Quill & Pad
Does anyone really care how many jewels their watch has? Watchmaker Ashton Tracy thinks that you’d be surprised how many people do as they've been duped by a vintage practice of announcing the amount of movement jewels on watch dials. What is the real story here?
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Many of you are likely to be asking yourselves, “Who is Gerd-Rüdiger Lang?” Understandable. If we told you he founded Chronoswiss in 1983, you might then say, “Ah, yes.” But did you know that Lang, who sold Chronoswiss in 2012, owns a collection of chronographs that might well be the most complete themed collection of this type in the world? Elizabeth Doerr takes us through just a few of the treasures in Lang's collection.
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In GaryG's view, every successful independent watchmaker has elements of a “house style” that may attract some buyers and put off others, but nonetheless set them apart. And, at the highest level, this style goes beyond “branding” to become an expression of the personality and artistic vision of the creator. Beat Haldimann and his small team distinguish themselves by focusing on technical virtuosity of the highest order as typified by the Haldimann H1 Flying Central Tourbillon.
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For close to a century, Château Mouton Rothschild has been putting art on its labels, ever since 1924 when they helped Mouton’s young 22-year-old owner at the time, Baron Philippe de Rothschild, to change the way Bordeaux made wine. But what's behind the labels?
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Marc Newson‘s original Hourglass was one of Joshua Munchow's favorite objects of the last decade. And now it’s back and as good as ever, only this time the collaboration is with independent boutique brand De Bethune because it is these artisans who possess the unique ability and knowledge to create the color necessary for the new blued nanoballs inside the shaped, tempered glass.
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How much does a Patek Philippe Nautilus cost? How will Nautilus prices evolve? Answering these questions, as relevant as they are, has become extremely difficult following the bubble formed in the luxury men’s watch market. This article analyzes the price history of 31 Patek Philippe Nautilus models, revealing the models that have gained an absolute value, the most dramatic relative increases, and the influence of case and bracelet material.
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Gold dress watches sometimes seem to be on the brink of extinction, and Martin Green was almost ready to write their obituary. However, they do still exist and here he presents us with four classic gold dress watches for the consideration of the discerning modern-day, yet classically inclined, gentleman.
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Check out The Watches TV founder Marc-André Deschoux as he explains how the personal watch of Ressence's founder, Benoît Mintiens, works in this video. Mintiens wears the Type 2 e-crown and lent it to our pal Marc-André for several weeks.
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GaryG outlines why he bought a Vianney Halter Deep Space Tourbillon, providing commentary on a collector’s mindset and the motivations, delights, and possible misgivings. And, of course, there are amazing photographs.
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Cuervo y Sobrinos drums to its own beat. And that beat has a vibrant Latin vibe to it as the heritage of the brand is anchored in the spirit and style that made Havana one of the world’s cultural hotspots. Now headquartered in Switzerland, the Latin spirit is still present in each of Cuervo y Sobrinos’ watches, including its latest creation, the Historiador Doble Luna.
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Just when GaryG thinks he knows a little bit about watches, a portal opens to a whole new facet of our hobby he hadn’t previously appreciated. So it was when he recently joined collectors and journalists from around the world for Breitling’s launch of the Navitimer B02 Chronograph 41 Cosmonaute, a tribute piece marking the sixtieth anniversary of astronaut Scott Carpenter’s orbital trip.
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The short documentary film 'Time Piece' features two of the world's best living watchmakers, Philippe Dufour and Vianney Halter, and provides excellent insight into what makes the watches by these masters so special.
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Thomas Brechtel shares his visit with us to see the Meissen collection featuring the art of fine porcelain clocks in Germany, just a few kilometers from Dresden.
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If the Parmigiani Tonda PF Micro-Rotor wasn't so good-looking, Martin Green would have barely noticed that he was wearing it. That’s how he felt after taking the Tonda PF Micro-Rotor for a test drive for three weeks.
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The lockdowns of the pandemic allowed 78-year-old independent watchmaker and A.H.C.I. co-founder Vincent Calabrese a lot of free time to think out things he had been mulling over for years. Foremost among these, his Calasys system, an escapement without a balance spring. Find out much more in this video.
