1,617 articles · 30 videos found · page 19 of 55
Monochrome
Whenever movements are discussed, attention tends to focus on the Swiss, which is understandable, but it excludes some of the biggest movement manufacturers. Seiko, Miyota and so on, let alone the Chinese, produce far more movements per year on their own than ETA or Sellita do, for instance. To put this into some form of […]
Fratello
Contrôle Officiel Suisse des Chronomètres (COSC) is the largest Swiss independent testing facility for watch movements. Founded in 1973, this non-profit foundation aims to guarantee the precision of Swiss watches through a neutral, independent, and rigorous method. Watches with movements that passed the tests can be called “COSC-certified chronometers,” accurate to within -4/+6 seconds per […] Visit A Closer Look At COSC’s New Excellence Chronometer Certification to read the full article.
Monochrome
As we have seen recently, when we analysed the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry’s report and its export data, the watch industry isn’t at its best; exports are down, sales are declining for large conglomerates, and there are challenging times ahead for 2026. Outlooks remain cautious, as the industry is likely to continue facing […]
SJX Watches
Interesting news just out of Contrôle Officiel Suisse des Chronomètres (COSC), the venerable Swiss chronometer testing body, which has just announced a major revamp to its testing to honour the COSC’s standard’s 50th anniversary. Excellence Chronometer, COSC’s new and improved certification program, goes beyond the ISO 3159 norm that has defined its tests for decades. Instead of just testing movements, Excellence Chronometer will require completed, cased watches to run within -2/+4 seconds a day, as well as pass wear simulation and magnetism tests. Initial thoughts While COSC remains the primary chronometer testing body in Switzerland, thanks largely to Rolex, its protocols have been due for an update for some time now. With the rise of alternative and in-house precision testing programs, the standard chronometer certification can sometimes feel left behind. Rolex’s own Superlative Chronometer certification first requires a COSC certificate, but then makes sure the watches run at -2/+2 seconds per day after further in-house testing. The METAS Chronometer program also requires the standard COSC certificate, but guarantees a regulation of 0/+5 seconds per day and a great resistance to magnetic fields. Seeing that COSC slowly updates and imposes more stringent criteria is a good sign, but it may still not be good enough. With the rise of advanced internal certification programs, it looks like some brands submit their models to COSC testing just to make sure they can...
Worn & Wound
The Contrôle Officiel Suisse des Chronomètres (COSC, the body responsible for certifying watch movements as Swiss chronometers) has just announced a new chronometry standard that will be rolled out over the course of 2026. The news comes at a time when the COSC has some competition for timekeeping certifications, most notably the METAS certification (which first requires a watch movement to be COSC certified) used by Omega and Tudor, as well as other certifications provided by the brands themselves. The new COSC certification is being framed as an additional level of certification that will accompany the familiar “Certified Chronometer” tag that is seen on the dials and paperwork of millions (literally) of watches that have been put through the COSC paces over the years. The new “Excellence Chronomenter” certification provides an additional layer of guarantee of reliability that goes beyond simple accuracy. As a refresher, COSC certification certifies the movement is working at an optimal level, not a fully cased watch. To achieve a Certified Chronometer certification, a movement must show average accuracy of -4 to +6 seconds per day over a 15 day period, tested across 5 positions and 3 temperatures. The Excellence Chronometer certification tightens the accuracy threshold from a spread of 10 seconds in total to 6 (-2 to +4 seconds per day). It also adds metrics for magnetic resistance and power reserve verification in fully cased watches. According to the COS...
Fratello
Rado has a long-standing collaborative relationship with Les Couleurs Suisse. Until now, this has led to 12 releases that used Le Corbusier’s 63-shade color system, which he described in his book Polychromie Architecturale. For its latest collaborative effort, Rado took it a step beyond just using the Swiss-French architect’s color system. While these watches each […] Visit Introducing: The Rado True Round × Les Couleurs Le Corbusier Special Editions to read the full article.
