Since I am not present at Basel (again), better click here to check the latest…

At least Zenith succeeded in making their watches more ugly then before. Thank you Nataf, for ruining such a nice historic brand. Good job.

Thanks to Jorge Merino for publishing it on TimeZone. All credits go to him.

For the Dutch/Belgian readers, go to www.horlogenieuws.nl for the latest on Basel. Gerard is posting there as much as he can.

His latest news on Rolex might interest you. The new GMT-Master II is there. New dial, new movement.

Hannes at “Das Rolex Forum” posted this presskit photo:

Today I received an email from Martin Blum, he pointed out that he had bought this very nice watch from Laco. As we continued our email conversation, he sent me two very nice pictures of this Laco on his wrist. Here is one of them:

Photo by Martin Blum

This Laco is 46mm in diameter and is powered by an ETA 2824-2 movement. As you can see, the crown is placed at 12 o’clock to prevent it from sticking into your hand.

Update: Martin mailed me the URL of a very nice vintage Laco fliegeruhr. Click here to check it out.

Panerai and Ferrari. Two Italian brands working together on a new ‘company’ watch for the latter.

Here are the results:

Rattrapante Scuderia

Chronograph Yellow Gold

Paneristis around the world are clearly disappointed and reactions range from “Near-sighted Marketing Disaster”, “Truly Scandalous” to “A sad day for Panerai and the Paneristi”.

Oh well, in my opinion this was just what the marketing machine of Panerai is all about. Making big bucks. As with every watch company… Omega making Schumacher/Olympic/Speedmaster Limiteds, Breitling making Bentley’s watches, JLC making AM watches… Paneristi shouldn’t think Panerai is any different then the rest just because Donati (Panerai CEO) pretends to be listening to them by posting a message on Paneristi.com every once in a while… It is all part of the game ofcourse. If you don’t like it, buy something else…

Gerard Nijenbrinks over at Horlogenieuws.nl (Dutch website covering novelties on watches and the watch business) mentions the new Sinn 142.ST-II.

It will be introduced at the coming Basel Fair (30th March) as the successor of the Sinn 142.ST with Lemania 5100 movement. Because the Lemania 5100 is not in production anymore (see earlier posts about this), the 142.ST-II will feature a Dubios-Depraz caliber 2070 chronograph.

As you can see below, the lay-out of the dial remains the same.

Photo by Sinn.de

The official Sinn announcement can be read here.

I just received this email from Tag Heuer:

“In May 2005 TAG Heuer launched the international Web Design Contest to elect the best TAG Heuer fan website. The contestants from Germany,Netherlands, Tokyo and Switzerland, designed some wonderful sites. They demonstrate a high level of creativity and in-depth knowledge of TAG Heuer.
Eighteen fans were short-listed and competed for four prizes: Best Design, Best Content, Best Visibility and the judges��� special prize. TAG Heuer congratulates all the contestants for their impressive designs.
After one month of deliberation, the judging panel led by TAG Heuer���s Worldwide President and CEO Jean-Christophe Babin, Designers and Web Professionals, elected the four winners. “

Best prize for design by Mark Svevar: http://www.passionforprecision.com/

Best prize for content by Frederik De Fruyt: http://www.watchpedia.info

Best prize for visibility by Michael McAuley: http://www.MeAndMyTAG.com

Judge’s special prize for Bertrand Balzano: http://10000th.com