Being a big fan of Gerald Genta designs, I just found an article by Desmond Guilfoyle about the design work that Genta did for Omega in the 1960s. I d read in several magazines and websites that Genta was responsible for some of the Omega Seamaster and Omega Constellation designs, but never knew which ones exactly.Picture by Ms. Stefania Slenzio von LUXURY GRIFFES S.A.Desmond was able to get in touch with Evelyne Genta, Gerald s wife, and managed to have her asking him which models he designed for the most famous brand from Bienne. It seems – and I suspected this already – that he at least is responsible for designing the Omega Constellation C-model from the late 1960s/early 1970...
My great grandfather, my grandparents and my father all bought (or got) Omega watches in the 1960s. My grandfather still wears his Omega Constellation (which I reviewed here) and my father owns his grandfather s Constellation and an Omega Geneve. He doesn t wear any of them, but a O&W mechanical military style watch instead (I don t know why). However, I recently took my great grandfather s Constellation (which was bought in 1965, my dad still has the box, booklet, papers and original bill) with me for a small service. The watch lost its original crown, it was terribly scratched on the caseback, didn t have an original Omega crystal, the Constellation symbol on the caseback was sitting l...
Since last weekend (27th of June), the first Dutch Watch Heritage event opened its doors in Schoonhoven, The Netherlands. Schoonhoven is (in The Netherlands) famous for its jewellery and horology school and its museum. The museum, lead by Gemke Jager, hosts the Dutch Watch Heritage event from the 27th of June till the 5th of July.The main idea behind the Dutch Watch Heritage is to display the (often hidden) horological treasures that we have in The Netherlands, owned by private collectors or aficionados. This first event has more than 100 watches up for display, covering the last 100 years of watchmaking and including watches like the first Patek Philippe Nautilus, an incredible collection o...
As reported earlier, the ‘Handcrafted Time exhibition took place from the 18th of June till the 21st of June in the Time Gallery in Bern.Elizabeth Doerr wrote an excellent report on this exhibition, which has been published on WatchUseek (click here to read the report). One of the participants was BLU (Bernhard Lederer Universe), one of my favorite BaselWorld visits this year. Bern s newspaper ‘Der Bund noticed the Handcrafted Time event and did an interview with Bernhard Lederer of BLU. Below you find a screenshot of the newspaper article (in German). Click here for a full blown version (readable).It is great to see that events like these get media attention! Events related to...
Monaco is one of those cities you really have to visit once every while, just to breathe the atmosphere of luxury lifestyle and jet-setters. Fans of independent watchmaking now have a new (or other) excuse to pay Monaco a visit… The launch of independent watch manufacturer Les Ateliers deMonaco!The Ateliers DeMonaco Carre d Or is a watch that should remind us of the famous and most exclusive squares in the world, located in Monaco between the famous Royal Casino and a number of five star hotels. The Carre d Or has a convex case design, a patentend Grand Tourbillon movement that uses a sapphire bridge that makes it look like the one minute tourbillon is floating inside the watch.This wa...
When I borrowed the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore Rubber Clad from Watch-Site, I got the AP Royal Oak 15300 as well. Just to?get some look & feel?about this watch. Not too long ago, I was a bit reluctant on this particular model, since there was only one Royal Oak, and that was the Royal Oak Jumbo, also known as the ref.15202ST. I have written many times on this Jumbo by Audemars Piguet, saying it was my dream watch or number 1 or 2 (this position changes back and forth with the PP Nautilus 5711/1A) watch that I need to have somewhere in life. ??Friends of mine have the 15202 and are quite clear on the 15300. A no-brainer, because of the second hand with the ‘wing on the shor...
