In todays #TBT, we step away from a fairly long run of sport watches, either from the diving or chronograph persuasion. That leaves us to explore the previously unknown: the dress watch. I actually like dress watches of the simplest kind-two to three hands maximum, but with enough distinction to make them stand out from the crowd. For certain, simplicity can be a tough thing to master, but todays featured Seiko does it with ease. The other notable attribute about todays piece, and a prime reason behind its acquisition, is its movement. #TBT comes to you from the island of Gozo with the King Seiko 45-7001.Yes, I am writing this poolside, which really makes the subject of todays article a litt...
Oris is a sympathetic brand in my opinion. Independent (but not small) and very strong in the sub $2000 price range. We covered their Aquis and Sixty-Five Divers watches a number of times, as these are great value propositions. What also helps for us watch journalists, is that the people behind Oris are also sympathetic and real watch enthusiasts. That doesn t help or mean much for the end-consumer perhaps, at least not directly, but believe me, it does for us when the people behind a brand share the (true) love for watches. However, being very strong in that $1000 to $2000 segment, what happens if a brand like Oris creates a watch that retails for nearly $5000?For that kind of money, you ar...
A few weeks ago we announced that we would host a Speedmaster GTG in Dsseldorf and last Saturday was ‘the day . As close to the 20th of July as possible, when the moon landing took place in 1969. In this article you will find our event report, with lots of images taken during the day and evening.If you were there we hope you had a blast and if you were not there, I hope it is an inspiration to join us next time. A special thank you to Christopher Haas who helped us finding a great location for the event and who made the reservation. Another thank you to all 30 guests who joined us last Saturday. We had a wonderful time and were happily surprised by the watches you brought with you, th...
Last year after BaselWorld, I visited Louis Vuitton to see their new collection of watches and I was quite impressed by their high-end collection and absolutely stunned by their new Travel Watch: the Escale Worldtime. Louis Vuitton stands for traveling and it speaks for it self that the brand had to come up with a great – and different – world timer watch. Well, they did. The presented Escale Worldtime is in every aspect completely new and unique: a world timer without hands, where all functions are being controlled over the crown! Reading the time on the watch has absolutely nothing to do with any other world timer that is on the market. At first it isn t really easy, but after ...
I am pretty sure you are familiar or at least heard about Stowa watches. This German brand is well-known for its classic Flieger watch. The Stowa company, lead by J?rg Schauer, was founded in 1927 by Walter Storz and is located in the German Black Forrest. Stowa currently has about 20 employees.Together with the German on-line edition?of WatchTime, Stowa is in for an interesting design contest. You, as a watch fan, can deliver a design for a Stowa watch until the 30th of July. Mid-August, Stowa will announce the best designs on a shortlist (1o watches). People can vote on the best design and this particular design will be realized by Stowa in a limited edition watch. The final watch will be ...
Im going to apologize in advance because Im going to give you some fairly useless advice. You should have bought the subject of todays #TBT about 6-8 months ago before prices started to rocket. Yes, the cat is out of the bag, as some might say, on this piece. Before, this piece was known primarily to serious collectors, but it received a boost due to the never-ending power of the internet and social media. Well, that and the fact that great looking, credible vintage chronographs are super hot. No, this piece isnt affordable, but I hope youll enjoy the read. This is a big, bold vintage chronograph that also happens to mix in a celebrity connection; #TBT is here with the Breitling 765 CP Jean-...
Sinn introduces two new divers watches to their – already impressive – line-up of ‘taucheruhren . The Sinn T1 and Sinn T2 – also known as EZM14 and EZM15 – are now also available with a matt-blue electroplated dial and a blue strap.These watches have high-strength titanium cases that have been treated with their Tegiment technology (we did an inn-depth story on Tegiment here) and have a very nice bead-blasted finish. The Tegiment technology, in short – but we advice you to read the article we did on this treatment – ensures the watch is scratch resistant. During one of our meetings with Sinn, they made us try to scratch the Tegimented watch case with...
Last week I traveled to La Chaux-de-Fonds in Switzerland to witness the pre-introduction of the Hautlence Vortex. Founder & CEO Guillaume Tetu did the introduction of the Hautlence Vortex in front of a small group of watch journalists and showed us the workshops where the watch makers are working on Hautlence timepieces. Hautlence is a small independent watchmaker that gained a lot of respect from watch collectors all over the world with their?Concepts d Exception timepieces with HL2.x movements.Hautlence VortexThe new Vortex also belongs to the Concepts d Exception collection and the movement is based on the HL2.0 movement.The typical construction of the chain for the indication of the ...
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...
Yesterday, Novak Djokovic won Wimbledon with 7-6, 6-7, 6-4, 6-3 against Roger Federer. During the match, the only referal to a watch brand were all the signs around the court and on screen. Everyone knows Federer is ambassador. But this time, the watch that came closest to the Wimbledon 2015 trophy?is the Seiko Astron Djokovic Limited Edition on the wrist of the winner.Djokovic, based on his game play and ranking, is the favorite player of many tennis fans out there. However, just everyone would allow Federer to win Wimbledon as he is a populair tennis player and highly likable. Federer would have the highest chance to win a Grand Slam on grass, but not if he is playing in the final agains...
Today, we take a look at an interesting online site specializing in sales of vintage watches. However, unlike a lot of sites, Theo & Harris focuses on the more accessible side of the market and as youll see, is meant to appeal to both horophiles and those who are interested in the current trend of vintage items. Based out of NYC, Theo & Harris is led by the team of Christian Zeron and Caleb Anderson. While we are a clear cut group of watch nuts here at Fratello Watches, it is interesting to hear about another side of the market: those who are interested in watches, specifically vintage, from a trend perspective.? We hope you enjoy this interview that we conducted with the duo and tak...
