Lex Watches, one of Fratello s sponsors and just recently on the Dutch market has exciting news to bring! Since Lex Watches is trying to stand out from the crowd, they also look for partners that stand out. Lex Watches have found a brand that they feel fits very well with their own philosophy. The brand is not very famous to all of you (yet), but all watches are precious timepieces, made in house and by hand, all in very small production numbers, making all the produced watches special and rare!The brand we are talking about is BRM which is short for Bernard Richards Manufacture. At BRM they build every watch by hand, and almost all parts are manufactured in house. BRM uses, besides ETA base...

About a year ago, I wrote about a book called Vintage Panerai by Ralf Ehlers and Volker Wiegmann, both Paneristi from Germany. These guys have written the successor of their first book and it is currently available for pre-order. Their second book is being called Vintage Panerai – The References and can be ordered at vintage-panerai.de for 169 Euro. Their first book, Vintage Panerai – Watches with History, is also still for sale for 79 Euro.The Vintage Panerai – The Legends book is documenting 34 different vintage / historic Panerai watches. The peculiarities and differences between the References 3646, 6152, 6154, 6152/1 and the GPF 2/56 are explained in detail and with ri...

Although James Bond is probably perceived as one of the most stylish men around, he certainly messed up his watch in Goldfinger. In Goldfinger, he was wearing a Submariner (ref.6538 probably) on a NATO strap. On several Forums, the close-up below shows the watch with as much detail as possible:I don t like NATO straps at all, and find them far from stylish, but I guess that there are a lot of (and Bond) fans that do. But look at the width of the strap, it is way too small, approximately 18mm (if not any smaller). This looks pretty awkward, and I can t imagine they couldn t find a fitting NATO strap for this watch in 1964.Anyway, some of the / Bond fans are delighted by finally having suc...

Yesterday, I had a phone call with a watch dealer that I know for quite some time. It was quite a while since our last conversation, so we had a lot to talk about. He told me that he bought this IWC Big Pilot Perpetual Calendar, in stainless steel. I didn t know about this version, only about the platinum version (click here to read about the platinum version).It seems that IWC made them as a ‘Bucherer special edition. Bucherer was founded in 1888 by Carl-Friedrich Bucherer, who opened his first watch and jewelry store in Lucerne, Switzerland. Nowadays, there are 18 shops in Switzerland, Germany and Austria. I was in their store in Lucerne a few years back, they have a pretty impressi...

On the 10th of August, I wrote this post about the (new) Milgauss ref.116400, almost a year after its introduction during Basel 2007 (which I covered here). The post wasn t very positive, because it seemed to me that the Milgauss wasn t the immediate hit had hoped for. However, fast forward to 2009, it seems that the hype regains a bit. The availability of the Milgauss improved (you can even find the green sapphire version quite easily) and the prices dropped to an interesting level.My watch friend John Chan has traded his Date-Just for a Milgauss (black dial) and after trying his and one at the airport, the watch doesn t let me go. Last week, I ran into JK, owner of JKWatchStore.nl, and h...

It wasn t until they unveiled the Bremont Submarine 500 wrist watch on January 23rd 2009. Before that time, there was only slight coverage on this relatively new watch brand from the U.K. The brothers Nick and Giles English are responsible for this brand and its watches, which are being produced in Switzerland. All watches are hand-made and the production is limited. The brothers English are a huge fan of classic/historic aircrafts and this translates in to the heavily tested (in the field), certified chronometer watches. Their watches need to be on par with aviation standards. As you can see below, the Bremont logo carries the propeller of an aircraft.From what I understand, they put a lot ...

In 2008, introduced a new Submariner in all white gold (with blue dial and bezel), ref. 116619. This year, introduced the gold/steel (Rolesor) model of the Submariner in both black and blue dial versions at BaselWorld 2009. These are respectively the ref. 116613LN and ref.116613LB models (Ariel of aBlogToRead.com did nice coverage on them).When the GMT-Master 116713 and 116710 were introduced a few years ago, I remember a sudden short price drop of its predecessors (ref.16710/16713). Perhaps this is the time to keep an eye on the current/former models of the Rolesor Submariner models (ref.16613).Since a few weeks, I am wearing a Submariner 16613. Once in a while, there is this opportunity ...

