Latest watch news · Page 1366

Editor’s note: With the announcement of Tudor’s ceramic Black Bay for Only Watch 2019, we found our minds turned, inexplicably, to the darker things in life. And while the chances of owning that dark phantom are slender, the Tudor Heritage Black Bay Dark is a much more achievable goal …  The story in a second: … ContinuedThe post Hearts of darkness – the Tudor Heritage Black Bay Dark appeared first on Time+Tide Watches.

When Bremont burst onto the scene more than 10 years ago they were disruptive outsiders in a staid and often slow-moving industry. Since that time, the brand has gone from strength to strength - something that’s reflected in the solid, no-nonsense watches they make. And the Bremont 2019 collection is no exception, as we found … ContinuedThe post VIDEO: 5 highlights from Bremont’s 2019 collection  appeared first on Time+Tide Watches.

Jean-François Mojon, founder of complications specialist Chronode, has a client list that reads like a who’s who of independent watchmaking: from establishment names Hermès and MB&F; to revived brands like Urban Jurgensen. His latest creation, however, is one of the most affordable to date. Constructed for Trilobe, a start-up founded just three years ago by former banker Gautier Massonneau. The brand’s first collection, Les Matinaux – “The Morning” in English – derives its name from a poem written by French author René Char.  Novelty aside Built at Chronode’s Le Locle facility, Les Matinaux is designed to subvert traditional time-telling. Instead of conventional fixed indices and moving hands, the hands, or rather pointers, are fixed but the markers – on three separate chapter rings for the hours, minutes and seconds – are constantly in motion, and rotate counter-clockwise to boot. The concept is not entirely new, of course. This type of time display is most often used on digital-style dials with numerals shown either in a single line or within a window, as on the De Bethune Dream Watch 5. Affordable brands have done the same with quartz movements, including Klokers, which is sadly now defunct, as well as Lip with its Mythic Jump Hour Watch. In contrast, Les Matinaux does not have its indicators arranged in a linear manner. Instead, the trio of trefoils – trilobe is French for trefoil – seem casually scattered across the dial, so i...

To homage or not to homage? That is the question.

During the Time to Move event, Harry Winston unveiled the Premier Precious Micromosaic Automatic 36. Here is our picture report of the watch.

Thanks to their central function in the time-telling process, watch dials often get a significant amount of coverage in the horological media. But this often ignores the thing that keeps the dial on your wrist in the first place - the bracelet or strap. Considering the most customisable part of a watch is the bracelet - and … ContinuedThe post The most interesting watch bracelets of 2018 appeared first on Time+Tide Watches.

REVOLUTION catches up with CEOs of the most singular independent watch brands to see what’s on their summer reading list.

Jaquet Droz CEO, Christian Lattman walks Revolution through all of the watchmaker’s 2019 novelties, including the breathtaking Magic Lotus Automaton.

In 2016, Cartier unveiled one of the most dramatic examples of an orbital regulator – the Astromysterieux – in which the entire movement was suspended in the oculus of the watch dial, mysteriously unencumbered by any visible support. The Astromysterieux sits in the same class of exotic regulators as the Ulysse Nardin Freak, Piaget Tourbillon Relatif, and Jean Dunand Tourbillon Orbital – and unsurprisingly, three of the four were conceived by the same watchmaker. Previously only available in palladium, the brand has now introduced a striking pink gold version with a black guilloche chapter ring. The dimensions of the watch remain unchanged – 43.5mm in diameter with a thickness of just 12mm, making it one of the thinnest, most elegant watches with such an unusual regulator. In the new pink gold version, the black guilloche chapter ring is paired with polished pink gold roman numerals and black Breguet-shaped hands, creating a remarkable contrast. But the true brilliance of the watch lies in the ingenious cal. 9462 MC, for which three patents were filed. The secret to the floating, mysterious movement is in the invisible gearing that is hidden behind the chapter ring. The movement is essentially baguette-shaped, with the minute hand fixed to the barrel bridge, and completes a full rotation on the dial in an hour. The central, carrousel tourbillon The basic idea of a tourbillon is to install the escapement in a mechanically driven platform in order to cr...

Among vintage military watches, some are more interesting and significant than others. They include the IWC Mark 11 and Rolex “Milsub”,  and also the early Type 20 chronographs made by Breguet for the French air force and navy in the 1950s. Breguet has revived the first-generation, military-issue Type 20 for Only Watch 2019. The one of a kind remake is faithful not just in terms of dimensions and aesthetics, but also the movement. Instead of a modern calibre, it is powered by a refurbished, vintage Valjoux 235 movement, just like the original. Breguet Type 20 “Only Watch” And a bit of nomenclature explanation before proceeding: “Type 20” refers to a French military specification for pilot’s chronographs, which refers to the original, military-issue watches. Watches produced for the civilian market, including the modern day models, are identified by the model name in Roman numerals – Type XX. The origins After WWII, Breguet was one of several watchmakers, including Mathey-Tissot, Airain, Vixa, Auricoste, and Dodane, that supplied Type 20 chronographs to the French Air Force and Naval Air Force. While the actual Type 20 specification has been lost, the general consensus is that it called for a watch a prominent seconds track, a 38mm-ish case with a screw-in back and thickness of not more than 14mm, accuracy of within eight seconds a day, and most crucially, a flyback chronograph with a start-stop function that would work reliably at least 300 ti...

