It seems useless, comparing this 1967 Speedmaster Professional with caliber 321 with a new Speedmaster Professional with caliber 1863. However, starting collectors or Speedmaster-fans might be interesting in the coming up comparison between vintage & new. I already wrote a review on the vintage one, describing the whole restoration process. Since a few months I have bought the 3753.50 (new model) of the Speedmaster Professional, because I ‘needed’ a Speedmaster for every day without being afraid to damage something. I had some caliber 861 and 1861 models before, but I sold them all to finance another time piece or just traded them one-on-one for something else. The 3753.50 seems to be a keeper with its saphire front crystal and display back with the fine looking caliber 1863 movement.

Anyway, still working on it and hope to share it with you within a few days.

Since a few days, WatchUseek, one of the bigger watchportals on the internet, lead by Ernie Romers, just got improved and restyled. A few months back, WatchUSeek installed new forum software which makes it easier to post and manage your threads, and now, the whole site got restyle by a U.K. web design company. See for yourself and make sure to register and post!

After a major server crash, WristWatchReview.Com (also one of the first watch blogs) just started all over again and celebrates its 1st birthday of watch blogging!

Congrats John and keep up the good work!!

Ebel never gets much attention. But Edwin Heusinkveld just praised it in the Zenith Forum at TimeZone. This Ebel has the El Primero movement from Zenith inside, ticking at 36.000 beats per hour.

Didn’t Don Johnson have one in Miami Vice (without the moonphase and in yellow gold that is)? I think so.

Picture by E. Heusinkveld

Just when you thought that certain (cheap) car magazines uses pictures of women to attract buyers, a watch brand seems to do the same thing…

Click here to check it out. You might have to scroll a bit down.

This watchbrand (Pierce 1883) just lost all credibility in my book.

This blog started on the 22nd of July 2004, exactly 1 year ago. Since then this site had over 68.000 visits (June 2005 being topnotch with almost 12.000 vitis), of which 40% comes from the USA, 330 articles were posted, all kinds of comments were posted and emailed and still going strong!!

Thanks to all people who submitted links (by email and comments), who posted comments on articles and ofcourse to all who read this!

Back to watches…

Like Michael Corleone once said in the Godfather trilogy, “Just when I thought that I was out they pull me back in”…

Minerva is back! The legendary watch company who were one of the few that still designed and produced their own calibers (like the Minerva Pythagore, handwind Minerva caliber 48) was quiet for a couple of years. Word got spread that someone bought the company owner out and would re-introduce the brand on the market as very ‘high end’.

As can be read in the following article by Magnus Bosse, about the rebirth of Minerva:
A quote which cites the CEO, Mr. Menaldo, in a german watch magazine about two years ago sounds promising: “We want to be cited together with Patek Philippe and A. Lange and Söhne if watch aficionados talk about the finest watches!”. Time for a reality check!

Click here for the entire article, including an interview with the new Minerva CEO

Minerva Pythagore Grande Applique from their ‘former’ collection

Another OysterQuartz fansite here. However, only for the people who can read German. However, if you click here, you can download some QuickTime movies on these watches and their movements.

I am back from my trip to Italy. Maybe I will post some pictures later on. Besides Rome, Perugia, Siena, the Trasimeno lake I visitted Florence. And ofcourse, the Panerai boutique. The salesperson gave a tour in the small Panerai Museum they have some floors up and it was marvelous. Didn’t take pictures of it though, as I have seen loads of these on other websites (Paneristi.com).

I wonder what is up with the Italians when it comes to watches. I just saw 1 Panerai in the wilde, in Rome. Just 1. Couldn’t make up what it was because I saw in in a flash on someone’s wrist. It was just Rolex all over. I wonder how many of them were real, because even the guy serving ice cream on the campsite wore a Daytona Anyway, it seems that Rolex is still King in Italy. Also in Rome, I haven’t see one shop where they sold Panerai. I didn’t look for them in particulary, and only took a long time to check out all the watches at Hausmann at the Via del Corso in Rome, but I expected to see a lot more Panerai in Italy. As I expected to see more Alfa Romeo, Fiat and Lancia cars. Well, I have seen quite a few of them, but as they choose Rolex for watches, Italy seems to choose for Germany when it comes to cars. Audi/BMW and Benz on the autostrada.