Brand boutiques are popping up like mushrooms the last few years. I wonder how the authorized dealers feel about this and what the ideas are behind these brand boutiques. The authorized dealers are more or less required to buy a certain collection of watches from a brand, even if they know upfront they won t be selling certain models. The boutiques however, can probably decide on their own what to buy, or it just doesn t matter because they ARE the brand and can return the watches that don t get sold back to Switzerland (for example).The authorized dealers have their own solution for this, which is selling or trading the watches that they don t want to sell or can t sell, to [grey] dealers e...

Not too long ago on this blog I put forth a healthy dose of skepticism (Feb 26:???? New Detail Emerges on the Concord C1 QuantumGravity) as to the potential of the unconventional and nonconforming Concord C1 QuantumGravity watch.???? I further questioned the QuantumGravity s ability to live up to expectations that were being set by an effusive and over-the-top marketing campaign in the lead up to Baselworld 2009.Now after seeing some live photos and now live video of this watch, I confess that I am even more intrigued by it, but in a good way.???? The Concord C1 QuantumGravity is growing on me!???? What can I say – it seems that my dismay was not with the watch itself but its verbose a...

One of the big bummers of the BaselWorld 2009 show was that I was unable to take a closer look at TAG Heuer s new watches. The gigantic booth had this display in front of it, with both the old Monaco (1133) (it was the actual watch that Steve McQueen wore in Le Mans) and the new 40th anniversary Monaco.The girl (a rented promo model with a cool leather TAG Heuer ‘Gulf jacket) couldn t allow us to go inside the booth to make some decent pictures and she was also told NOT to give any press kits to the press (I had a press card via Perpetuelle).I wonder if that s really the policy, since TAG Heuer at least floods my mailbox with ALL of their new releases and celebrity news. Anyway, since...

I will keep you updated on a Basel 2009 novelties the next coming days, both here and on our partner site, Perpetuelle.com. The company that keeps their secrets very well, is – of course – . Too many people their introduction at BaselWorld 2009 today will be a bit of a disappoint perhaps, but to me, it is great to hear that they keep things as they were ?? With a few exceptions of course, like the new lady s Daytona.The new update on the DateJust (being called DateJust II on various forums) has been done very nicely in my opinion (except that the diameter of 41mm might be a bit big). They have their lessons learned from the introduction of the Day-Date II last year. Other news i...

This customized is an initiative by Philipp Stahl (Steiner Maastricht) and Jerrel Manbodh (Manbodhwatches). It is a Jacques Piccard Edition called the Single Red DeepSea, and will be produced in only 86 pieces.This number stands for each year of the life of Jacques Piccard. Phlipp and Jerrel have an official approval by the son of Jacques Piccard, Bertrand. The DeepSea Sea-Dweller that has been used, underwent quite a metamorphose. A DLC coating, engraving on the caseback and a single red wording of ‘DeepSea (referring to the red printed vintage Sea-Dwellers).The watch comes in a special box and with an additional NATO strap. This project has been a crown on the work of the creator ...

Designer Gerald Genta started his own brand in 1969, however, this talented haute horlogerie designer also did design work for numereous other watch brands. He is responsibles for some all-time watch classics that were produced in the 1970s. The most spectacular designs are those of the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak, Patek Philippe Nautilus, Vacheron Constantin ‘222‘ (Overseas) and the IWC Ingenieur.However, like I wrote before in the blog post on the Vacheron Constantin 222, these watches become unaffordable. A vintage 222 in stainless steel will cost you around 10.000 Euro, and I only found 1 for sale on chrono24.com. Do you love the vintage Patek Philippe Nautilus ref.3700 and wan...

Watchmaking class starts now! Be a watchmaker for a whole weekend in Germany. You ll start with a few theory lessons on watchmaking, but soon you will be polishing steel, creating blued screws, engraving your personal serial number in the movement etc. etc. After a weekend of hard work, you will leave the Blancier Lottermann & Sohne seminar in Mannheim Germany with a brand new unique wrist watch.A two-day seminar in Mannheim/Germany includes:the mechanical wrist watch you created;documentation of the theory lessons;an incredible watchmaing experience!This seminar costs only 890 Euro! This doesn t include a hotel, but for just a small additional fee (adding it up to a total price of 950 e...

