Last weekend was one with a busy watch schedule. My wife is so happy with me

Friday evening, I attended a Rolex get-together, arranged by authorized Rolex dealer Schaap ~ Citroen. On Saturday I attended the SAHH (Salon Amsterdam de la Haute Horlogerie) to look at all the novelties from Audemars Piguet, Baume et Mercier, Cartier, IWC, Jeager-LeCoultre, Panerai, Piaget, Richard Mille and Roger Dubuis. The SAHH event was hosted by Gassan Diamonds in Amsterdam. And on Sunday, we had our Horloges & Espresso meeting with a bunch of watch nuts in The Hague, organized every first Sunday of the month.

To start with the first, the Schaap ~ Citroen @Home programme, organized a get-together for a few Rolex enthusiasts from The Netherlands. Together with Ronny Wooter (former auctioneer at Sotheby’s) and a team of Schaap ~ Citroen, we received a nice presentation on their stores, vision on selling and of course, Rolex watches. Some great insights on sales, customers and Rolex were shared with us during the evening. A few of these insights on Rolex watches are:

• Rolex does not use laser engraved sapphire green crystals for the Milgauss;
• The laser engraved ‘S’ will disappear from the replacement sapphire crystals that are being used when a watch is being serviced;
• The laser engraved Rolex logo is ALWAYS on 6 o’clock, it is done after the crystal has been put on the timepiece.

Besides the presentation of current Rolex models, there was enough time to discuss vintage timepieces as well. Valuation, service and availability aspects were discussed through-out all the evening. Below you’ll find a few shots that Remco and sBmRnR made during the evening, just to give you an impression of this wonderful event:

I would like to thank Schaap ~ Citroen and forum members Harald and MarkD for initiating and hosting this great event!

On Saturday the 6^th of March, the SAHH was presented in Amsterdam, hosted by Gassan. The two watches that impressed me most were the Cartier Calibre (4900 Euro) with in-house movement and the AP Royal Oak Equation of Time (40-50K Euro). The Cartier has a useable size, perfect finish on dial and case and a movement developed by Cartier. The dial of this watch has all the nice details you are used from Cartier. The only downside is the shape of the lugs in my opinion. The pointy and bended lugs will stick in your wrist, especially when you have large wrists/arms.

The Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Equation of Time simply rocks the bomb. The size of the watch was slightly bigger than my Jumbo (15202) or the ref.15300, but still within proportions and less present than the Offshore models. The subtle leap-year indicator, sun-rise, sun-set and equation of time indicators in addition to its moon phase disc are in no-way misplaced or creating a dial that could be considered too busy. I tried on the gold version, but there will be a stainless steel version as well.

A brand that surprised me in a more negative way was Richard Mille. I was very interested in Richard Mille’s timepieces but I simply can’t give them a place. Technically very interesting, innovative techniques and materials, but design wise not very interesting in my opinion. The tourbillon was nice to look at, but I must say that I have seen enough tourbillons last year.

The weekend ended with our monthly Horloges & Espresso meeting in The Hague, the 15th edition if I am not mistaken Just to be in time to visit the IWC Show at Ace & Dik in Amsterdam the next day. A report will follow soon!

I haven’t seen this one before, a DLC Rolex GMT-Master. This neo-vintage Rolex GMT-Master with tritium dial has been treated with the famous Diamond Like Carbon coating by Time and Gems.

The coating on this timepiece is a mixture of polished and brushed parts, which is a bit different from the regular ref.16700 and ref.16710 models. The center links have been polished, as well as the lugs of the watch case. The anthracite colour on the brushed parts is a bit darker than the coating colour on the polished parts, giving it a bit of room to play with the light.

The cool thing about the GMT-Master in DLC edition is that the red GMT-hand stands out. I have seen the newer GMT-Master version (ref.116710LN) in a DLC edition somewhere else, but the green hand didn’t do as much magic as this red hand does in my humble opinion.

Time and Gems did a nice job on creating a militarized version of the well respected GMT watch by Rolex. What you can’t see on the pictures is the case back, which has been kept in stainless steel. The price tag of 6500 USD (or approx. 4800 Euro) is quite a bit away from the original price of a similar GMT-Master in stainless steel, but the DLC process is still a costly operation.

They have more DLC’ed Rolex models for sale on-line, like a Milgauss GV ref.116400 and a Sea-Dweller ref.16600 and more. I am thinking out loud how a Rolex Date-Just 116200 or a Rolex Yacht-Master 16622 would look like with a DLC coating.

Thanks to Jeff from Time and Gems for the use of their pictures.

