Welcome to another episode of Fratello On Air! This week, we’re excited because we’re recording from the same room, and we’re in London. In fact, we’re in the Square Mile! Today, we’re talking about vintage Excelsior Park watches, movements, and the related brands that used the movements. Enjoy this vintage deep cut!

Together again! Balazs has made the voyage from the continent over to Blighty, and we’ve decided to record an episode before heading off to the year’s last Time4APint get-together. We’ve been looking forward to this evening for a while, and we promised to each bring watches that relate to a certain theme. Well, that common thread is Excelsior Park, and we’ve brought along several related watches.

MING 17.09 Watch 9

Handgelenks Kontrolle

Before getting to the main topic, we hit upon a little news. Both of us are sporting the Adidas Homer Simpson Stan Smith editions and mention how comfy they are on the city streets. We also bring up a well-written article about the Jaeger-LeCoultre Memovox by Charlie Dunne of Wind Vintage. As far as the Handgelenks Kontrolle, Balazs is wearing his new go-to watch, the Ming 17.09. Mike has brought along his treasured Patek Philippe Calatrava 570.

vintage Excelsior Park watches

Excelsior Park and friends

Next, we get to the main topic around Excelsior Park. We’ve assembled roughly 15 watches for the night’s gathering, and we run through them all to some degree. Excelsior Park was a watchmaker and movement maker and created the EP-4/EP-40 line of manual-wind chronograph movements. We happen to think that they’re some of the smoothest and sweetest operators ever. We’ve brought along Excelsior Park-branded watches, Gallet, Sinn, and Zenith pieces that all used similar cases, dials, and movements. A collection of similarly styled Gallet watches has come along for the ride, but they use Valjoux calibers because Excelsior Park had gone defunct. Finally, there’s the big Excelsior Park Monte Carlo, a strange ’80s concoction that simply uses the once-famous name. For good measure, Balazs has brought along a couple of Angelus pieces.

We hope you enjoy today’s episode. As always, thanks for listening, and feel free to share ideas for future shows!