Monochrome
Goliardo Della Balda’s dream of producing high-quality Swiss timepieces at affordable prices materialised with the founding of Delbana watches in 1931. Like many Swiss brands, the quartz crisis took its toll in the 1970s, but the brand was rescued in the mid-1990s and, in 2002, merged with Delma Watch Ltd. to focus on accessible, mid-century-inspired […]
Monochrome
Hitting the road to Fleurier, the discovery of L’Atelier Bernard was not what I expected. Bernard is a rather dated first name – one you rarely hear anymore for young people in Europe’s French-speaking countries. So, when I pushed open the door of their workshop in Fleurier, I was expecting to meet two old Swiss […]
Fratello
Studio Underd0g is one of the most refreshing success stories in modern watchmaking. What began as a plucky one‑man operation creating distinctive, cuisine‑themed watches has grown into a full‑blown enterprise producing more than 14,000 watches per year - and still growing. Even with Chinese‑sourced Seagull ST‑1901 calibers powering the popular 01Series and Swiss movements used […] Visit Studio Underd0g Establishes The D0ghouse, Its New British Watchmaking Facility to read the full article.
SJX Watches
Nestled in the Jura Mountains, La Chaux-de-Fonds has been a cradle of Swiss watchmaking ever since its watchmaking school, the Technicum, opened in 1865. For aspiring watchmakers, the climax of their training was traditionally the creation of a montre école – or what’s known as a school watch. This is the story of Hugues Bürki, a Technicum alumnus, who built what would become a record-breaking school watch, and who would later make horological history as a movement engineer. Hugues Bürki. Image – author The Technicum The watchmaking school of La Chaux-de-Fonds was founded in 1865. In its early days, the school occupied rooms inside the modestly named ‘Technicum’, a local vocational-technical school. By 1885, the school’s own building had been inaugurated, yet the name Technicum stuck. In 1933, in the wake of the global economic crisis, the nearby watchmaking schools in La Chaux-de-Fonds and Le Locle were merged to form the Technicum Neuchâtelois. The Technicum in the 1960s. Image – author It demands attention that both divisions of the Technicum Neuchâtelois had a particularly strong focus on high-precision chronometry at the time compared to other watchmaking schools in Switzerland, which specialised in other domains, such as the construction of complications and traditional finishing techniques. In fact, some of the innovations in chronometry we associate with brands like Longines can actually trace their roots to the Technicum Neuchâtelois, including...
Teddy Baldassarre
In a sea of black-dialed divers, a white dial stands out as a considered choice. And one of the most well-executed has to be the frostiest variant of the collector-favorite 39mm Longines Legend Diver. Longines is a Swiss heritage brand that tends to fly under the radar, most likely due to its massive catalog, but withi
SJX Watches
Having celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2025, Audemars Piguet (AP) has kicked off 2026 with a slate of new models, including one of the most complicated watches in its history. But it was a simpler watch that that generated the most buzz at the glamorous launch event in the Swiss alps: the Neo Frame Jumping Hour, which is both a new watch and the beginning of a new collection that replaces the [Re]master series. The Neo Frame is a regular production wristwatch in 18k rose gold inspired by the Pre-model 1271, a historical AP reference from 1929. Though rooted in the Art Deco era, the Neo Frame is an eminently modern watch with a novel case and dial construction and the brand’s latest-generation automatic movement. Initial thoughts The name Audemars Piguet is nearly synonymous with that of its signature product, the Royal Oak. While many brands would probably trade their entire catalogues to have a single hit like the Royal Oak, AP has sought to diversify its product line up with the introduction of collections like the Code 11.59 and the short-lived [Re]master series. Despite these efforts, the Royal Oak family remains AP’s commercial engine, making the introduction of a new collection, anchored by a rectangular jumping hours watch, especially notable. The jumping hours complication seems to be enjoying renewed interest among collectors, which makes release of the Neo Frame feel timely. But up close and on the wrist, it doesn’t look or feel like anything else on t...
Monochrome
British indie brand Farer was founded in 2015 by four friends with backgrounds in watch retail. Using Swiss-made mechanical movements, Farer offers a portfolio of confident designs with an eccentric British twist and competitive prices, thanks to the brand’s direct-to-consumer approach that eliminates intermediaries. The name Farer, derived from Old English terms like seafarer and […]
Teddy Baldassarre
Breitling announced today that it has become the Official Watch Partner of British luxury carmaker Aston Martin and the Aston Martin Aramco Formula One racing team. The multi-year global partnership, which marks the Swiss watchmaker’s return to the high-octane world of F1 motorsports after many decades, kicks off with a wristwatch milestone: the Breitling Navitimer B01 Chronograph 43 Aston Martin Aramco Formula One Team, which is no less than the first timepiece in the iconic Navitimer series with a case made of lightweight titanium. The two world-renowned companies have some ties throughout their prestigious histories. Breitling, while it has not been as visible in the racing world over the years as brands like Rolex and TAG Heuer, was an early contributor to motorsport timing. In 1907, Léon Breitling, who had founded his eponymous watchmaking firm in 1884, invented a device called the “Vitesse” (French for “speed”), a mechanical chronograph capable of measuring speeds up to 250 miles per hour. Its utility and precision spurred the Swiss police to adopt it for speed enforcement, which led to the world’s first speeding tickets. Just six years later, in 1913, Lionel Martin and Robert Bamford drove their hand-built automobile to a defining victory up the treacherous Aston Hill, giving their company a name and kicking off a long tradition of making cars built for both performance and luxury. The paths of the Swiss high-horology house and the British marque cr...