How come? Status over passion?

I wonder..

I will be off to Italy tomorrow and probably return on the 19th or 20th of July.

My gf and I will drive to Tuscany and visit Florence, Siena and some more smaller villages over there. It will also be a good test for my Alfa Romeo and my Panerai, which I chose to take with me ofcourse. I hope to visit the Officine Panerai store in Florence and other watch boutiques over there.

To keep track of certain relevant things at my destination:

Marcus Hanke wrote a review/posting on the new Senator series, introduced at Basel 2005.

“About four years ago, Heinz W. Pfeifer, then president of Glashütte Original, mentioned a new automatic movement, designated cal. 100, to be in development. Of course, this stirred some unrest among the fans of the brand, and many hesitated to purchase a watch with a movement that seemingly would be replaced within some months or so.

However, the years passed by, and the cal. 100 remained unseen. We knew it would eventually come and replace the traditional GO standard movement, the cal. 39, but the exact date of its release was unclear.

Finally, at the Basel fair 2005, Dr. Frank Müller, now the man at the company’s helm, proudly presented the new cal. 100 movement. Since a movement alone is not enough, a completely facelifted Senator series, to be equipped with the new movement, was unveiled.”

Click here for the whole posting at The Purists

Photo by Marcus Hanke

My heart goes out to all victims and family/friends/relatives of those in London. Thoughts go out to Stala from the Moderator’s Team at WatchUSeek, where we are both part of. I hope she is allright.

-

RJ

Update: Konstantin from the WUS moderator’s team spoke with Stala. She is allright.

I have met Patrick from Belgium two times on watch meetings and only now I noticed he has a watch website as well. It seems to be some sort of HotOrNot system for his collection of watches.

Click here to check it out

Raymond Weil has a new ambassador for their watches, Charlize Theron.
Click here for the press release.

The only thing left to do for Raymond Weil is to produce some decent watches….

SteveB at WUS pointed us out to this thread at TimeZone, written by Jacob Hagert from Sweden.

“This is the story of my friends Submariner! The serialnumber tells me that this watch is from 67/68 and was given on his 18th birthday, it was not new but unworn! Since then it have been used everyday!

My friend works at sea as a skipper on smaller coast ships.
In 1995 he lost the watch during some engine work, at this time he bought a new one! About one year later the watch was found
lying in old spill oil & diesel under the engine!!
It was very well preserved ; ) The watch had a “sailor” service
at once, soap & autosol. Back on the wrist the very same day
working fine.”

Click here for more pictures and the full story

Michele Cuoccio, owner of the Russianwatches website and moderator of WatchUSeek’s Russian Watches Forum, seems to have put a lot of effort in her Russian watch passion.

“On April 12, 1961, Yury Gagarin took along the wrist-watch “Sturmanskie” in the world’s first space mission. Since that time “Poljot” became the trade mark of the First Moscow Watch Factory.”

If you are passionate about Russian wristwatches as well, you better click here for more….

Finally, my review on the Panerai PAM00113.

Click here to read it!

Ming, a few people will know his name from an earlier post or from his watch artwork on several fora, has a great website exposing all his photographing work. This includes marvelous photos of watches (hence the name photohorloger), cars, art, nature, countries…

Picture by Ming Thein

Click here for the website

Thanks to Jon for the URL!

OmegaBlogger is a true Omega Addict and blogs his thoughts and vision on this brand. With the new Omega Planet Ocean I think Omega attracts a whole new kind of group. Trying to scoop a bit of the Big Watch-club Besides all the PO news, all Omegas get attention on his website. Go check it out!!

I wonder why he doesn’t have a link to the Speedmaster Forum yet..

This thread really made me ROFL A fellow in the TZ Omega Forum writes that one of his Speedmasters has to go. Orders from his wife. He has to choose between a Limited Edition Snoopy (Limited Edition’s at Omega is a very relative understanding, they are about to make Limited Editions to honor Limited Editions) and a 1967 Speedmaster Pro. Everyone in the thread seems to scream ‘keep the 1967′, but Chuck Maddox seems to go on a different (and more funnier) route.

Check it out here.