Our friends over at Xetum introduced a new stainless steel bracelet for their Tyndall and Stinson timepieces. Their designer – and eco-friendly – timepieces get a different look with this solid bracelet, with brushed and polished links. The 20mm wide bracelet is available for all Tyndall and Stinson timepieces and the prices will remain the same as when delivered on a leather strap.Ever since we ve met the owner of Xetum, Jeff Kuo, during the BaselWorld fair, we ve been following Xetum closely. Although based in San Francisco, Xetum watches have a modern – almost Danish – design but are being?manufactured?in the Swiss Jura valley. A combination of modern design and an...
Here s something you don t see every day! I was recently lucky enough to have some lens time with this rare beauty: a pre-Vendome Officine Panerai Mare Nostrum chronograph. Only 500 were made. I recall having the opportunity to purchase one for not that much money in the early 00s; like everybody else in that position, I m now kicking myself. It s a simple, functional timepiece with trademark Panerai legibility, but some interesting twists like that unusual crown, which not only lacks the locking guard, but is also rather curiously shaped. (It winds well, though). The watch is powered by a manual wind ETA 2801-2 with a Dubois-Depraz 3217 chronograph module; these were (and are still) notorio...
Just the other day, I ve been contacted by Nigel Brown of the HumansInvent website. HumansInvent did a very nice feature on tourbillons and discusses the use or benefit of this complication. HumansInvent performed a bit of research and asked several subject matter experts whether a tourbillon is actually useful for a timepiece or whether it is just to show-off the skills of a (master) watchmaker.Personally, I love the tourbillon complication in a mechanical watch, especially ever since I got a free-of-charge class on tourbillons by Bernhard Lederer (BLU) during one of the BaselWorld shows. On the other hand, I firmly believe that the main reason for the use of a tourbillon is to demonstrate ...
Click on all images for larger.After many sleepless nights of deliberation, it was time for a change. I sold my Lange 1815 to make room for something new in the collection. What would it be? After much hunting and poring over catalogs and visiting dealers, I decided on a Jaeger Le-Coultre Reverso Grande GMT (RGGMT from here on) in steel. The standard alligator strap wasnt very flexible or comfortable for me, and left the watch sitting high, so I went for the bracelet model.That was in early 2009. Two and a bit years on, am I still in love?Lets back up a little. There are three things that can happen to a watch after youve owned it for a while: either it grows on you, you like it as much as y...
Instead of discussing another Omega, , Audemars Piguet, Patek Philippe or whatever, we have picked a Guy David watch to review. A watch of the price that some of us normally would spend on a leather strap for one of the watches just mentioned. Guy David is one of Gassan s own label watches and we have briefly mentioned it before here on Fratellowatches.At first sight, this diver holds somewhere in between fashion and real horology. The first thing noticed is the finish of the impressive 47mm watch case. The sides are nicely satin-brushed and the top of the lugs have this Omega Seamaster 300M polish on them. I am not sure whether the designer s were inspired by watches like the Seamaster or S...
Introduced during BaselWorld 2011 and often discussed already, the Explorer II ref. 216570 has been out for delivery to dealers. In The Netherlands, Precision Watches (sponsor of Fratellowatches) is the first to have one in stock already.The large orange 24-hour hand refers to the first model Explorer II in 1971 (a.k.a Freccione or Steve McQueen Explorer) with reference 1655 and I think did a neat job on their ‘homage . aficionados all over the world have been discussing the broad hour and minute hands and whether this was either good or bad. There is no verdict yet, let the sales numbers do the talking. Personally, this would be the modern I d buy if I was in the running for one, ...
Following on from Robert-Jan s excellent review of the Girard-Perregaux WW.TC Financial, I thought an appropriate next article would be on a little known GP that happened to enter my possession not that long ago – actually, the end of a long quest.On a JLC Master Compressor strap. To say 21mm curved end options are limited would be an understatement.Click on all images for larger.Back in the late 90s and early 00s, Girard-Perregaux produced a line of watches with official Scuderia Ferrari branding. Unlike the most recent incarnations of Ferrari watches, these were subtle and very tasteful C so subtle that some of them do not even in fact carry any Ferrari branding anywhere on the wat...
