Since last weekend (27th of June), the first Dutch Watch Heritage event opened its doors in Schoonhoven, The Netherlands. Schoonhoven is (in The Netherlands) famous for its jewellery and horology school and its museum. The museum, lead by Gemke Jager, hosts the Dutch Watch Heritage event from the 27th of June till the 5th of July.
The main idea behind the Dutch Watch Heritage is to display the (often hidden) horological treasures that we have in The Netherlands, owned by private collectors or aficionados. This first event has more than 100 watches up for display, covering the last 100 years of watchmaking and including watches like the first Patek Philippe Nautilus, an incredible collection of vintage Rolex sportswatches in superb condition, the first series of Bulova Accutron watches, a collection of highly sought-after Omega Speedmaster models, including models from the first few years of introduction (1957), the very first Heuer Monaco, one of the first Breiling Navitimers (limited to 126 pieces) and a lot of all Seiko Kinetic models.
One of the Dutch Watch Heritage sponsors was Ace Jewelers, who had a few displays with Omega, Tag Heuer, IWC, Doxa and Breitling watches. Alon, CEO of Ace Jewelers, asked me if I was able to help him out on sunday the 28th of June. This day was exclusively for clients of the main sponsor of the event, Lexus.
Approximately 500 visitors came by to take a look at the large number of iconic wrist watches, watchmakers who were demonstrating their skills, joining seminars on iconic watches by Mr. Gaemers and – ofcourse – looking at the current models of these iconic watches in one of the displays of Ace Jewelers. Like the current Omega Speedmaster Professional, the 40th Anniversary model, the current Breitling Navitimer, current TAG Heuer Monaco etc.
A very interesting watch was that of Van Ree. A new Dutch brand that introduced a watch with your own DNA sample and DNA coding in the watch. If you are buying a Van Ree watch, a DNA sample will be taken. The crystalized DNA sample will be embedded inside the pusher on 4 o’clock and the DNA coding will be lasered into the crystal on the backside, which also gives you a nice view on the movement (by Technotime). Daniël van Ree joined the Dutch Watch Heritage with a small booth, presenting his Personal DNA Watch. Daniël van Ree (pictured below) is an experienced watchmaker, who got (a.o.) his education on watchmaking at big names like Renaud & Papi (Audemars Piguet). More on him and his watches in an upcoming article here at FratelloWatches.com.
I love these watch events, and I am happy that in these times of credit crunches, there are still parties willing to sponsor these events, like Lexus and Ace Jewelers. Also, without the contribution of several private collectors, it wouldn’t be possible at all to have a Dutch Watch Heritage event.
If you have the possibility to visit Schoonhoven these coming days (till the 5th of July), I suggest you’ll do so. It is worth the trip for watch aficianados and collectors.
This coming weekend, I will visit Schoonhoven with some of my watch friends, this time as a visitor, to have a good look around and discuss these horological icons.
Elizabeth Doerr wrote an excellent report on this exhibition, which has been published on WatchUseek (click here to read the report). One of the participants was BLU (Bernhard Lederer Universe), one of my favorite BaselWorld visits this year. Bern’s newspaper ‘Der Bund’ noticed the Handcrafted Time event and did an interview with Bernhard Lederer of BLU. Below you find a screenshot of the newspaper article (in German). Click here for a full blown version (readable).
It is great to see that events like these get media attention! Events related to watches and especially to independent watchmaking are great initiatives but require a lot of funding, which is hard for the brands to do by themselves. By giving these events attention in (local) newspapers and television, chances are bigger for the organizers of these events to get some nice sponsorship deals.
Monaco is one of those cities you really have to visit once every while, just to breathe the atmosphere of luxury lifestyle and jet-setters. Fans of independent watchmaking now have a new (or other) excuse to pay Monaco a visit… The launch of independent watch manufacturer Les Ateliers deMonaco!
The Ateliers DeMonaco Carré d’Or is a watch that should remind us of the famous and most exclusive squares in the world, located in Monaco between the famous Royal Casino and a number of five star hotels. The Carré d’Or has a convex case design, a patentend Grand Tourbillon movement that uses a sapphire bridge that makes it look like the one minute tourbillon is floating inside the watch.
This watch measures a whopping 44.3mm x 48mm x 15.3mm which demonstrates that the big watches are here to stay! The watch is available in both yellow and white gold.
Les Ateliers DeMonaco have a magnificent website, including their own blog. It covers the recent presentation of the watch (with Prince Albert II of Monaco) and the prototyping of the watch movement. An interesting read for all you die hard watchmaking fans! Click here to visit the Les Ateliers DeMonaco blog!
Pim Koeslag, master horloger of Les Ateliers DeMonaco writes on their website:
“We have always dreamt about making a mechanical watch movement that is the most precise in the world and will keep generations of scientists busy to figure out how we did it”
Hoping to see their watches in the flesh soon, I at least will keep an eye on their blog to keep track of their activities in the world of independent watchmaking and haute horlogerie..