The Gavox Aurora is a pilot design based multi function quartz watch, of which Gavox claims it to be ‘the worlds first watch that handles all geographical and political time zones .The Aurora keeps track of UTC and a local time with an offset by increments of 15 minutes. By this it s able to handle non-standard time zones with a difference of 15, 30 or 45 minutes.Gavox informed us that ‘as much as 20% of the worlds population lives in non-standard time zones . Although I doubt the use of watches in this league in the countries involved.On first sight the Gavox Aurora is a very attractive watch already. Clearly readable with the high contrast of a black dial, white and orange hand...
Omega introduced the Dark Side of the Moon in 2013 and a year later, the Grey Side of the Moon was shown to the public during the BaselWorld exhibition. The Dark Side of the Moon has been extremely successful to Omega in the meanwhile. Reason for Omega to introduce a couple more ceramic Speedmaster watches in 2015. Have a look at the new ceramic Speedmaster collection in this week s Speedy Tuesday article and read some of my thoughts about these watches.I have seen them a couple of times now, in BaselWorld of course, but also during the Speedmaster Event in Houston as well as a preview at the Omega Boutique in Cannes where I was a few weeks ago. So often enough (with some time in between) to...
I ve never been a Paneristi. I had a couple of Panerai watches (PAM113 and PAM000) and did visit some Paneristi events (like P-Day), but in the end I didn t feel Paneristi enough to really be connected. However, the fact that there is a community called Paneristi does show that there is a lot of love for the brand. The Paneristi community celebrates its 15th anniversary this year and Panerai decided to produce a limited edition Luminor Marina Base (PAM634) to celebrate this anniversary, limited to 500 pieces only.However, today, I am sharing my thoughts on the Officine Panerai Luminor 1950 PAM557 Destro 3-Days that was introduced in 2014. Panerai gave me the watch on loan for a couple of wee...
A few months ago, just after BaselWorld, I was invited to visit one of the production facilities and the museum of Longines in St-Imier. I was not allowed to take images from the production facility, but I will soon get back to you with an article on the Longines museum, that plays an important role in the company.However, not only that, Longines arranged that I am able to sit down and have an interview with?Walter von K?nel in one of the meeting rooms of the head quarters. He freed his schedule to talk for over an hour.Preparing an interview with someone who has been 46 years with Longines and 27 years as the CEO (or ‘chef as he calls it) of one of the largest watch manufacturers in ...
Sometimes, at Fratello Watches, we receive emails from our readers asking questions about specific watches or articles. Sometimes, they are comments that a reader doesnt feel comfortable in posting. Every so often, though, we receive a message asking if anyone on the team is interested in buying a certain watch.?? Todays article is about such a message and because the timepiece in question is from yesteryear, it fits perfectly in our #TBT feature. The brief story on this watch is the type that I personally love to read but have never happened to me-until now. Settle into your 3-point harness and fire up your big block V-8, #TBT is going back to the early 1970s with a Camaro, the Heuer Camaro...
Just last weekend, I talked to a guy who has this classic looking Maurice Lacroix watch from the 1990s. We talked about watches for a while, but there was no real interest in it other than ‘just having a nice watch . Oh, and about service costs, but that is an entirely different story for another time. I realized that his 1990 s Maurice Lacroix watch is so different from the brand s current collection, even watches from their Les Classiques collection show no similarities. Now I might be wrong, but at least in my perception I think I saw more Maurice Lacroix watches ‘in the flesh 15 years ago then I see people wearing watches from their current or at least more recent collection...
A few weeks ago we reported about the amazing collection and historical collection of signed Moonwatch casebacks by a Speedmaster and space mission enthusiast. 14 Signed Moonwatch casebacks are part of a total of 28 images that tell?an amazing story about space exploration (Gemini and Apollo missions) in the 1960s and 1970s.This project by OmegaForums member?TLIGuy has been very intense but worthwhile as the result is a stunning view on the Gemini and Apollo missions between 1965 (Gemini IV) and 1972 (last Man on the Moon). The Moonwatch casebacks have been signed by the NASA astronauts who were happy to cooperate with this project. Below, the story by TLIGuy in his own words and images.All ...
Sinn is a brand that we really admire here on Fratello Watches. They make a lot of no nonsense watches of the tool variety for purposes ranging from diving to flying to, even, fire rescue. The styles tend to be purposeful in that German way: meaning minimalist and highly functional. We covered the latest releases here, which I think shows a good cross-section of Sinns styles. However, one of the aspects of Sinn I enjoy most is the brands approachability. Ive mentioned before that I attended Basel as a public visitor prior to joining the Fratello crew and Sinn was one of the few brands that welcomed me into their booth and asked if there were watches Id like to handle. If youve not been to Ba...
Laurent Ferrier will be contributing to the Only Watch auction for the 3rd year in 2015. On November 7th, the auction will take place and the entire sum will be donated to the support of research on?Duchenne?muscular dystrophy. A terrible disease which results?muscle degeneration and premature death, especially (mainly) appearing in male children (age 2 -3).?Most patients are wheelchair dependent by age 12 and the average life expectancy of DMD patients is around 25 years. The Only Watch initiative raises money by auctioning timepieces donated by watch brands and as written above, the entire sum will be transferred to support research on DMD.The approximately 40 watches will travel around be...