The green production process of the watch manufacturer in Schaffhausen, is something to be proud of. Not only IWC, but a lot of other companies seem to embrace durable entrepreneurship and corporate social responsibility. One of IWC‘s projects is to support projects like David de Rothshild‘s Plastiki Expedition. David de Rothschild and his Adventure Ecology organization built a 60 foot catamaran made entirely of plastic bottles, PET plastic and recycled waste products. With this ship, named the Plastiki, David and his carefully picked crew members will sail approx. 10,000 nautical miles across the Pacific Ocean from San Francisco to Sydney.The name of this boat, Plastiki, was ins...
Roger Federer won the French Open and got his 14th grand slam title. As soon as he received the Coupe des Mousquetaires from Andre Agassi, people over at the online watch community websites started guessing which watch he was wearing.Although advertizes with Roger Federer wearing either a Daytona in white gold or an all gold GMT-Master II (he probably has all models anyway :)), Roger is wearing a Yacht-Master II.Elmar of Oysterinfo.de has an incredibly large collection of original advertizements (vintage and modern), including this one of Roger Federer and his white gold Daytona. You can see it s white gold due to the dial. The stainless steel versions have no Arabic numerals and no red...
When I started ‘collecting wrist watches, I never considered Oris as a serious option. They made nice mechanical watches, had nice designs, but brands that ‘do doubl?e?? or plaque gold cases were off-limit. I also wasn t very convinced about the quality of the watches.Perhaps I didn t do Oris any justice, because afterall, this brand exists since 1904 and have this ‘only mechanical movements philosophy. Anyway, I skipped Oris and rather went with brands like Omega (when they were still very affordable).Since a few years, you can t deny the fact that Oris upscaled in terms of quality and image. Their collection became a bit more ‘of this time and became a serious &...
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...
When I borrowed the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore Rubber Clad from Watch-Site, I got the AP Royal Oak 15300 as well. Just to?get some look & feel?about this watch. Not too long ago, I was a bit reluctant on this particular model, since there was only one Royal Oak, and that was the Royal Oak Jumbo, also known as the ref.15202ST. I have written many times on this Jumbo by Audemars Piguet, saying it was my dream watch or number 1 or 2 (this position changes back and forth with the PP Nautilus 5711/1A) watch that I need to have somewhere in life. ??Friends of mine have the 15202 and are quite clear on the 15300. A no-brainer, because of the second hand with the ‘wing on the shor...
As you probably may know (or not), the Omega Speedmaster was introduced in 1957 as a watch for racing drivers. At least according to their own advertisements from that period (who are included in a.o. Omega SAGA). We all know the Speedmaster (pre-)Professional watches for their share in the Apollo (and current) space programs by the NASA.Since Omega was my first introduction to serious watches, and my first proper watch was (and still have it in my collection of course) a Speedmaster Professional 145.012 from 1967, I regulary search the internet for similar watches or for accessories for this particular watch (or my 145.022 from 1969 that I also own).????Last week I came across a vintage rac...
It has been almost 2 months ago, since Frank and I visited BaselWorld 2009. One of the highlights was visiting the Blu stand in Hall 2.0 on our last day there. After looking at their displayed watches for a while, I decided to go and ask for some more information about them, as I liked their style and use of precious materials. My questions about the brand were answered by Mrs. Lederer, wife of Bernhard Lederer (Blu stands for Bernhard Lederer Universum). She invited us over to a desk, to show us some watches of the Blu collection and give us some more explanation on the brand. Our discussion was mainly about materials, such as diamonds on Blu s watches for men. When our questions became mor...
For 8 long years (2001-2009), Thierry Nataf (ex-CEO of Zenith) did a great job in destroying a brand that was one of the few well respected chronograph manufacturers. With flamboyant designs, parties and ditto prices, Nataf knew how to step on the toes of watch lovers and collectors. Zenith wasn t Zenith anymore. Although the use of certain high-tech materials were welcome, he succeeded in ruining designs. The Zenith Defy and Defy Xtreme watches really make me wonder what people are thinking when buying this watch. Terrible. Ariel Adams of aBlogToRead once did a nice article on the resemblence between Nataf and that other ‘Precious Lover.Anyway, since I started using Twitter recently,...