Glashütte Original took part in the international ART HK 09 fair in Hong Kong, by presenting a nice selection of timepieces and watchmaking demonstrations to the visitors. This year’s ART HK09 fair attracted more than 27.000 visitors.
Glashütte Original presented a number of pocket watches, pilot watches, chronographs, historical wristwatches, and historic watchmaking tools. This all together represented more than 160 years of continuous creation and development.
At Baselworld 2009, Blancpain introduced its new L-evolution series, including the L-evolution Moon Phase, shown below in steel and red gold. Now although I am not the biggest fan of this watch because I think the dial is way too busy and cluttered (you can partially see the other days/months and the roman numerals seem too big), it does have a very impressive movement inside – the Blancpain Calibre 66R9 moon phase movement.
The Calibre 66R9 is an automatic with 8 days of power reserve and full calender/moonphase. Blancpain is particularly proud of this movement because it is entirely developed, produced and assembled in-house by Blancpain’s movement construction engineers and master watchmakers.
Blancpain Calibre 66R9 Automatic movement with 8 days of power reserve and full calender/moonphase
According to Blancpain “Equipped with three barrels, this movement is endowed with an impressive 8-day power reserve. Nonetheless, the most significant efforts have been devoted to the heart of the movement: the balance and spring assembly. In order to optimise the regularity of rate of the oscillating organ, Blancpain has opted for a flat balance-spring – ensuring perfect isochronism – and a titanium balance. While extremely hard to machine, titanium features several decisive advantages: first of all, it is far less sensitive to changes in temperature than traditional alloys, meaning it does not dilate when subjected to heat; secondly, it is far lighter and thus less energy-consuming; and finally, it is antimagnetic”. Also, The date, day, month and moon phases on the Calibre 66R9 can be corrected at any time of day or night – including around midnight – an operation that would normally be liable to damage the mechanism if performed near the date-change time.
Here’s a short video that Blancpain produced to give you a good tour of the new Calibre 66R9 and some of its key features:
If Blancpain would improve the dial design as I mentioned above I think this could make for a great watch with a high-powered manufacture movement.
Kyle Stults is Founder & President of Perpetuelle.com, a new online community for luxury watch owners, collectors & enthusiasts.
The watch enthusiasts among you readers probably remember Favre-Leuba for making mediocre watches during the 1990s. However, what I didn’t know, is that Favre-Leuba is actually quite old (1718). This brand from the 18th century is based in Basel, the city that we all know for the annual BaselWorld show. Fast forward to 1966 (a nice overview of Favre-Leuba’s history can be read here), when Favre-Leuba introduced the first Bathy diving watch. This watch featured a mechanical depth gauge, graduated in metres (50m) as well as feet (160ft) and had a screw-down type of crown, to secure the watch against water.
The picture above shows the original Bathy, dated 1966, with a water resistancy of 50 meters. I found this photo on a most interesting (French) website about the history of diving watches, make sure to pay them a visit: http://lesmala.net/plongee/histoiremontre.htm.
As you might have guessed, Favre-Leuba is back! The Bathy got a worthy successor in 2008, the Bathy V.2. The Bathy V.2 is a 46mm diving watch, with a depth gauge (45 m / 150 ft) and water resistant to 300 m.
In 2009, Favre-Leuba introduced the Bathy Chronograph Triple Time Zone. Based on the described Bathy V.2., but with a chronograph movement and able to display 3 different time zones. The depth gauge feature is not available for this model, too bad you might think, but I can’t think of a way to include this on a watch with chronograph and GMT functionality. It would do quite some harm to the readability of the watch. The watch case is made out of titanium grade 2 and measures 46mm (diameter) and has a height of 18mm.
Considering the fact that Favre-Leuba wants to position itself amongst the serious (diving) watches, keep an eye on the vintage (Bathy) timepieces of this brand. You can find more about Favre-Leuba watches on the Favre-Leuba forum over at WatchUseek.com.
The price of this watch in The Netherlands starts at 11.500 Euro.
On the 11th of June, Antiquorum is auctioning Timepieces from Twentieth Century Icons. This auction includes some stuff that belonged to Steve McQueen. Besides the actual watch that Steve McQueen wore in the Le Mans movie, the Heuer Monaco (ref.1133), Antiquorum is also auctioning his Von Dutch motorcycle (what has this to do with timepieces you may ask? I don’t know. It has to do with money probably.) and a Rolex Submariner 5512 that was given to Jimmy Brucker, early 1980. I don’t know if it is the actual watch that has been spotted on the wrist of Steve McQueen several times, or that it is just a similar model. Chad McQueen, Steve’s son, has been spotted wearing a similar Submariner as well. Who knows.