If you know the heritage dive brand Doxa, you know they’re famous for three things: Dirk Pitt, distinctive cases, and orange dials that are bright enough to light up your life (and the lives of anyone within a 10-foot radius of you). Dirk Pitt is a fictional adventuring Doxa wearer, created in the mind of … ContinuedThe post Dive deep with the DOXA Sub 1200T Professional appeared first on Time+Tide Watches.

The “Dirty Dozen” are watches produced by the 12 British Ministry of Defence contractors during World War II who were tasked with strapping watches to the wrists of allied forces. While some of the brands are bigger and better than ever before, a few have slid into relative obscurity or the books of insolvency firms. … ContinuedThe post Which of the Dirty Dozen survive today? appeared first on Time+Tide Watches.

The war for our wrists is far from over.

Fun fact: Last year the Apple Watch shipped 22.5 million units. In the same period, the Swiss watch industry exported 23.7 million watches. Scary stuff if you’re a Swiss watch brand. Especially scary if your business is rooted in quartz watches - the market sector that’s being most aggressively eroded by the Apple onslaught.  This … ContinuedThe post RECOMMENDED READING: It might be the biggest, but the Apple Watch hasn’t crushed the Swiss  appeared first on Time+Tide Watches.

Seiko introduces a new LX line of watches with the usual Sea, Land and Air concepts. We examine the Prospex SNR031J1 LX Black Edition Dive Watch in detail.

A watch inspired by the most exciting decade of Formula 1.

Editor’s note: The longer I spend around watches, the less I find myself in bells and whistles (Patek alarms and Jaquet Droz excepted). In fact, I find myself more and more drawn to simple, pure designs that just work. The TAG Heuer Carrera Calibre 5 Day-Date is a perfect example of this. On the surface … ContinuedThe post The TAG Heuer Carrera Calibre 5 Day-Date is a near-perfect daily wearer appeared first on Time+Tide Watches.

Editor-at-Large Ken Kessler contemplates how watch trends form and how that allows the value purchase market to punch above its weight.

It's not just the top lots you want to be looking at this year.

Rodger Corser looks familiar, right? That’s because he’s one of Australia’s most enduring and endearing actors. You’ll find him fighting zombies in Glitch, chasing gangsters in Underbelly and stitching up wounds in Doctor Doctor. In the new season of the popular show, you may note a certain black and stealthy companion on his wrist: The Bremont … ContinuedThe post MY WEEK WITH: The Bremont U-2/51-JET, by Gold Logie nominee Rodger Corser appeared first on Time+Tide Watches.

In the first episode of a new Time+Tide video series called ‘Every Watch Tells A Story’ - in which we ask people to choose a watch in their collection with a memorable backstory - Tom explains how he came to be the proud owner of a Patek Philippe Nautilus 5711, a watch that has had arguably more … ContinuedThe post Tom makes a case for waiting lists with the story of his Patek Philippe Nautilus 5711 – “I told the dealer what I wanted and he went, ha!” appeared first on Time+Tide Watches.

While orange might be the new black, another obvious trend in the contemporary watch market is the lean towards heritage styling. This has been a consistent motif across the industry for a number of years now, but 2018 was a year when the number of heritage watches almost eclipsed those with more contemporary design. In … ContinuedThe post Old is the new black, 8 of the best heritage watches of 2018 appeared first on Time+Tide Watches.

A Moonwatch for the Met.

A truly legendary watch commands a serious price at Sotheby's in London.

The George Daniels Space Traveller I, one of the most important watches of the 20th century, has just sold at Sotheby’s in London for  £3.62m, or about US$4.56m, all fees included. That makes the Space Traveller I the most expensive watch sold in 2019 so far – though it will doubtlessly be eclipsed by the Patek Philippe Grandmaster Chime in steel for Only Watch – and the most expensive watch ever by an independent watchmaker. A big boost to Sotheby’s market share in watch auctions, the record-setting Daniels was the final lot in the first auction of Masterworks of Time, the sale of a collection of over 800 pocket watches owned by Erivan Haub, the late German supermarket tycoon. The last time the Space Traveller was sold was in 1988, where Haub paid  220,000 Swiss francs for it at Sotheby’s in Geneva. Prior to that, the watch was been sold by London antique watch dealer Bobinet in 1982 to a collector by the name of Jay Lennon. In almost forty years, the Space Traveller has had only three owners. The auction Having concluded just over an hour ago, the auction took place on a pleasant summer’s day in London, but it was slow going in the half-filled room. The average age of the attendees was notedly higher than that for a wristwatch auction, reflecting the niche nature of pocket watch collecting. But a crowd started to form as soon as it came to the Space Traveller, and the atmosphere perked up. Bidding started out as a tussle between an absentee bidder...

The Citizen Promaster Skyhawk A-T Blue Angel is a pilot’s radio controlled watch in collaboration with the US Navy's Blue Angels. Precision meets precision.

Half a decade ago, Time+Tide published a story, citing that by 2020 there would be more female millionaires in Britain than male, leaving it to the brands to respond to this shift. As we also mentioned here, women’s watches are so often an afterthought from brands, typically taking a men’s model and either shrinking it down … ContinuedThe post 6 of the best women’s watches of 2018 appeared first on Time+Tide Watches.