Rolex Forums has a great story on-line about the purchase of a red Submariner ref.1680 from its first owner. It seems that this Rolex Submariner has seen it all in over 30 years. As the writer of this story puts it: “This watch has been through it all. The cocaine fuelled parties of the 70′s 80′s, scuba diving around the world, racing his mini cooper in Southern California. Truly a fantastic watch that’s been through an amazing journey.”

As you can see, the case is in great shape, the dial has this nice patina, the tritium pearl has become a bit of yellow-ish, original crown and a slightly faded bezel. The priceless comes with the watch

Click here to read the story over at RolexForums. Thanks to Jiff for noticing.

Time and Gems – friend of Fratellowatches – proudly introduces the first Black Gold Rolex watches. Stainless steel (904L) and 18ct gold Rolex watches have been coated with Time and Gem’s ultra hard scratch resistant PVD. For now, Time and Gems re-worked the Submariner and the Daytona, both iconic time pieces for the Giant from Geneva.

Below you can see the introduction video by Time and Gems, presenting the Black Gold Sub and Black Gold Daytona. The deep black on these watches, in combination with the 18 carat yellow gold is simply stunning.

Price are unknown yet. Keep an eye on the Time and Gems blog for more information.

Every Wednesday is Watch Wednesday at MotoringExposure, the blog for fast super cars and exotic cars. Although the watch related articles are most of the time less in-depth than the ones posted here at Fratellowatches, they are still worth reading for the intermediate and advanced watch collectors.

This week, it is all about the Omega Seamaster Professional Diver 300M, also known as the James Bond watch in times of GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough, Die Another Day and Casino Royale. Although the SMP in GoldenEye was a quartz movement driven watch and the Casino Royale featured the more recent Co-Axial version, these watches are basically all the same (with some minor optical differences). In Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace, the Seamaster Planet Ocean was introduced as Bond’s new watch.

Nevertheless, the Seamaster Professional Chronometer Diver 300M (ref.2220.80) remains available for customers, with its wave pattern dial, skeleton hands and 9-link bracelet.

Personally, I love this watch and it was the first ‘serious’ mechanical watch (ref.2531.80) that I bought, in the year 2000 (and sold it a few years later). You can find a more in-depth review of this watch (click here), that I wrote several years ago.

Enjoy the article over at MotoringExposure! Click here for the blog post!

Hampus – a fellow blogger at How’s Hamp – did a great photo report of his visit to the Cote d’Azur. He photographed exactly what us watch nerds like to do, spotting watches on other people’s wrists. On Twitter for example, there is this #womw (what’s on my wrist) tag for everyone who wants to look at what people are wearing.

During Hampus’ vacation, he took the liberty to photograph a lot of people and did some wrist close-ups afterwards. Clearly, you need to have an Audemars Piguet, Patek Philippe or Richard Mille when visiting the south of France (and Monaco).

On Hampus’ website, you can see a lot more of these ‘sunny’ pictures with incredible time pieces on people’s wrist. Even all the girls in Monaco seems to wear Richard Mille’s, Rolexes and APs.

Click here to visit the slide show by ‘How’s Hamp?’.

Ateliers deMonaco is just over one year old (6th of April 2009) and time for Olivier Muller (The Watch Lounge) to do an excellent write-up on this Dutch / Monaco haute horlogerie brand.

From left to right:

Christain Arbili, business development manager Ateliers deMonaco
HSH Prince Albert 2 of Monaco
Robert van Pappelendam – Initiator and co-founder Ateliers deMonaco
Pim Koeslag – Master Horloger ateliers deMonaco

Please read more about this brand at The Watch Lounge or read an earlier article on Fratellowatches here and here.