And into the holiday!

I am away starting in 15 minutes from now till the 29th of May. In the meanwhile, enjoy the blogs of my colleagues at:

www.wristwatchreview.com
velociphilewatch.blogspot.com
weblog.oysterinfo.de
www.horlogenieuws.nl

And ofcourse the rest of them, located in the right panel on this page!

Robert-Jan
 

A bit cryptic perhaps, but that’s what Audemars Piguet does…  The company has taken action against all the plastic ‘fashion’ copies of their watches. The plastic imitations (mostly Rolex, to be honest I haven’t seen an AP copy yet) are very populair here in Europe. Besides the violation of their copyright on design, I wouldn’t bother too much about these cheap ’see-through’ plastic copies. It doesn’t reflect the real thing and it also doesn’t try to be the real thing. A different view than the imitations made in the Asian regions, which can be sold as an authentic watch (including box and papers!).

I wouldn’t spend too much money on lawyers and investigators if I were AP

Click here for the full story at Europastar.com

Photo by AP

Sadly, former Mercury, Gemini and Apollo astronaut Wally Schirra died on the 3rd of May 2007. It didn’t reach the Dutch news (not that I am aware of anyway), so I didn’t know until I read it in Chuck Maddox’s email.

According to the ‘watches in space’ time line by Chuck, Wally Schirra was the first astronaut that used the Speedmaster in space. This was during the Sigma 7 flight on the 3rd of October 1962. Almost 45 years ago…

Wally Schirra, picture taken by NASA on the 1st of October 1962.

You can read more about Wally Schirra on his Wiki page and here, at WallySchirra.com. On these pages you will see that Mr Schirra had a whole bunch of watches, among them the Rolex GMT-Master that a lot of astronauts preferred, and ofcourse.. the legendary Speedmaster watch (as pictured below).

Wally Schirra died at the age of 84.

Probably one of the most sought-after Breitling models is the Navitimer ref.806. However, not everyone (or every owner) knows how to use all the information on the dial in combination with the slide rule. Bill Sohne, a well known collector who’s active on the internet for years now, and Chuck Maddox (the über Chronograph-meister) put the original manual online of the vintage Breitling 806 Navitimer APOA.

It describes perfectly how to perform calculation with this watch, using the slide rule. Click here for the online manual.
Scan of the manual below by Bill Sohne and published by Chuck Maddox.

The SIHH expo has been held after the Basel expo. Only few brands joined the watch exposition in Geneva. You could only attend on ‘invitation’. Some of the happy few, were able to shoot some pictures. Follow the links below (thanks to Explorer Johan).

Parmigiani Fleurier really showed off. So did the other brands however. Check the links

Pictures by IanS.

Link 1
Link 2
Link 3
Link 4

Last weekend was the first Dutch Rolex GTG organized by RolexForum.nl. I attended the meeting and it was a great evening with a lot of (Rolex) watches and great Italian food.

Here is a table(book) shot of the Rolexes before forum member Snorlex, Explorer Johan and Stanley joined..

Then, Explorer Johan joined the meeting as well:

And Snorlex + Stanley joined the team as well:

(ooops.. one missing?)

Naaah, it is probably being examined:

The proof that Rolex-people are friendly people: A Panerai with Cali dial is being accepted by everone at the meeting!

And one of the favorite collectibles of the evening:

Photos made by Remco, Dale Vito and Evert. Until the next Dutch Rolex GTG!
All photos can be found at www.rolexforum.nl!