Company profile: NOMOS Glashütte was founded in 1990 by Roland Schwertner, who is still one of the owners together with four other partners. It is exceptional amongst independent watch brands in that it makes everything in-house, above all its movements. At present there are ten calibres. It also makes its own proprietary escapement, named NOMOS…
It’s not hard to see that there is increasing interest in pilot’s watches from major brands, with Patek Philippe introducing a classic pilot’s watch out of the blue last year (2015), a traditional pilot’s watch from Montblanc also launched in 2015, and the Senator Observer from Glashütte Original. At SIHH in January, IWC renewed its…
Company profile: Archimede was founded recently, though its roots date back to 1924, when Karl Ickler founded a company named simply Ickler in Pforzheim, Germany. Pforzheim’s importance as a centre for watches and jewellery runs back to much earlier, to 1767 when the Grand Duke Karl Friedrich of Baden promoted the foundation of a watch…
Montblanc has reacted fast to the advent of smart watches. The e-Strap is a small, discreet device that slides onto a standard watchstrap and pairs to a smartphone. It offers functions that include an activity tracker, notifications for incoming communications, remote controls for the phone’s camera and music player, and a system that allows you…
This watch by Montblanc, reference 112587, takes the sporty, accessible TimeWalker collection, mixes it with the sophisticated ExoTourbillon, adds the brand’s monopusher chronograph with semicircular counters, and blends it all with the latest high-tech materials. The result is a visually-satisfying watch with dynamic looks, one of the most surprising watches to be seen at the…
This Montblanc Twincounter watch looks like a chronograph with its two subdials, but in fact it has just the time functions plus date. Probably some people buy chronographs just because they like the look of the subdials. Perhaps Montblanc was thinking of this marketing aspect when designing this watch, in which there are two subdials,…
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…
With respect to the previous version of this watch, Montblanc Heritage Spirit Orbis Terrarum, this piece is much more attractive, with its colourful globe, and more expensive, €5,890 as compared to €4,990. The case has also been increased in size from 41 to 43 mm, and the caseband has a stepped profile. The world-time function…
Montblanc’s entry-level three-hand watch in the 4810 collection, presented in 2016, is competitively priced at €2,690. It is competing with brands such as Baume & Mercier with their Classima (which is about €600 cheaper). With respect to the previous versions of this watch, the bezel is narrower, and the minutes scale and SuperLuminova dots are…
This, the IWC Big Pilot’s Heritage Watch 48 IW510301, is the closest that IWC has come to a re-edition of its classic 1940 pilot’s watch 52-Calibre T.S.C. The Heritage Watch is 48 mm in diameter, compared to the 55 mm of the 1940s 52-Calibre T.S.C. and the new Heritage Watch 55. Its size and appearance…
This flyback chronograph by Montblanc has an in-house movement, and it presents a lot of information on a well-designed dial. Its price of €6,900 makes it a very accessible piece considering its manufacture movement and the limited edition (1,110 pieces). The design has the visual characteristics of the 4810 series, with narrow bezel, dial with…
The Montblanc 4810 Chronograph Automatic, a good-value watch starting at €3,990, has all the visual codes of the 4810 series, with its red-gold-plated Roman numerals with a modern design, the star-shaped silver-white guilloché dial, and the circular dots of SuperLuminova on odd-numbered hours. The guilloché is very effective at catching the light and changing with…
Montblanc has created three limited editions of the ExoTourbillon Slim, with hand-painted maps. The editions are of North America (36 watches), Asia (38 watches) and Europe (36 watches), so that in total there 110 watches, celebrating the brand’s 110th anniversary. The watch itself is basically the same as the 4810 ExoTourbillon Slim, with its new…
Montblanc has now completed its set of watch families and from this year begins a process of consolidation, reinterpreting existing models. But this doesn’t mean that the brand is resting on its laurels: just in the 4810 range, this year there are three new in-house movements, accompanied by a lot of design work. The new…
This 39mm piece by Parmigiani Fleurier is dominated by the poppy-red dial in aventurine, with rose gold case and bracelet, diamond-set bezel and lugs (in total 112 diamonds, 1 carat), and a single ruby cabochon set into the crown. Creating a dial from a stone such as aventurine is not simple: it has to be…
This is a 33mm watch by Parmigiani Fleurier with the favourite and most poetic complication for women, the moon phase. The poetry is combined with a mother-of-pearl dial, and by a lot of technical content, with a new in-house movement. At prices starting from 12,300 Swiss francs, this a piece offering good value. Dial Michel…
This 39mm watch takes Parmigiani’s diamond-setting to new levels, from the classic watch with diamond-set bezel to a piece in which the gems completely cover the dial. The round diamonds are in four sizes, decreasing from the centre to the outside of the dial. Smaller diamonds are used around the central pivot, and around the…
Montblanc seems to be taking on Rolex head-on with this piece. It has the classic day-date format with day at the top and date near the crown, and the case’s water resistance, though not at Rolex Oyster standards, is still higher than most watches, at 5 bar, corresponding to 50 metres. Above all, it has…
The Tonda Chronor Anniversaire by Parmigiani Fleurier celebrates the brand’s 20th anniversary, from its creation in 1996 by Michel Parmigiani with the Sandoz Family Foundation. It’s a very technical piece, with a clear and functional dial. Its utility is further enhanced by the big date. It is also exceptional in that the movement is entirely…
Company profile: “One of the problems we have,” said a Parmigiani PR staff member at Geneva fair SIHH, “is that sometimes people expect us to make cheese!” But Parmigiani Fleurier make beautiful watches, and the name is of its founder Michel Parmigiani. Michel Parmigiani joined the industry at a difficult moment. He finished his studies…