It seems to be some kind of accepted spin-off hobby by collectors world-wide, spotting watches on the wrist of famous actors, singers, models, presidents, sports people, and soccer player s wives (see picture below). This spin-off activity can therefore be pretty exhausting, as most famous personalities actually wear (gold) watches. I wonder if not spotting a on a movie star s wrist isn t going to be a better challenge.Results of this spin-off hobby can be found on the German Forum (also known as Das Forum or www.r-l-x.de). They have (currently) 189 pages of pictures with famous people wearing a . The Dutch Forum has only 26 pages, but remember that we are only a small country of cour...

Project X Designs is a London based company, specializing in customizing [mainly ] wrist watches. You can order a regular wrist watch on their site, and tick the options to customize it entirely to your wishes. DLC (Diamond Like Carbon is quite popular since a few years, and since isn t offering in their own catalogue, Project X Designs can do so for you! The DLC wiki sums it up as: The hardest, strongest, and slickest is such a mixture, known as tetrahedral amorphous carbon, or ta-C. For example a coating of only 2??m thickness of ta-C increases the resistance of common (i.e. type 304) stainless steel against abrasive wear; changing its lifetime in such service from one week to 85 years. ...

Giuseppe Bonanno (January 18, 1905 ?????u May 12, 2002), better known as Joseph Bonanno, was a Sicilian-born American organized crime figure who became the boss of the Bonanno crime family in 1931 until his retirement in 1968. Joseph Bonanno was instrumental in forming The Mafia Commission, which was designed to oversee all Mafia activities in the U.S. and serve to resolve conflicts between the Mafia families. Joseph was married to Fay and they got three childeren. Salvatore Bill Bonanno (who was quite a character himself as well), born 1932; Catherine, born 1934; and Joseph Jr., born 1945.Joseph Bonanno received this Patek Philippe ref.1516 from other Sicilian mobster Charles Lucky Lucian...

The First Chronograph ChronometerIn 1973, the people over at Omega decided to celebrate their 125th anniversary with something HUGE. The first automatic winding chronograph with a chronometer certificate. And not only that, the watch itself was also HUGE. Even for today s standards, this chronograph chronometer watch is a massive piece of stainless steel. However, compared to today s average large watches (mostly because of fashion), this watch has some interesting piece of engineering inside as well. The movement inside this watch, Omega caliber 1041 (based on Lemania s caliber 1341) is still honored today by a lot of Omega and chronograph enthusiasts. The Omega Speedmaster 125 (ST378.0801)...

James Bond nowadays wears an Omega Seamaster Planet Ocean 600m, but in the past he had all kinds of watches, among them a number of watches. The famous James Bond is of course the Submariner, although Ian Fleming wore a Explorer himself and was probably referring to this Explorer as well in his books. Dell Deaton wrote an excellent article, including some nice photographs of Ian wearing his Explorer, for the US based magazine WatchTime.However, it seems that Daniel Craig doesn t take this Omega sponsorship (for EON movie productions) too seriously, as he has been repeatedley spotted with watches from his personal collection. Besides his vintage Submariner 6538, identical to the one that...

Note: Yes, we know, the Vacheron ‘222 was not designed by Gerald Genta but by Hysek. We stand corrected.Since the early days of my watch addiction (I admit), I am a sucker for the designs of Gerald Genta in the 1970s. Most of the time, I neglect the Vacheron and drool on pictures of ‘his Patek Philippe Nautilus, Audemars Piguet Royal Oak and IWC Ingenieur SL.I always found it hard to get proper information and pictures of the Vacheron Constantin ‘222 , nowadays known as the Vacheron Constantin Overseas. The ‘222 was the last icon that Gerald Genta designed in the 1970s, just one year after the Patek Philippe Nautilus 3700 and IWC Ingenieur SL 1832. However, yesterd...