Today I spoke with my watch friend, and also watch maker, Gerton. He told me about this Girard-Perregaux Chronograph watch he has for sale, with an Excelsior Park 4 movement. When I googled on this watch, one of the results was this ‘In Memory of Time’ website. A great website by this Japanese collector (TRS) who has a number of great (vintage) time pieces. Among them, the Girard-Perregaux Chronograph with Excelsior Park movement.

His site is really worth checking out. His collection also sports this great Ulysse Nardin Rattrapante Chronograph with Venus 179 movement. A watch produced in 1991 with a NOS 1960s movement by Venus.

All pictures by TRS of ‘In Memory of Time’.

Omega proudly presents their latest in house movement, Omega caliber 8500. It features a 60 hour power reserve, bi-directional winding, the co-axial escapement and will be COSC (Chronometer certified) ofcourse! The new Omega De Ville will be the first watch with this movement.

Congrats Omega! And now some attention to your Quality Control (Omega cal.330x) and After Sales (numerous complaints world wide) again.

Here is the official press release.
Pictures by Jorge Merino @ TimeZone in this thread.
Thanks to Elmar @ OysterInfo.de for notifying!

Steiner in Maastricht (NL) expands their sales channel with an auction site. Unfortunately for the non-Dutch speakers, it is in Dutch language. It is also possible for watch owners to sell their time piece through this auction site. Check the website for details.

Personally, I think this is a good initiative and I hope that more of these controlled auction sites will start to pop up. I think it helps to create a more trusty scene where watch afficianados can trade without having to fear to receive an empty box or fake watch in their mail after paying hundres or thousands of units (euros/dollars/uk pounds).

Today, I received some more examples of Rolex (Submariner) watches that have gone brown.

Ref.1680 Red Submariner

Ref. 5508 Submariner

And the 1680’s and 5508’s together:

Source: Steiner Maastricht, www.steinermaastricht.nl

Yesterday, a watch friend mailed me some pictures of Rolex watches with brown dials. Appearantly, these dials faded from black to brown during the years. He will provide me some photos that I can use for this blog later this week.

Rolex Forum owner Kamal over at BJSOnline wrote:

“It seems that all Rolex black dials have a percentage of brown pigment in the black varnish. The gloss dials would have a thin film of transparent varnish applied to give it that shiny look. Certain dials apparently had (maybe by error) had a higher prcentage of brown pigment in the black varnish and when exposed to natural Ultra Violet light like sunlight, the dial turns brown. This process can take between 35 to 50 years.

Lets take the DRSD as an example. How many people have noticed that the browning effect only seems to take place on the MK11 dial and not on the others. Same with the Red Subs, only take place with one type of dial.”

Personally, I really like this aging effect on vintage watches. I hope to get back on the subject with more pictures. Ofcourse, any other input (in text or pictures) on the subject is welcome.

Besides watches, BRM recently introduced a collection of fine pens. Inspired by a racing flag, the pens feature checkered clips (with shock absorbing system) and tips. The materials used by BRM are aluminium (PVD), stainless steel and titanium NIB (for the fountain pens).

I only found a price for the fountain pen, as listed in the Pen World magazine. The fountain pen is 2700 USD.

Click here for more information on these pens.
Click here for my article on their watches.

Over at www.doubleredseadweller.com, TomVox1 wrote a nice essay about the evolution of the Rolex GMT-Master. It tells the GMT evolution starting with the reference 6542 “Pussy Galore” model to the most ‘common’ vintage GMT-Master, the reference 1675 models. Click here to go to the article!

Photo by TomVox1

The world’s self-proclaimed premier watch auctioneer bought the world’s self-proclaimed watch information resource. Congratulations! The official announcement over at TimeZone says: “Antiquorum’s Founder, Chairman and CEO Osvaldo Patrizzi has been a TZ fan since the early days and an official supporter for the past several years. His goals for TZ are to maintain continuity and independence, and to build on the foundation laid down by Joseph Lam and his predecessors.”

I wonder how you can maintain something which isn’t there (independence). My guess is that it should get independent. Get rid of the über sponsoring and the rule that you cannot link to other watch information resources. However, it probably has something to do with eachother. Anyway, the masses seem not to be bothered. It is probably just me again

You can read the official announcement here. Antiquorum doesn’t have an announcement online yet, but keep an eye on their news section.

As we are at it anyway, check-out the OmegaMania auction. It will be held 14 and 15 April 2007 in Geneve. Click here to go to the OmegaMania website.

I just discovered this German site where you can find/download/upload photos of your favorite watches. It probably should become some kind of exhaustive library on wrist watches. You can either search on the site or browse by brand and type names. It is ofcourse in the German language, but brand names are universal I registered on the website just to be sure, but I don’t think it is necessary just for browsing…