Worn & Wound
Longines is a storied and well-respected Swiss watch manufacture that formed in 1832 and has continued uninterrupted to this day. From the first wrist chronometer in 1911, to groundbreaking flyback chronographs in the 1930s, to the world’s first hi-beat wrist chronometer in 1959, Longines holds their own in the watchmaking world. My favorite period for watches is the 1950s through the 1970s and Longines was one of the top accessible brands during that time. In 1954 Longines began a marketing strategy of product families, launching the Conquest line of watches. In 1957 they introduced the Flagship line, adding to what would become a large group of watch families, many of which are still made today. Other lines that came later include the Admiral, the Ultra-Chron and the Grand Prize. The Grand Prize line was named in honor of the multitude of watchmaking awards and honors that Longines had accumulated over the decades. It was a relatively short-lived family, produced from about 1958 to 1964 according to my research. I have found that the majority of Longines watches produced during these decades were all fairly equal in quality and craftsmanship, with most of the differences in the families being design related. The Conquests were rugged and sporty, on par with the early non-diver Omega Seamaster watches. The Flagship series were dress watches, while the Admiral line was a mixture of both. The Grand Prize family were pretty much all thin, elegant everyday type dressier w...
Teddy Baldassarre
Fundamentally, mechanical and quartz movements do the same thing: they both tell thetime. But the ways in which they both do it couldn’t be more different. Not to get into acomparison guide here, but in a nutshell: a mechanical watch is powered by a mainspringthat’s either wound by hand or automatically through wrist movement. Energy is releasedthrough a complex system of gears, an escapement, and a balance wheel that beats steadily back and forth. There’s no battery, just centuries-old engineering refined to an art form. These watches aren’t the most accurate, but accuracy isn’t really the point. Craftsmanship, tradition, and the emotional connection are. Quartz watches, on the other hand, are powered by a battery and use an electrical current to make a quartz crystal vibrate at 32,768 times per second. That vibration is incredibly stable, which is why quartz watches are vastly more accurate and require far less maintenance. They’re practical, reliable, and often more durable for everyday use, as well as being notably more affordable. Neither system is inherently “better,” though. Mechanical watches speak to passion and heritage, while quartz prioritizes precision and convenience. Ultimately, it’s less about the movement inside and more about what you want your watch to represent on your wrist. [toc-section heading="Next-Level Accuracy"] Some watches measure accuracy in seconds per day, others by seconds per month. Butthere also exists a small group of t...
Fratello
He might not have been a watchmaker by training, but Raymond Weil (1926–2014) did start an eponymous watch brand. Remarkably, he did so at the age of 50 in 1976. The timing is defiant. Cheap quartz watches were already wreaking havoc on the Swiss watch industry, and a man in his 50s, especially back then, […] Visit Who Was Raymond Weil? Fratello Talked To His Grandson To Learn More About The Brand’s Founder to read the full article.
Monochrome
It’s the time of year when businesses announce their financial performance. Following Richemont and LVMH, Swatch Group has just released its 2025 results. In a challenging environment for the watch industry, the sales of Swatch Group – the Swiss powerhouse and owner of Omega, Longines, and Tissot – were CHF 6,280 million, down 1.3% at constant exchange rates […]
Worn & Wound
There’s a “don’t change it if it ain’t broke” mentality in Swiss watchmaking. Progress is slow, and it often seems that there’s a general distrust of change. An example of this is in the mechanical movements that power most of our watches. Chances are, you have at least one watch with an ETA 2824 or a movement based on the 2824 in your collection. If you’re like me, you have several. For Swiss-made watches of a certain price point, they are the standard. They are “workhorses” that, while not the most feature-rich, offer reliability and serviceability. And part of the reason for that is that the design has been around, largely unchanged, since the 1970s (the 2824-2, which is the current standard, was released in the 80s). That is, until 2013, when ETA launched 80-hour movements based on the 2824-2. First debuted in a Tissot as the Powermatic 80, ETA nearly doubled the 2824’s power reserve by slowing the escapement’s frequency from 28,800bph to 21,600bph, introducing synthetic components, and increasing the mainspring’s capacity. The biggest update to the 2824 format in a generation (though they no longer use that numbering), as ETA is part of Swatch, these movements gave the group’s catalog of brands under Omega an unexpected edge in the market, but were not available to third-party brands, thus limiting their overall impact. The ETA 2824 featured in a Sinn 556i In 2003, Sellita began supplying movements to third parties as a response to Swatch’s...