One of Benzinger s specialities are their skeletonized and fully engraved watches; they obviously have no dial (nor do they need one) to best show off all of the details. The owner of this piece related an anecdote – he passed it on to a fellow collector, quite well known in horological circles, for his opinion on the finishing. He asked for a loupe and examined the watch – then seconds later, replied ‘I can t tell at all, the entire damn thing is engraved! Mechanically, it s a fairly standard Unitas movement (aside from the elaborate decoration, of course). Not a lot else to say about this one, other than enjoy the photos. Click images for larger.MT...
Although we had an in-depth review of tegimented Sinn watches here last month, written by Ming Thein, we also covered the most technology-packed Sinn 103 for Watchuseek. This 103 in titanium features all the Sinn technologies that solve real problems. No tourbillon, minute repeater, dead beat second or other haute horlogerie complications over at the watch company from Frankfurt, only inventions that solve ‘real issues. This of problems watch can have with moisture, shocks and friction of small parts.This 103 Ti DIAPAL, being the most expensive Sinn 103 model available, is still very interesting for those who are looking for a reliable chronograph watch (featuring a second time zone a...
If you are a regular reader, you know how much I like the world timer watches. Some time ago, I wrote about my top 3 world timers and one of them was the Girard-Perregaux WW.TC. You can imagine how happy I was that GP was willing to send me one over for a review. The GP WW.TC Financial, or FTC, is a timepiece that I was very eager to try-out and report about.Whether you are traveling for business or leisure, there is one thing both type of travelers share: they all want to know what time it is in their home time zone. When you are working in finance and travel a lot through different time zones, the Girard-Perregaux WW.TC Financial might be something of your interest.If you want to learn mor...
For a long time, Sinn has operated under the radar of most watch collectors, providing functional, robust watches mostly to the military and other similar civil services. Even though the company has been appearing with increasing frequency in mainstream media and advertising, their core product lines are still tool watches. A little known fact is that the original Bell and Ross watches were made by Sinn; including the Space series, and Type Demineur.p style=text-align: justify;>Quite a number of years ago, Sinn (together with Damasko, though the history is cloudy) developed a number of ways of hardening cases: first, ice hardening using thermal annealing techniques, which hardened the case a...
There is horology, and there is art. And sometimes there is both. The first popular culture reference to skulls in recent times can probably be traced to Damien Hirst and his diamond-covered skull; I was struck by a sense of dej-vu when viewing this watch for the first time. But there actually was not one, but two diamond-covered skulls. I have to admit, this watch was making me feel a little uncomfortable. Well come back to this in a minute.Dial aside, the rest of the watch is classic Peter Speake-Marin: a chunky 950 platinum Piccadilly case with thick, straight lugs terminating in oversized screwed bars; aviator crown; vertically sided caseband. All in platinum, of course C as befitting a...
Every year, Omega introduces a new limited edition of – in my humble opinion – the nicest chronograph ever, the Speedmaster Professional. It is one of the few watch brands, or perhaps the only brand, that gets away in my book with all these limited editions. This year, it was 40 years ago that Omega accompanied the crew of Apollo 15 to the Moon.The Apollo 15 Mission, that started on the 26th of July 1971 and safely returned on the 7th of August in 1971. On the 30th of July, the crew landed their Lunar Module on the surface of the Moon, to stay there for 4 days. This page on Wiki has a great and detailed description of the Apollo 15 mission.As you can see, Omega used the mission p...
