lange & S?hne, Laco, Wempe, IWC and Stowa. In 1940, Stowa produced its first B-Uhr, Type A. In 1997, they re-introduced the Flieger watch with no logo on the dial. Today, we are looking at the current Stowa Flieger with manual movement. For under 1000 Euro.B-Uhr Type A and Type BSometimes, there is some confusion be...
Late March, we introduced the gold Omega Speedmaster Apollo 17?‘Tribute to Gene Cernan to you, limited to 272 pieces. We received a couple of requests to also cover the stainless steel version, the reference?311.30.42.30.03.001 (limited to 1972 pieces). Let s have a closer look.Omega Speedmaster Apollo 17 311.30.42.30.03.001As a tribute to Gene Cernan (who passed away on January 16th of this year) and commemorating the 45th anniversary of the Apollo 17 mission. Gene Cernan was the astronaut to set the last foot on the Moon, which was exactly at 05:34 GMT. That explains the writing on the dial, just below ‘Speedmaster Professional .The gold piece (limited to 272 pieces) is someth...
Rotating bezel, flank protection, screw-down crown, waterproof to 20 bar: MeisterSingers Salthora Meta X is C not a diving watch. It could be one, no question; it would only need a constant second hand and rotary indices on the bezel as required by DIN 8306. But it doesnt need to be used so specifically - the Meta X is an all-terrain watch.SAMX902GR with a classical Milanaise strapPower PrincipleThe model now being introduced in Basel shows the consistent development of the Salthora product line; these single-hand watches, however, differ fundamentally from other MeisterSinger timepieces. Instead of a single long hour hand, this watch has a minute hand - the hour is displayed in a circular d...
Every week, Gerard Nijenbrinks writes about another watch that he will wear that week. This week, he is on a well-deserved holiday and asked me to take over his weekly feature for this one time. For this occasion, I had to think a bit about what watch I d be wearing for an entire week (with small exception for Tuesday). I decided to pick one of my watches that is a bit of an odd fella. Gigantic, clunky, vintage and a black ceramic case. Without further ado, here s week 18 of 52Mondayz.Seiko 6159-7010 Grandfather TunaA few years ago, I was visiting a friend who lives in Geneva. He showed me this crazy Seiko. Huge, black and with a Grand Seiko based movement (caliber 8L35). It was the Seiko Ma...
We give a lot of Speedmaster coverage, but mainly on (Speedy) Tuesdays. Today we make an exception, as?we were invited to join the Omega Speedmaster Event in London, with Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin, former NASA s engineer James H. Ragan who was responsible for testing and selecting the Speedmaster and actor George Clooney, a long-time space and Speedmaster fan.Speedmaster Event in LondonThere is no secret that I love the Speedmaster. I ve told this many times before, but the Speedmaster is the model?that got me into watches in general and one that I collect myself. A love that resulted in starting the Speedy Tuesday feature and has been celebrated with its own limited edition watch for ...
If youre a student of the vintage game, then youve likely heard of LIP watches. The French brand was founded in 1867 and created some rather innovative pieces before going through some difficult times in the mid 1970s and 1980s. If youre an electronic watch fun, LIP deserves credit by introducing the worlds 2nd electronic watch (ok, electromechanical) in 1952 and the first with a date. During the 1960s and 1970s, LIP also distributed other brands as well such as Breitling. LIP even had some of their own designs built by Breitling in Breitling cases. But coming back to 1967, the brand created a famous Super Compressor-cased diver with an electronic movement: the LIP Nautic-Ski. Fast forward t...
One of the watches that got most talked about during BaselWorld is the Tudor Heritage Black Bay Chrono. Not only because it is a totally new addition to their Heritage collection, but also because Tudor made an interesting move regarding the chronograph movement of this watch. It is based on the Breitling B01 chronograph movement. Let s have a look.Tudor Heritage Black Bay ChronoSince a few years, Tudor organizes a special event on Tuesday evening right before the BaselWorld exhibition starts. This year, the event was bigger than ever in terms of participants who were all able to witness the next big thing at Tudor: the introduction of the Heritage Black Bay Chrono. Feeds on Instagram and Fa...
You might have read it before here on Fratello Watches, but on May 15th, Christie s has their Rare Watches auction. Three lots in that auction are pieces that you might have read about in a couple of our Speedy Tuesday articles. The white and yellow gold Omega Speedmaster Professional of the 1980s and a stainless steel version from the 1980s. All three with display backs. Actually, the first Speedmaster models with a display back. Let s have a look.Speedmaster Professional Reference 345.0808The first Speedmaster watch with display back in Christie s Rare Watches auction catalog is this reference 345.0808 that dates back to ca. 1985. Lot 65, to be exact, was the first stainless steel Speedmas...