Antiquorum estimates that the Heuer Monaco between 10.000 USD and 20.000 USD. Same goes for the Rolex Submariner 5512. I think both estimates are a bit low to be honest, especially when it is proven that Steve McQueen actually wore this Submariner in his private life as well. The Heuer Monaco was given away after the movie, as soon as he hit the way back home. So far for Steve’s loyalty to the Heuer Monaco. Who’s to blame? Certainly not Steve McQueen, but this is once again showing the sad marketing by TAG Heuer of milking out the use of their watch in a movie. And let’s be honest now, this movie isn’t that great either, except for the nice scenery.
Anyway, well informed sources over at ‘Das Rolex Forum‘ said that the dial has been replaced at some point during the watch’s lifetime. The watch is obviously polished a few times as well. However, that doesn’t count, when someone (which I think should be Antiquorum’s role) can prove that Steve McQueen actually did wear this particular watch.
Other timepieces in this auction are a gold Cartier Pasha with quartz movement, given to Sammy Davis Jr. by his friend Frank Sinatra, also in 1980. Estimated price is between 10.000 USD and 20.000 USD. It seems to me that the ‘experts’ over at Antiquorum have an easy job, or are just lazy. Then there are these Gruen and Movado watches. The Gruen was a gift from Frank Sinatra to a friend of his, Al Silvani. Frank seemed to enjoy giving away timepieces. The Movado was a gift to President Roosevelt, by his son-in-law, for his 63rd birthday in 1945. This watch is estimated at 50.000 USD to 60.000 USD.
Lex Watches, one of Fratello’s sponsors and just recently on the Dutch market has exciting news to bring! Since Lex Watches is trying to stand out from the crowd, they also look for partners that stand out. Lex Watches have found a brand that they feel fits very well with their own philosophy. The brand is not very famous to all of you (yet), but all watches are precious timepieces, made in house and by hand, all in very small production numbers, making all the produced watches special and rare!
The brand we are talking about is BRM which is short for Bernard Richards Manufacture. At BRM they build every watch by hand, and almost all parts are manufactured in house. BRM uses, besides ETA based movements, in-house made movements (Precitime) which are used in the BRM Birotor, R-50 (pictured below) and BRT models. All parts, screws, push buttons etc. are completely made in house by hand and with high tech machinery. At BRM, all parts are crafted from raw material, never stamped, but all made by hand or carved from material by high tech machines and superb craftsmen. Due to this high quality craftsmanship, BRM only produces about 2000 watches each year! Making every watch an exclusive piece.
The brand is really in the line of racing and shows great mechanical skills. All parts and edges are really beautiful made by hand, unseen in the watch manufacturers market. This makes BRM a special and very high quality brand, that chooses to be different and small. They will never produce watches in large quantities.
All watches have 3 years of warranty, and one can choose dial, hands and strap colors as they wish. Check out our website www.lex-watches.com for all possible models of BRM.
Lex Watches states that they are proud to be the authorized dealer for BRM in Holland and Germany.
Through my friend Alon Ben-Joseph of ACE Jewelers, I met with Itay Noy during BaselWorld 2009. Itay (originally from Tel Aviv) got his Masters Degree in Design at the University of Eindhoven in The Netherlands. Design is also the first and most important aspect of his watches, as he showed me some examples of his watches during our lunch in Basel.
For the Pilgrim dates, from 8th of May till the 15th of May, Itay is offering five (out of 99) of his San Pietro watches from the City Squares series with almost 25% discount! This means that this 3300 USD watch will now sell for 2500 USD, that’s nearly 25% off.
The San Pietro watch is a stainless steel (316L) wrist watch, limited to 99 pieces only. The diameter of the San Pietro watch is 42.4mm and is 10mm thick (or thin), it has a scratch free sapphire crystal, is water resistant to 50 meters and will be delivered on a quality hand made leather strap. Itay chose for a solid and proven ETA 2824-2 movement.
Numbers, 05/99, 09/99, 12/99, 15/99 and 22/99 are being offered by Itay Noy.
The special part of this watch is the enamel painted dial. It shows the piazza di San Pietro in Vatican City, as designed by Bernini.
The watches are numbered on the dial and clearly show the Vatican City map, with in its center, the Piazza di San Pietro.
If you are into design watches, have a weak spot for enamel dials or for the San Pietro square of course, give Itay Noy a visit and make sure to order one of these 5 watches before the 16th of May.
Nick Blum, CEO & Founder of BlumLux watches says it is time for men to adopt diamond watches. His large 55×45x10mm Louie Quattro watch is studded with 46 black diamonds and 4 black diamonds on te dial, in total good for 0.70 carat. To keep it horologically justified, the watch has a elaborated and decorated automatic movement, based on an ETA 2892-A2 with Côtes de Genève finish.
The sapphire crystal on the font and back is curved and the strap has this double folding buckle attached. Price for this black diamond watch called ‘Strength’, 5000 USD. Visit http://www.blumlux.com for more information.
Entries (RSS)