Since last weekend (27th of June), the first Dutch Watch Heritage event opened its doors in Schoonhoven, The Netherlands. Schoonhoven is (in The Netherlands) famous for its jewellery and horology school and its museum. The museum, lead by Gemke Jager, hosts the Dutch Watch Heritage event from the 27th of June till the 5th of July.

The main idea behind the Dutch Watch Heritage is to display the (often hidden) horological treasures that we have in The Netherlands, owned by private collectors or aficionados. This first event has more than 100 watches up for display, covering the last 100 years of watchmaking and including watches like the first Patek Philippe Nautilus, an incredible collection of vintage Rolex sportswatches in superb condition, the first series of Bulova Accutron watches, a collection of highly sought-after Omega Speedmaster models, including models from the first few years of introduction (1957), the very first Heuer Monaco, one of the first Breiling Navitimers (limited to 126 pieces) and a lot of all Seiko Kinetic models.

One of the Dutch Watch Heritage sponsors was Ace Jewelers, who had a few displays with Omega, Tag Heuer, IWC, Doxa and Breitling watches. Alon, CEO of Ace Jewelers, asked me if I was able to help him out on sunday the 28th of June. This day was exclusively for clients of the main sponsor of the event, Lexus.

Approximately 500 visitors came by to take a look at the large number of iconic wrist watches, watchmakers who were demonstrating their skills, joining seminars on iconic watches by Mr. Gaemers and – ofcourse – looking at the current models of these iconic watches in one of the displays of Ace Jewelers. Like the current Omega Speedmaster Professional, the 40th Anniversary model, the current Breitling Navitimer, current TAG Heuer Monaco etc.

A very interesting watch was that of Van Ree. A new Dutch brand that introduced a watch with your own DNA sample and DNA coding in the watch. If you are buying a Van Ree watch, a DNA sample will be taken. The crystalized DNA sample will be embedded inside the pusher on 4 o’clock and the DNA coding will be lasered into the crystal on the backside, which also gives you a nice view on the movement (by Technotime). Daniël van Ree joined the Dutch Watch Heritage with a small booth, presenting his Personal DNA Watch. Daniël van Ree (pictured below) is an experienced watchmaker, who got (a.o.) his education on watchmaking at big names like Renaud & Papi (Audemars Piguet). More on him and his watches in an upcoming article here at FratelloWatches.com.

I love these watch events, and I am happy that in these times of credit crunches, there are still parties willing to sponsor these events, like Lexus and Ace Jewelers. Also, without the contribution of several private collectors, it wouldn’t be possible at all to have a Dutch Watch Heritage event.

If you have the possibility to visit Schoonhoven these coming days (till the 5th of July), I suggest you’ll do so. It is worth the trip for watch aficianados and collectors.

This coming weekend, I will visit Schoonhoven with some of my watch friends, this time as a visitor, to have a good look around and discuss these horological icons.

More information and pictures can be found at: DutchWatchHeritage.nl

Since a few weeks, I am following my friend Jan from Denmark with his watch blog. He blogs mainly about Rolex and Panerai, including new & vintage models. He also seem to have – like myself – a weak spot for the Danish Linde Werdelin watches. The 3-Timer I ordered won’t be here before September, so I am grabbing every chance I got to read about Linde Werdelin Jan’s WatchBlog.dk website is, like FratelloWatches, a personal blog about watches. His opinion, his knowledge, his thoughts and rants.. Great! Especially when a blogger knows his stuff, and Jan certainly does.

Click here to visit WatchBlog.DK!

As reported earlier, the ‘Handcrafted Time’ exhibition took place from the 18th of June till the 21st of June in the Time Gallery in Bern.

Elizabeth Doerr wrote an excellent report on this exhibition, which has been published on WatchUseek (click here to read the report). One of the participants was BLU (Bernhard Lederer Universe), one of my favorite BaselWorld visits this year. Bern’s newspaper ‘Der Bund’ noticed the Handcrafted Time event and did an interview with Bernhard Lederer of BLU. Below you find a screenshot of the newspaper article (in German). Click here for a full blown version (readable).

It is great to see that events like these get media attention! Events related to watches and especially to independent watchmaking are great initiatives but require a lot of funding, which is hard for the brands to do by themselves. By giving these events attention in (local) newspapers and television, chances are bigger for the organizers of these events to get some nice sponsorship deals.

