The Montblanc 1858 Automatic Dual Time, one of the three new watches presented in the 1858 collection available from April 2017, continues the brand’s smart marketing technique, offering watches with standard movements and simple complications at an attractive price. Coupled with good design and the world-wide familiarity of the Montblanc brand name, this is presumably…
1858, because in 2007, the Richemont Group purchased Minerva and assigned it to Montblanc. Minerva is a historical brand founded in 1858, and it developed a reputation for fine movements and in particular for chronographs. The 1858 collection was presented in October 2015 with two timepieces with a distinctly early pilot’s watch appearance, based on…
Watch brands are now presenting previews of their new products for 2017, which will be fully presented during the two upcoming shows, SIHH in Geneva in January, and Baselworld in March. Breguet’s preview is dedicated to women, a new version of the Tradition Dame, at a very feminine size of 37 mm but with a…
The Galet Traveller Boréal by Laurent Ferrier is an interesting example of how a watch can develop new characteristics on the basis of customer demands. In this case, a client asked the brand for a Traveller timepiece, but with lots of SuperLuminova. The design of the hour indications was inspired by car dashboard instruments and…
The Ulysse Nardin Diver Chronograph Artemis Racing celebrates the brand’s partnership with America’s Cup team Artemis Racing, and it gets some good stuff from the deal. The Artemis Racing logo is very effective and it appears on one of the metal elements on the rubber strap, and on the 30-minute chronograph at 9 o’clock. There…
A few brands have a watch that seems to be totally different to the house style, such as the Type XX/XXI/XXII pilot’s watches by Breguet, and the Cartier Calibre de Cartier Diver. Cartier is a watch and jewellery brand, and even its non-jewellery watches have a dressy, showy appeal. A diver’s watch on the other…
Double hairspring? But wasn’t it Audemars Piguet claiming a world first with their Royal Oak Double Balance Wheel Openworked? In actual fact, Laurent Ferrier launched the Galet Classic Tourbillon Double Hairspring back in 2010, when it won an award at the GPHP Geneva watchmaking prizes. This year, 2016, Laurent Ferrier has combined that movement with…
The Laurent Ferrier Galet Traveller Globe Night Blue offers a good reason for creating a watch with the on-trend blue dial colour. In this piece, the view of the dial depicts the earth as seen from space, with deep blue oceans and tiny specks of gold representing the lights of the cities. The craftsmanship used…
Chronographs with column wheel and vertical clutch have some significant benefits with respect to those with horizontal clutch or with cam chronograph movements. There is virtually no extra energy absorption when the chronoograph is running, and in some vertical clutch chronographs, the balance wheel amplitude actually increases slightly. You can leave the chronograph running all…
The Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Double Balance Wheel Openworked is a beautiful and innovative watch, with the new Calibre 3132 featuring a double balance wheel on a single staff. The watch has all the habitual Audemars Piguet refinement, with hand-finished skeletonization, and wheels with gold-plated surfaces and circular graining. The deep grey, gun-metal treatment of…
A mechanical watch is always something of a luxury, but there are some objects out there that enable you to discover the pleasure of co-habiting with something that can live at least as long as you will, that has its own tiny beating heart, and that will never need a new battery. Here are some…
The Royal Oak is a true legend in watchmaking, from its design – created by Gérald Genta in one night (the story goes), inspired by an old-fashioned diving helmet attached to a diving suit with screws – to its name, taken from a series of eight Royal Navy warships, in turn named after an old…
Company profile: Cartier was founded in Paris in 1847 by Louis-François Cartier, who took over the jewellery workshop where he had trained, and specialized in jewellery and fashion accessories. Business went well, and he became the favourite jeweller amongst the French aristocracy. His son Alfred became a partner in 1872, and was running the shop…
Piaget’s Polo has a long history. It was released in 1979, a watch in solid gold with a distinctive appearance provided by the stripes that continued from the bracelet over the dial. New Polo S and its distinctive case The new Polo S is very different, because it is in steel, and has a totally…
The Oris Altimeter Rega Limited Edition is one of the very few pilot’s watches to have a specialist pilot’s function. Breva also make a watch with an altimeter, the Génie 02, but it has a slightly higher price tag: $132,000, against which the Oris watch compares very favourably at 3,950 Swiss francs. The Oris Altimeter…
Frederique Constant Analytics is a device that allows any owner of a mechanical watch to do what a watch repairer does with a time measurement microphone: measure the rate of the watch, and thus assess its accuracy. In a normal chronoscope by a brand such as Witschi, the microphone is on a stand that holds…
There are some chronographs whose dial is designed specifically to facilitate readings of elapsed time. On the other hand there are a few in which the dial makes it difficult or impossible to measure a span of time. The chronograph function becomes a purely decorative motif, and the pushers a sort of anti-stress game. All…
The Bell & Ross BR S Rose Gold, launched for Christmas 2016, transforms the brand’s instrument-panel aesthetic into a high-end pink gold piece that recalls Bulgari, with its clean design and simple baton hour markers. A nice touch is the date window, which, even though it is at 4.30, has upright figures (usually, when a…
Cartier à l’infini is one of the many Cartier products that combine jewellery and watchmaking. The white gold bracelet has a subtle curve that makes the gemsetting even more complex. The surfaces of the top and sides of the bracelet are made in black lacquer and diamonds, creating a visually appealing frame for the tiny…
Company profile: Oris is an independent company with a long history and a marked penchant for innovation. Today its slogan is “real watches for real people,” which can be translated as mechanical watches at accessible prices. It’s an interesting brand, moving progressively towards greater vertical integration, and it has designed and built some of its…