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Ken Gargett suspects that many wine lovers might be wondering just who John Duval is. However, the chances are very good that most wine lovers have indeed enjoyed wines made by John Duval as he was just the third man to be put in charge of Australia’s most famous wine, Penfolds Grange. Duval is now making sensational wines under his own name.
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The Watches TV presents a follow-up video of Danièla and Philippe Dufour, marking close to a year of the two working together. Philippe expresses his joy at working with his daughter, who is in a perfect position to achieve the high level of work that the master requires for his timepieces and carry on the family name.
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Effervescent red wine in Australia was originally known as "sparkling Burgundy" and is often still affectionately referred to as “Spurgles” in accordance with the country's national need to shorten every name. Ken Gargett confesses that he is a fan and shares a few of his favorites here alongside the history of this fascinating sub-genre.
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You don’t have to be a Ducatisti to appreciate the Bulgari Aluminium Ducati Special Edition chronograph; it's eye-catching red dial is likely to catch everyone's eye. But it does go great with the fast Italian bike as Ian Skellern explains here.
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Once regarded among Burgundy’s top wine producers, Bouchard Père & Fils’s fall from grace was slow, steady, and irresistible. But as Ken Gargett reports, it is now making great wines again.
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The glamour of the red carpet at the Cannes film festival is synonymous with gold and diamonds. And thanks to Chopard – one of the pioneers when it comes to ethical gold – the festival’s Palme d’Or trophy and the brand’s Red Carpet collection are helping to make change in the world by using ethically sourced gold and gemstones.
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Martin Green has a passion for diamond-set watches. For him, these watches add an extra layer of craftsmanship while giving designers new ways of expressing themselves. Some brands do gem-setting extremely well, and Parmigiani with its new Tonda variation is a perfect example.
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Nineteenth-century French horologist Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin, a man now famous as the father of modern magic, inspired Cartier to begin dabbling in mystery clocks in 1912. And the famous brand has never stopped as an exhibition showing 19 historical mystery clocks so richly illustrated.
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As a reminder that Ian Skellern is getting old, it seems like it was only yesterday that Urwerk was a brash young startup, however 2022 sees the brand celebrating its 25th anniversary. For him, the one timepiece that encapsulates the most of Urwerk in one watch is the incredible UR-112 Aggregat.
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Let's be honest: nobody needs a high-end mechanical watch. That we want one is based on the different levels of how a particular watch appeals to our emotions. And in the heat of passion, we sometimes tend to forget that, as in any normal industry, companies sometimes cease to exist for a panoply of reasons. What should you consider if you would still like to own a watch made by a now-defunct brand? Martin Green has some answers.
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GaryG was invited to Los Angeles for the opening of Jaeger-LeCoultre’s Rodeo Drive boutique and was a promised “special surprise” that turned out to be a lovely exhibit of heritage pieces drawn from the brand’s vault. Here he shares his experiences of the event and the watches.
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In the wake of the current crypto crash and NFT markets taking a nosedive, and sharing sentiments here at Quill & Pad, Joshua Munchow goes over five very good reasons why NFTs could be a looming crisis for the watch industry. He feels that the watch industry needs to choose its next steps very carefully lest it become both latest victim AND inadvertently a criminal grifter in the NFT space.
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There was a plethora of reasonably priced watches to discover at Watches and Wonders 2022. And here Sabine Zwettler highlights five below $5,000 that caught her eye from Oris, TAG Heuer, Montblanc, Tudor, and Baume & Mercier.
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Château Pontet-Canet is a Fifth Growth in the 1855 Classification, but for the last 15 years has been considered the equivalent of a top Second Growth. Ken Gargett is a big fan of the 2015 vintage.
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Watch Femme aims to promote inclusivity in watches, amplify women’s voices in the watch world, highlight female contributions to it, and help create many more career opportunities for women. Elizabeth Doerr takes a closer look at this new movement and its founders' opinions.
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