The Submariner 14060What else do you need? This week I ll be very much off the beaten track, and very much off-line as well. In and out the water, swimming and hiking, name it a sporty holiday.Beatable, readable and unclutteredFor these circumstances I almost always choose a beatable, readable and uncluttered watch. Not afraid of water as well. And no date. In order not to disturb my time-off with the perspective of when it will end.A Submariner, although not very original nor exclusive, is perfect for this. And so that s why I chose it to wear as my 52Mondayz watch this week.Supplied in 1992The one I m wearing is a reference 14060 and has a N-serial number. It dates from 1992, as indicate...
A while ago a friend asked me if I could make a cartoon about the never ending battle between mechanical and quartz watches. It took me a while to form the creative concept, but here it is.Mechanical Watches VS Quartz WatchesWhile most of us are totally into mechanical watches I do think it is a good thing that there is another competitor in the game of power sources for watches. From an objective point-of-view every kind has its pros and cons. Because we mainly publish?about?mechanical watches I thought it would be nice to?focus on quartz technology.Quartz CrisisAs most of us know in the seventies and eighties a lot of Swiss brands had a real hard time because of the introduction and develo...
The Christies Geneva watch department has maintained a great reputation and stayed coherent while adapting quickly to market demand. We see almost no modern watches left in their recent catalogs and the quality of vintage watches being offered is excellent.Christie s GenevaThis auction house has a rich history and continues to overshadow its British competitor Sothebys in the watch category. I say British because they were both founded in London, but, yes, ownership has changed since.The watch department remains a small portion of this auction giants business, with art being a much larger earner of course. Just to put things in perspective: let us estimate that, in a year, Christies sells ap...
Roughly a year ago, we reviewed the watch-themed podcast, The Grey NATO. It continues to serve as a bi-weekly listen for me, but it does have one limitation C at least one for me. Namely, its every two weeks and I drive daily. So, today, were happy to talk about a watch-related group along with a podcast that takes a different spin on the horological theme. We met Chris Mann at our #SpeedyTuesday get together in Bienne, Switzerland late last year and then saw him again only a couple weeks later at our Get Together in London for Salon QP. Hes passionate about watches and a nice guy to boot, so lets see what hes created. Live from London, lets take a look at Time4APint.FW: Chris, tell our read...
One of the watches I was looking forward to at this year s BaselWorld, was the Seiko SLA017 diver from their Prospex series. A limited edition and tribute to the legendary Seiko 62MAS.Seiko SLA017 DiverAlready before BaselWorld, the news leaked that Seiko was up to some good with a re-edition of the famous and legendary 62MAS, or reference?6217-8000/1, from 1965. We wrote an in-depth article about this first real?diver from Seiko, in this article by Michael Stockton. Except for some images from some BaselWorld catalog, there wasn t much information around this watch.In Basel, we had two meetings with Seiko. We sometimes do that. We are with a team of six people in Basel, so we need to divide...
The creators Marco Biegert and Andreas Funk explain their conceptAll people learn to read the time using the hour and minute hands. Biegert & Funk throws this idea?overboard and interprets the time in words with their?QlockTwo?concept. Asked whether this intuitive time indication was the focus of product development, Managing Director Marco Biegert answers: It is the intuitive way of reading the time, it s may be the most human way of reading the time. When you ask?someone what time it is, the answer would sound?It s half past four.. We use words for that.It s a direct way, you don t need to translate it, you can just read it, adds Andreas Funk, who is the co-founder of QlockTwo?together...
Once in a while we ask a reader about his Speedmaster or Speedmaster collection. For today s Speedy Tuesday, we asked Clement from France about his Speedmaster reference 105.003 and 145.022.Take your pleasure seriouslyIn this installment we ask a collector to tell us a bit about his Speedmaster watches. He showed us a few pictures in a short conversation on one of the social media channels, and we thought it might be a nice?idea to share his story with you.FW: Clement, please tell us a bit who you are.C: My name is Clement, I am 28 years old. I am a collector of design and vintage watches since about ten year, and I decided to make it my job three years ago after my law studies (amongst othe...
The Casio G-Shock GPW-1000RAF is the watch I ll wear this week. On Wednesday I ve a post-Baselworld meeting with Bas Boersma a.k.a. Mr. B-Shock. Bas works for Casio, and he s one of the major driving forces behind the G-Shock presence in The Netherlands.Casio G-Shock GPW-1000RAFAs mentioned in one of my earlier 52Mondayz columns, I m a fan of (ana-)digital quartz watches. Besides my real passion for high-end and even complicated classical timepieces, I love watches with additional functions which can t be fulfilled by a mechanical movement. It s no secret that there s always an Apple Watch on my right wrist, whilst wearing a (real) watch on my left.Novelties at BaselworldI had an appointment...
This year at BaselWorld it was hard to discover true?novelties. A lot of brands just expanded their collection by presenting new models with different colors and materials, a lot of retro designs as well. A?number of brands did surprise me. klokers was one of them.A Niche BrandThis is one of the brands you either hate or love. In my opinion they are quite interesting with their out-of-the-box vision and design. Not a hardcore watch brand, but more somewhere between watches and design statements. Their way of presenting time is different and they are still pioneering less conventional grounds. Again, heavily focussed on design and remains affordable. With this in mind its quite logical that t...
