Sky-Dweller is an unusual watch, now available in Rolesor, the name that Rolex give to the use of gold and steel together in the same watch. In this piece, the bezel, crown, and centre bracelet links are made in yellow gold. Other parts are in 904L steel. In another version, the combination is between white…
The new 2017 edition of the IWC Big Pilot’s Watch Annual Calendar reference IW502706 is very similar to the 2016 edition dedicated to Le Petit Prince, except that the dial is now tobacco brown, there is an A for Antoine on the dial, and the oscillating weight is in the shape of Antoine de Saint…
At watch fair SIHH in January this year, Ulysse Nardin presented three new movements. Plus the Innovision concept watch, and more recently the Executive Skeleton Tourbillon. An enormous creative effort. The Marine Annual Calendar Chronometer celebrates the days when marine chronometers were instrumental in determining a ship’s position. It has the looks of those classical…
Watches today are becoming chunkier and more colourful, moving away from the appearance typical of a functional, scientific, practical timepiece. This is not the case for A. Lange & Söhne, whose watches retain their timeless, sober style, and, whatever their value, remain pieces that could be worn during everyday life without raising eyebrows. They are…
The Marine Chronograph Annual Calendar is a typical Ulysse Nardin product, in that it offers a lot of innovation and originality at a comparatively low price. It has an in-house chronograph movement, and an annual calendar that can be adjusted forwards and backwards, a system invented by Ludwig Oechslin. All at a price of €11,900…
The Globemaster range by Omega is beginning to expand, from the basic time-only version introduced in 2015. Each watch has Omega’s new METAS certification in which the watch is tested for eight parameters, including resistance to magnetic fields of 15,000 gauss, water resistance of 10 bar/100 metres, and precision. The Omega Globemaster Annual Calendar has…
In their communications for the Patek Philippe Annual Calendar reference 5396, the company say that it was Philippe Stern, owner and president of Patek Philippe, who in 1992 asked his engineers to develop a watch bridging the gap between the so-called “complete calendar” (also known as “full calendar” or “quantième complet”) which indicates day of…
The Montblanc Heritage Chronométrie Chronograph Quantième Annuel, reference 114876, is an “annual calendar,” and so it takes the different lengths of months into account, but doesn’t keep count of leap years. It has to be adjusted once a year at the end of February. As for many of Montblanc’s watches, the steel version is aggressively…
The IWC Big Pilot’s Watch Annual Calendar Edition “Le Petit Prince” (reference IW502701) places last year’s Portugieser Annual Calendar into a pilot’s frame. The case in red gold, 46 mm diameter and 15.5 mm thick, is a couple of millimetres larger than the Portugieser, and so the calendar indications at the top are not quite…
One of the things that I admire about Patek Philippe is what they don’t do. They don’t make metiers d’art watches with paintings on the dial. They don’t make weird and strange complications. They don’t make watches with monkeys (or buffalo or dragons) on the dial. In short, they are never running after the market.…
It was probably one of the most eagerly awaited returns in watchmaking this year. After their tangle with Swatch Group, we were all waiting to see what the new Tiffany watch collection, CT60, would look like. It was unveiled on 2 April 2015 with a series of very classical designs. Expectations were high because Tiffany…
It seems to be the year of the annual calendars. De Grisogono have released information about their new Instrumento N° Uno Annual Calendar, which has all the quirky asymmetry of the Instrumento models, with two extra digital windows, one for date at 12 o’clock, and one for month at 7 o’clock. There is a small…
You think you’ve seen this watch somewhere before? In a way you’re right, because it is very similar to the Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Calendar (reference 1558420) launched in 2013 and replaced this year by the Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Calendar Meteorite Dial. Comparison with the Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Calendar The similarities aren’t just visual: the Montblanc piece is (like…
At SIHH (January 2015) Montblanc confirmed their power and prowess as a watch brand, with an exceptional collection of new products ranging from sophisticated pieces with in-house movements developed at their Villeret manufacture, previously the historic brand Minerva, to watches with third-party movement and modern design to appeal to a younger section of the market.…
Cartier presented an incredible range of new pieces at SIHH, some haute horlogerie, some haute joaillerie, and some that had some ingenious design touches creating something new and refreshing. This was the case for the Rotonde de Cartier Annual Calendar, which presents the information typical of annual calendar watches – day, date, month – in…