The watch enthusiasts among you readers probably remember Favre-Leuba for making mediocre watches during the 1990s. However, what I didn t know, is that Favre-Leuba is actually quite old (1718). This brand from the 18th century is based in Basel, the city that we all know for the annual BaselWorld show. Fast forward to 1966 (a nice overview of Favre-Leuba s history can be read here), when Favre-Leuba introduced the first Bathy diving watch. This watch featured a mechanical depth gauge, graduated in metres (50m) as well as feet (160ft) and had a screw-down type of crown, to secure the watch against water.The picture above shows the original Bathy, dated 1966, with a water resistancy of 50 met...
On the 11th of June, Antiquorum is auctioning Timepieces from Twentieth Century Icons. This auction includes some stuff that belonged to Steve McQueen. Besides the actual watch that Steve McQueen wore in the Le Mans movie, the Heuer Monaco (ref.1133), Antiquorum is also auctioning his Von Dutch motorcycle (what has this to do with timepieces you may ask? I don t know. It has to do with money probably.) and a Submariner 5512 that was given to Jimmy Brucker, early 1980. I don t know if it is the actual watch that has been spotted on the wrist of Steve McQueen several times, or that it is just a similar model. Chad McQueen, Steve s son, has been spotted wearing a similar Submariner as well. Wh...
I am a big fan of the GMT-Master, not only because it is one rock solid watch that has this neat feature of being able to display multiple timezones (3 in total, using the bezel), but also because of its history. We probably all know the historic Pan-Am GMT-Master models, with the white dial, given to pilots of that company. Jake Ehrlich even claims it was the unofficial Moon Watch. I don t know about that (well, I do), but at least it was favored by a lot of NASA astronauts as well.Sometimes, I regret selling the ref.1675 I had a few years back, but that s only because its value doubled ?? The ref.16710 remains my favorite model of GMT-Masters anyway. However, the only downside of this par...
Paneristi (= dedicated Panarai fans) are famous for their GetToGethers. The best known GTG is P-Day, this year to be held in Florence, Italy. Home of the Officine.Last weekend, WatchRon (one of the Dutch Paneristis) organized a GTG for all Belgian and Dutch Paneristi. Unfortunately, I wasn t able to join them, but the stunning pictures they posted on PaneristiPix and the wristwatchphotoblog by Martin make up a lot.A good GTG comes with a good meal, and according to some of the attendees in the Dutch Panerai Forum, the meal was excellent.Part of the Panerai fun is about straps (and changing them). Dirk Grandry, one of the most famous strap sellers, was also there, presenting a large collectio...
Besides his work as interior and furniture designer, Robert Lighton also created a few wrist watches by the names of Hudson, Empire, San Remo, Algonquin and a few more. Mechanical watches with stainless steel, sterling silver or gold cases, most of them with an ETA (mechanical) movement. A few years back these babies sold for over 2600 USD, but you can get them now for as low as 695 USD! Robert Lighton New York is having a close out sale, and if I may say so, you really will have a bargain when buying one of these original beauties. Below, a stainless steel Empire model is pictured.My mother has been wearing her Hudson in sterling silver for over years now, and the cushion shaped case of the...
Project X Designs, famous for their customized es, is proud to present their PXD SS1 Limited edition Submariner. This watch, based on the current Submariner ref.16610LV, is a hommage to the James Bond Submariners of the 1950s & Military Submariners of the 1970s. Although Bond s Submariner was less high-tech (in real life that is), Project X Designs tried to bring the ‘look & feel of that very watch by removing the crown protectors and putting the watch on a NATO strap. Most information available about the watches that James Bond actually DID wear, can be found on Dell Deaton s excellent website https://www.jamesbondwatches.com/.By using the LV (Lunette Vert) model of the Sub...