Monaco is one of those cities you really have to visit once every while, just to breathe the atmosphere of luxury lifestyle and jet-setters. Fans of independent watchmaking now have a new (or other) excuse to pay Monaco a visit…  The launch of independent watch manufacturer Les Ateliers deMonaco!

The Ateliers DeMonaco Carré d’Or is a watch that should remind us of the famous and most exclusive squares in the world, located in Monaco between the famous Royal Casino and a number of five star hotels. The Carré d’Or has a convex case design, a patentend Grand Tourbillon movement that uses a sapphire bridge that makes it look like the one minute tourbillon is floating inside the watch.

This watch measures a whopping 44.3mm x 48mm x 15.3mm which demonstrates that the big watches are here to stay! The watch is available in both yellow and white gold.

Les Ateliers DeMonaco have a magnificent website, including their own blog. It covers the recent presentation of the watch (with Prince Albert II of Monaco) and the prototyping of the watch movement. An interesting read for all you die hard watchmaking fans! Click here to visit the Les Ateliers DeMonaco blog!

Pim Koeslag, master horloger of Les Ateliers DeMonaco writes on their website:

“We have always dreamt about making a mechanical watch movement that is the most precise in the world and will keep generations of scientists busy to figure out how we did it”

Hoping to see their watches in the flesh soon, I at least will keep an eye on their blog to keep track of their activities in the world of independent watchmaking and haute horlogerie..

Today, my third chronicle for WorldTempus has been published. It is about collecting watches and the utopical situation of owning one watch!

Click here to go to the article at WorldTempus!

Maribeth Keane, editor of The Collectors Weekly, did an interview with Jeff Hess. Famous (at least to me) for his contribution to the ‘History of Time: Rolex Wristwatches’ book (together with James Dowling). Even though the interview is meant to introduce the world of collecting watches to a broader audience, I found it an interesting story. Hess covers his first introduction to watches, his contribution to collectors world wide and some words on the evolution of wrist watches.

Click here to go to the interview at Collectors Weekly.

Thanks to Maribeth for letting me know!

Two months ago, I borrowed the AP Royal Oak Offshore Rubber Clad from FW sponsor Watch-Site to write a review about it, and also got their AP Royal Oak 15300ST to compare. Both watches are/were impressive, but the 15300ST was so amazingly nice (nicer that I expected it to be), that I wrote a review about this one as well. You can find it here. As I examined the watch, I noticed that it is much more up to date than the famous 15202ST Jumbo. Praised by many, but still a watch for the more ‘advanced’ collector.

Anyway, about a week ago I decided to do a trade to get the AP Royal Oak 15300ST from Watch-Site. The trade included my Rolex Yacht-Master, which I wore very often for about 2 years. I’ll probably miss it, but this new Audemars Piguet is a worthy successor I guess . I like their Royal Oak series since I became interested in watches (over 10 years ago) and always ‘envied’ my friends who already had one of these beauties in their collections. And a week ago, I put a check in front of this ‘cult’ watch on my list of wannahaves.

You can expect a more thorough review on this watch in the future. Below are some pictures that I took during my holiday last week, in the south of France.

After one week of wearing, I’d say this is the most comfortable stainless steel bracelet I have in my modest collection of watches. The Cartier-type of deployant clasp (also called ‘butterfly’ folding clasp) doesn’t get in the way like some other folding clasps tend to do. This 40mm watch is very comfortable to wear, it didn’t take long before getting used to such a flat watch again.

The inhouse AP caliber 3210 ticks at 21600 bph and while looking magnificent (and it is high regarded as well, according to Michael Balfour’s Cult Watches book), I think it is a bit slow to my taste. I will have it regulated if necessary anyway

On June 9th, Bell & Ross launched its new limited edition BR01 Airborne (the “skull” watch) at Colette, the Parisian fashion and style boutique. At the store, the BR01 Airborne collection was on display, including two new diamond versions of the watch, shown here:

The BR01 Airborne (limited edition of 500 pieces) was developed in honor of the courageous soldiers who fought during World War II, particularly the paratroopers of the US Airborne divisions. The skull was one of the emblems they wore on their uniforms as a symbol of courage in the face of death.

Bell & Ross produced a video tribute to the soldiers which you can watch here

I think B&R did a very good job with the video as it is portrayed in a tactful and tasteful manner as a “tribute” video should be. While the BR01 Airborne has been criticized by some, and there are others who say that they “don’t get it”, I think that the BR01 Airborne is a very special watch with profound symbolism behind it, and I applaud Bell & Ross for producing it.  What do you think?