When I think of Seiko, I think of all the people who couldn’t care less about watches and bought a Seiko just because of that. It tells time, and it does it cheap. Now, I know that this is not true in all cases. There are plenty of nice Seikos that I really like, but I (almost) never include them in articles. Actually, last few weeks I got a few mails (including hate-mails) from people wondering why I didn’t include Seiko watches in my buying guide articles over at Motoring Exposure (click here for the articles).

Picture by Stefan /  Molle Watch

My long time blog friend (a.k.a The Seiko Champion) Harry Bishop also wondered why I didn’t include a Seiko timepiece in my 1000 – 2000 USD buying guide article in his most recent blog post. What he actually writes, is the following:

“I would challenge those who exclude Asian (and other) high-end well known brands of watch makers from their lists. The perception of European dominance in luxury watches is actually just an example of successful marketing … it’s not true, and it’s a relatively recent perspective. Other countries including the US used to be considered the premier manufacturers of luxury watches, but that changed last century. Some of this changed for real, other parts of it just changed in belief.

I’m not talking about new Chinese firms with little heritage. I’m talking about something like a Grand Seiko, which has the heritage, quality, accuracy, and aesthetics to more than hold it’s head up high in this company. I guess this post earns me my “Seiko Champion” moniker.”

Why not turn it around? I believe this is the result of unsuccessful marketing by Seiko (and other Asian companies) that made me not include a Grand Seiko in one of my articles. I do not recall seeing a Seiko Spring Drive or (other) Grand Seiko model in a jeweller shop in The Netherlands, other than at Van Koningsbruggen in Zoetermeer (a city near The Hague). This is the only shop I actually saw one and held one in my hands. I’ve never seen them anywhere else in The Netherlands or in another European country. This, and this only, is the reason that I do not include Grand Seiko (Spring Drive) watches in my buyer’s guide articles or cover them at all here at Fratellowatches. I believe I would include them if they were widely available and when I had some hands-on experience with these watches. Because honestly, some of them just look marvellous!

Now, I have been looking around for Grand Seikos on the web, looked into dedicated Seiko forums at WatchUseek and TimeZone but one thing has become clear.. I am not the only one wondering where to get these Grand Seiko timepieces. Vintages models are the easiest to get here in The Netherlands. I have seen several on eBay listing for a few hundred dollars to a few thousand dollars but old-fashioned as I am, before spending over a 1000 USD on a timepiece, I would love to hold one in my hands and try one first.

One of the few nice ones I noticed is this one:

I guess I will keep following these eBay items for a while, just to get an idea about value and availability. As for the new models, where do I need to go? Tell me.

This is not only a book about watches. This is a book about the faces behind the watches made by horological master minds Philippe Dufour, Paul Gerber, Dr. Ludwig Oechslin, FP Journe, Kenji Shiohara, Kari Voutilainen, Vianney Halter, Beat Haldimann, Volker Vyskocil, Thomas Prescher, Roger Smith and Felix Baumgartner.

I own and have read a great number of books on watches: books about specific brands, specific uses, specific complications and so on. For this reason, perhaps, I’m not sure this is a book suited to people with no interest in haute horlogerie; it is a book that suits the desire of many advanced collectors and watch aficionados to have more information on the subject. 12 Faces of Time is a book at a whole new level that what is already in existence, providing insight into the creative and inspiring minds of today’s watchmaking legends. This masterpiece of watch literature is certainly more than just a coffee table book.

The authors of this book, Elizabeth Doerr and Ralf Baumgarten, did an excellent job capturing the personal stories and excellent (and most creative) photographs of these watchmakers in their own environments. The authors needed to travel to four different countries to be able to make that possible. If they hadn’t done so, the watchmakers likely could not have been portrayed in as they are in 12 Faces of Time, at ease and passionately speaking about their work.

This is a unique book in many ways, but one thing that really sets it apart is the choice of the twelve watchmakers portrayed. These were carefully selected by the authors of the book, without any influence of marketing from brands or luxury groups. As an avid reader of watch magazines, I thought I would be able to name them all, but some of the names were new to me. Kenji Shiohara, for example, is one I had never heard of before, even though he has created some tremendous timepieces for Seiko’s mini-department of high watchmaking. The book includes a few legendary names as well, of course: Ludwig Oechslin, former creative head of Ulysse Nardin, and François-Paul Journe with his impressive FP Journe timepieces.

Not only the interviews make this book worthwhile, the photos are also simply stunning. The interplay of double-page photograph spreads and smaller pictures is wonderful, and amazingly enough it doesn’t distract you from the text with its careful wording.

When I finished reading this book, I caught myself screaming ‘wow!’ out loud. This has never happened before, and I immediately looked over my shoulder to make sure nobody else was there. Just to be sure.

This book has a price tag of 79.90 Euro. More information through www.teneues.com.