Suppose you wanted a watch with a ginormous moonphase display C what would be your choices? Actually not many. And I cant think of any that have a larger and quirkier moon than the Sarpaneva Northern Stars, introduced at Baselworld 2011. Fully taking up a good 60% of the distance between the hands and the edge of the dial, Im not sure how much physically larger you can make the moon without resorting to a clock. Whats more, there are actually two moons, the lower of which is framed by vestigial traces of an aperture to indicate its phase.So where do the eponymous stars come into the picture? Well, the disk holding the moons is solid, but has star-shaped cutouts which are nicely delineated by...
A while ago, I wrote an article about my Top 3 favorite world timer watches (click here). Ever since I first saw the Nomos Zurich Weltzeit watch at the SalonQP in London last year, I was waiting for it to finally arrive, to see whether it would get a spot in the Top 3 of my favorite world timer watches.The version I had in my hands in London was a prototype or at least a version that was subject to a few changes, but it worked perfectly and was easy to adjust.Luckily, with the new Zurich line-up and Tangomat GMT watches, Nomos decided to enlarge their watches to 39-40mm. This way I could properly give them a try, as the inital Nomos models were way too small for me. A few weeks ago, I was ab...
You love mechanical watches but don t want – or can t afford – to pay thousands of dollars for them? There are quite some alternatives on the market for small(er) budgets and beginning watch enthusiasts, like the watches from Guy David. This label is from Gassan (with whom we did an interview earlier this year) and aims at the young and starting watch enthusiasts with this line-up of fashionable mechanical watches for a very friendly price.For instance, this mechanical automatic diver is water resistant to 200 meters and has a diameter of a whopping 47mm.AC Watch Company sells them via their web shop, prices start at 199 Euro. Watches come with a 2 year warranty....
The following article is by no means meant to discourage you from buying vintage [] watches, damage the reputation of certain sellers or to doubt particular watches being for sale at this moment.Recently, a number of enthusiasts and collectors started doubting the origin and authenticity of certain vintage watches that were listed for sale. If you are not at home in this material, you have to know that collectors of?vintage? timepieces love the so called tropical dials [those that faded to a brown color due to over exposure to the sun],patina hour markers and patina hands. Prices of watches that have these tropical dials (click here for a bizarre example that my friends over at Hodinkee f...
Ive had the privilege of handling many rare timepieces in the past; some of them make more of an impression than others, for various reasons. The Gronefeld One Hertz is one of these C but for a very different reason. Built by brothers Bart and Tim Gronefeld, the One Hertz is actually the least complicated watch they have built C previously of Renaud et Papi, they also completed the GTM-06 tourbillon minute repeater.The watch ticks, in one-second increments C like a (gasp) quartz watch. Flip it over, though, and its clear that something much more special powers the hands C of course an entirely mechanical caliber, developed in house.The rest of this post will be a concise C but admittedly sub...
2011 is the year of Omega s Seamaster Planet Ocean. Although this company from Bienne also introduced an interesting new Speedmaster Chronograph (more on that one here), their focus is clearly set to the new line up of Seamaster Planet Ocean watches. The introduction of the Seamaster Planet Ocean on Capri (Italy) in May this year, was more than impressive (click here for a?lengthy?report with over 100 images) and just a few days ago, Omega released a new version of their iPhone application with a nice feature of the Seamaster Planet Ocean Chrono.Besides a nice and useful catalogue with Omega watches (divided into Gents and Ladies), news about Omega (watches and events) and videos, there is a...
Dr Franco Gussalli Beretta, one of the Managing Directors of the famous Italian firearms manufacturer Beretta and descendant of the founder, explains in a short interview in FT s HowToSpendIt that his personal style signifier is his watch. An Audemars Piguet Royal Oak watch, to be precise. Beretta s CEO owns several of them and does so since 20 years.Although I have nothing against using paid-for brand ambassadors, as long as it makes sense for the brand and their watches, I actually think people like Franco Gussalli Beretta are more interesting to read about. He probably paid for these watches himself, unlike official brand ambassadors, and can [therefore] probably tell a much more interest...