Kyle Stults is Founder & President of Perpetuelle.com, a new online community for watch owners, collectors & enthusiasts.

The green production process of the watch manufacturer in Schaffhausen, is something to be proud of. Not only IWC, but a lot of other companies seem to embrace durable entrepreneurship and corporate social responsibility. One of IWC’s projects is to support projects like David de Rothshild’s Plastiki Expedition. David de Rothschild and his Adventure Ecology organization built a 60 foot catamaran made entirely of plastic bottles, srPET plastic and recycled waste products. With this ship, named the Plastiki, David and his carefully picked crew members will sail approx. 10,000 nautical miles across the Pacific Ocean from San Francisco to Sydney.

The name of this boat, Plastiki, was inspired by the famous Kon-Tiki expedition in 1947, lead by Thor Heyerdahl.

To ‘celebrate’ (and make some money of) this joint venture between IWC and David Rothschild, IWC launched the IWC Ingenieur Automatic Mission Earth Edition (Limited Edition). There will be 1000 pieces of this special edition Ingenieur Automatic. The Mission Earth watch has been covered here earlier this year, right after the SIHH 2009.

I have to get one thing of my chest immediately, I LOVE the fact that IWC didn’t put a transparant case back on this watch. That does NOT belong on an Ingenieur watch. I suspect that they have a stainless steel case back installed in order to get the engravings and inscriptions right, but still…  A watch that is famous for its anti-magnetic construction should not be transformed into a ‘fashion’ watch.

If you take a look at the picture above (by IWC press), you will also see another neat feature. The inside of the strap has the same little shapes as the dial of the Ingenieur. Way cool! The engraving in the back is nice as well, optical finish is something you can leave to IWC for that matter. The Adventure Ecology and Plastiki inscription is very futuristic, matching perfectly by the further design and ‘joint venture’ reason of this watch.

Inside this watch ticks IWC’s inhouse caliber 80110 movement. Some people might think that this is just a de-chrono’ed ETA (Valjoux) 7750, but that’s not the case. I have written an article on that subject about a year ago which you can find by clicking here. The case of this watch has a 46mm diameter (similar to the BIG Ingenieur) and a height of 15mm.

As you can see above, the watch is very blue-ish, reminding me a bit of the Jacques Cousteau Aquatimers IWC launched in 2004. This blown-up version of the regular IWC Ingenieur ref. 3227-01 (discontinued in 2009) has two major differences in comparison to the ‘original’ IWC Ingenieur Automatic, except for the colors and the size. These are the crown guards, which were applied to the IWC Ingenieur Chronograph, but not on the regular 3227-01 version. Owning one myself, I can’t say the absence of it bothers me, but I can imagine the ‘request’ for them. The other major difference, and this is actually only easy to witness when you have the Mission Earth in your hands, is the lack of sharpness on the edges of the casing. I have held this watch in my hands during the Dutch IWC show over at Ace Jewelers, not too long ago, and this was the first difference that I noticed about the watch when holding it. Therefor, this watch has a completely different feel (at least to me).

So, in conclusion, what do I like about this watch and what’s not to like. The design is still intact despite the supersizing and the addition of crown guards. The stainless steel case back (instead of a transparant case back) is also a pro. Then of course, for the techies, the movement is a nice inhouse caliber with IWC’s Pellaton winding system. These movements are quite accurate as well, adopting IWC’s own standards for this, instead of using the more generic COSC standards.

When this watch will be worn on a daily basis or as ‘your only watch’, the colors are a bit too much I think. I also think the blue strap could be seen as ‘looking cheap’ for many. However, to me, the major setback is the lack of sharp edges of the case. The design of this watch is so incredibly cool in my opinion, and it should feel as it looks. Sharp. And it doesn’t. If you remember my review on the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak 15300 that I wrote recently, you know how much I care about the ‘feel’ of watches with a design like these.

With a list price of a mere 9K USD and the fact that there are some cons about this watch, I am happy that I have the discontinued (that has been produced from 2005 till now) 3227-01 model. A tribute to the original SL1832 Ingenieur in my opinion, without losing its own identity. It is cheaper too, and I really don’t see why the Mission Earth has to cost more. It makes no sense to me.

So I guess I can keep the 42.5mm Ingenieur Automatic with its stainless steel bracelet without feeling the urge to do (yet another) trade for something new. Of course, I don’t want to sound to negative, the Mission Earth is still a fine watch, but for this kind of money I want a watch exactly right and to my taste, and it’s not.