Tom Mulraney, of The Watch Lounge website, makes it very easy for you to win this RED8 wrist watch by Christian Bedat. With the RED8, Bedat & Co created something entirely different from their normal collection of watches. I actually like the RED8, because it is a fresh looking design with a self-winding eco-quartz movement, as we know it from the Omega Seamaster QMatic (the watch is powered by a capacitor that is charged by a spinning rotor). This would make a nice watch suitable for sports, big crown, large dial and hands.

Anyway, the only thing you need to do is go to Tom’s website and follow the instructions. You either have to sign-up for his Twitter feed or sign-up for his newsletter. Besides this great action of The Watch Lounge, Tom also hosts a very nice interview with Alon Ben-Joseph, our mutual friend and jeweler from Ace & Dik in Amsterdam.

It took a while before I liked IWC. They are easy to adore, especially the classic looking models like the IWC Portuguese and Flieger. However, I always thought these watches were overrated. Asking almost 6000 Euro for a Portuguese Chronograph, with an ETA/Valjoux 7750 movement seems kind of optimistic. However, I must admit that IWC does a very nice job in finishing these fairly common movements.

And of course, a watch is more than a movement. The finish on IWC’s watch cases and bracelets is superb as well. IWC also has a rich history in watch making and is one of the first watch factories to produce their watches ‘green’. In the case of IWC, this means that their factory in Schaffhausen uses hydro-powered machinery for the production of watches.

Last year I bought this Ingenieur 3227-01 and since then, I have a subscription on their inhouse magazine (called Watch International) and try to keep track of IWC a bit more. Ace Jewelers, friend of the show, lead by Alon Ben-Joseph, is having this annual IWC show in his shop in Amsterdam.

I posted only a few blogs on the SIHH 2009 and IWC, but mainly on the new Ingenieur Mission Earth. The new Aquatimer was a bit of a disappointment, at least that was I thought it was. Having repeatedly told Alon of AceJewelers that it reminded me about the Citizen diver watches, they are actually nice and impressive watches.

As you can see below, the Aquatimer actually looks quite un-Citizen-ish on my wrist. I admit I was wrong.

Especially the case and dial are superb! The rotating bezel has this shiny finish which I really like. Perhaps this was also the case on the former Aquatimer, but I don’t recall that. Below you see the gold version again, next to the galvanized rubber model and stainless steel model.

I do wonder what the use is of a chronograph on a diver’s watch, but who am I to question a diver’s tool watch. Another model that I followed with interest since its introduction, is the new Big Ingenieur Chronograph. It is LARGE, but when you do eat enough pan cakes, it will grow on you! The non-chronograph version was a bit of a disappoinment really, although looking nice at first glance, I noticed that the edges of the case were not as sharp anymore as on the discontinued 3227-01 Ingenieur.

The crowd during the show was a healthy mix of people, all of them with a good interest in (IWC) watches. As you can see on the picture below, I’ve met with Rich Pontier, who took some very nice photographs (being a photographer) of the event and met some old friends like Bernard Werk (Watching magazine), Frank (Monochrome) and Ernie Romers (WatchUseek) and his wife.

From left to right: Jacqueline Romers, me, Rich Pontier and Bernard Werk

Host of the show, Alon Ben-Joseph (below) brought his family and his lovely girlfriend Chantalle (who was wearing a very nice Portuguese Chronograph in white gold).

I would like to thank Alon (Ace Jewelers) for organizing this nice event! The drinks, snacks, service and talk was a great way to start the week. I also would like to thank Ernie Romers for taking all these nice pictures with his new camera

More pictures of the event can be found on Rich Pontier’s website. You will also find some great pictures of the IWC tourbillons and minute repeaters in his photo collection.

Ace Jewelers in Amsterdam is going shopping cart. So, what’s special about that? Some [smaller] independent brands even sell watches via their own website. True. However, Ace Jewelers is an authorized dealer of big brands, like [for example] Baume et Mercier, Breitling, Ebel, IWC, Longines, Omega and TAG Heuer.

Authorized dealers are of course permitted [by the watch manufacturers] to have their own website, but selling these watches via their webshop is quite unique. By doing this, an authorized dealer like Ace Jewelers is – finally – able to compete in a fair manner with the online watchstores that offer watches via the grey channels.

The added value to customers is that you are also able to visit the ‘brick and mortar’-store to pick-up the watch or to get good after sales service if necessary, without the hassle of sending your precious watch by mail.

Another great selling point of Ace Jewelers is that they offer an incredible extent of information about their products. Some product pages even includes videos of the watch!

When ordering a watch, you can select to have it send to you by mail or to pick it up in their store in Amsterdam. Payments are accepted through the well known credit card companies, iDEAL (a safe Dutch online payment system that works with most of the Dutch banks), bank transfer, cash on delivery and of course by ATM in the Ace store if you choose to pick up your watch yourself.

A safe way to buy your wrist watch online, from an authorized dealer. Besides this, the website offers great functionality for comparing wristwatches, ordering watch accessories (watch boxes, leather [watch manufacturer] straps, etc.) and all watch manuals are on-line accessible in PDF format.

I hope that IWC, Omega and the other aforementioned brands support this initiative by Ace Jewelers. I believe that customers want to be able to do an online queste before they go out to the shops and buy a watch, and finding an authorized dealer with a professional on-line frontend application is helping them tremendously in the web of online watch dealers.

In my opinion, this is the only way to go for these established brands to keep up with the ever growing needs [for information] of the modern customer.