When the first Royal Oak was introduced in 1972, nobody could have guessed how popular the design would be in the 21st century. Based on that original design, Audemars Piguet introduced the Royal Oak Offshore collection 20 years after the first Royal Oak. At least here in The Netherlands, the Royal Oak Offshore is very popular and in my humble opinion, it is one of the watches that caused the end of the hype around the stainless steel Rolex Daytona (given the fact that it is widely available again and that they are going for list price).

However, given the fact that I am the proud owner of the Royal Oak model that comes closest to the original of 1972, how does this Offshore compare to its ancestor and is it actually a true alternative for the ultimate cult chronograph, the Rolex Daytona ref.116520? A few weeks ago, I was able to review a Royal Oak Offshore Safari (26170ST.OO.D091CR.01) from Dutch watch dealer Watch-Site and I finally have some time to share my findings with you.

From the Offshore collection, the Safari always drew my attention, mainly because of the very nice creamy dial color. It reminds me a bit of the Rolex Explorer II Cream Dial ref. 16550 (mid-80s), a very sought-after Explorer II model. The Safari has this very cool brown alligator (hornback) strap with bone texture, making it look very euh… Safari. Just like every other Royal Oak, the Safari also has the 8 white gold screws in the bezel of the watch. When the watch is being held in certain angles, the light will play nicely with the satinized bezel and the high polished white gold screws. I catch myself doing this quite regularly

The watch case is a lot bigger than the original Royal Oak model and not only that, but also a bit different in shape. Edges are not as sharp as on the original Royal Oak models, and most parts of the watch are a bit more round in general. The Offshore models are famous for their rubber parts, like the thick rubber gasket between the bezel and the watch case and the rubber protectors for the crown and chronograph pushers.

Although not very visible in the picture above, the crown and pushers are not aligned. However, the date window already should have told you that this movement is not a dedicated chronograph movement but a regular movement with an additional chronograph module (this method is called piggybacking).

The base movement is an in-house movement, that has been used by Audemars Piguet since 2005. The regular Royal Oak Date Automatic (ref. 15300) has the same base movement (caliber 3120), amongst others . The movement used in the Safari (and other Offshore Chronographs) is referred to as caliber 3126/3840, with 59 jewels and a 55 hour power reserve. A high number of jewels for a chronograph movement will tell you that it is a piggybacked movement most of the time. Nothing wrong with that of course, but the purists amongst us will prefer a dedicated chronograph movement instead.

Personally, I think you shouldn’t expect to get a piggybacked chronograph movement in a 16.000 Euro timepiece, although it would be mainly because of the misalignment of the crown and pushers.

As you can see in the picture above, the (round) screws are going in via the back of the watch and the white gold screw in the bezel is actually a hex nut. The case back of the AP ROO Safari actually says all that is necessary on the back, except for its 100 meters of water resistance.

The production number is a combination of a letter and a few digits and then again a few digits with No. in front of it. The letter (G in this case) should tell us something about the year, 2007 and the rest is abracadabra to me. My own 15202 has an F-number, and dates back to 2006. If anyone can explain me the logic behind these numbers, I would be very grateful.

With approximately 800 employees in Switzerland and 200 in foreign countries, Audemars Piguet is able to manufacture between 25.000 and 30.000 watches per year. So, there has to be something going on with the combination of these two identifiers in the back of the case.

So, is it a good and modern alternative for the once highly sought after Rolex Daytona? Most Rolex fans will tell you that there is no substitute, and a lot of AP fans will probably tell you the same. Apples and oranges indeed. Fact is though, that the AP ROO has become the watch of choice for bankers, soccer players and movie stars, where there was once only one ruler, the Rolex Daytona – preferably in stainless steel. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but movement wise, I think the Rolex is more interesting with its in-house developed chronograph caliber 4130. When it comes to the resell value, the Rolex Daytona is – although the hype is over – still good to go quickly for cash that comes close to retail.

A Royal Oak Offshore Safari Chronograph has a list price of 16.100 Euro, while you can get a BNIB model between 11.500 and 13.500 Euro. Used models, like the one reviewed, are approximately 10K Euro. One reason or another, you can bargain a lot on a new Audemars Piguet or get an occasion for almost 6K under list price. This could be seen as an advantage as well I guess, as long as you aren’t the guy who bought one for list price.

The 44mm x 14.75mm dimensions might not look good on everyone’s wrists, but I surely found the watch to be comfortable yet very ‘present’. I do think that it is at least the nicest Offshore model available right now, with its brown alligator hornback strap, stainless steel bezel (instead of rubber) and easy-on-the-eyes dial.

Thanks for reading and let me know what you think of this timepiece by leaving a comment below. Thanks to Watch-Site for lending me the watch.