Monochrome
Simple solutions to complex problems could well be Dr Ludwig Oechslin’s overriding philosophy. Former curator of the Musée international d’horlogerie in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Oechslin studied archaeology as an undergraduate and obtained a PhD in Philosophy – with a scholarship to study theoretical physics and astronomy – and became a Swiss master watchmaker in 1983. Bringing […]
Fratello
What a strange question. Why would the Vulcain Monopusher Heritage Panda, a new interpretation of the Swiss brand’s 50s Presidents’ Chronograph Heritage model, only be interesting for Real Madrid fans? Why wouldn’t the socios of Atletico Madrid, Barcelona, or fans of other football clubs outside Spain want this retro-looking chronograph on the wrist? Perhaps it’s […] Visit Hands-On With The New Vulcain Monopusher Heritage Panda to read the full article.
Time+Tide
The new time-only watch from the legendary designer's namesake brand brings some Swiss flair to its catalogue in two types of gold.The post Gérald Genta gives Genevan inspiration for its latest time-only creation appeared first on Time+Tide Watches.
Hodinkee
Does the deal to sell the storied Swiss brand to Italian jeweler and watch retailer Damiani herald a new era of deconsolidation in the watch industry?
Monochrome
Swiss-based conglomerate Richemont, owner of multiple jewellery and watch brands such as Cartier, IWC, Piaget, A. Lange & Söhne or Vacheron Constantin, to name a few, has agreed to sell Swiss watch brand Baume & Mercier, which it acquired in 1988, to the Italian, family-run Damiani Group, concluding a strategic review of the long-time Richemont […]
Fratello
Oris is on a roll in 2026. We’re only three weeks into the new year, and the popular Swiss independent already presents its third novelty. After an Artelier model dedicated to the Chinese Year of the Horse and a new tuxedo-dial Big Crown Pointer Date, here comes the limited-edition Oris Aquis Date Yangtze Jiangtun. It […] Visit Introducing: The Oris Aquis Date Yangtze Jiangtun Limited Edition - Featuring An Engraved Blue-Green Mother-Of-Pearl Dial to read the full article.
Monochrome
For the 32nd time in its (long) history and since 1932, Omega will be the Official Timekeeper of the Olympics. Indeed, the 2026 Olympic Winter Games will be held from February 6th to 22nd in Milano Cortina, Italy, and the Swiss watch brand will record all 116 events across 16 sporting disciplines. To celebrate its […]
Time+Tide
British designer Oliver Gallaugher's Deep Space makes a full orbit, re-emerging in a new shade of blue with a new Swiss movement.The post Oliver Gallaugher downsizes the starry-dialled Deep Space, introducing a new all-blue dial finish appeared first on Time+Tide Watches.
Hodinkee
The indie Swiss brand wraps up its tennis-themed collab with Racquet and designer Carlton DeWoody with a black and neon offering that completes the Grand Slam.
Fratello
Hamilton is more than a steady provider of Hollywood movies. The once-American, now-Swiss brand is also active in the video game industry. It started with the Khaki Field Titanium Automatic in Far Cry 6, and later, the American Classic Boulton appeared in Death Stranding 2: On the Beach. Then, last year, the 38mm Hamilton Khaki […] Visit Introducing: Two Hamilton Resident Evil Requiem Limited Editions to read the full article.
Monochrome
Independent Finnish master watchmaker Kari Voutilainen is regarded as one of the best in his field. Working from his atelier in Motiers, which he founded in 2002, Voutilainen is known for his high-end watches with in-house movements and hand-guilloché dials. His latest watch, the 216TMZ Worldtime, features a movement with a direct-impulse double escapement, first […]
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