Can you believe this thing (click to embiggen the image)? It’s a 200,000+ Euros “spherotourbillion” from Jaeger-LeCoultre and it’s probably one of the most complex “classic” watches you’ll ever lay eyes on. What’s that ball thing in the window there? That’s the escapement. It spins in multiple directions, ensuring the sort of accuracy found in quartz watches with the complexity found in a haute mechanical.
Watch as Ariel apparently gets a demo from Bruce Willis’ girlfriend in Pulp Fiction (“Tulip is much better than mongoloid.”) The watch has two barrels – one for the tourbillon and one for the actual indications – and it comes in platinum. Read more…
RGM Watches, one of the only true manufacturers in the US, is celebrating 20 years of watchmaking excellence with a new Caliber 20, a square movement with an American-invented “Motor Barrel.” It is the company’s third, American-made in-house movement and features a design that reduces friction on the mainspring barrel and transmits power more precisely.
If you’ve ever wondered where the middle- to low-end of the watch world came from, here you go. Most “brand name” watches like Calvin Klein, Burberry, and the like come from Chinese OEMs who, for the most part, run their companies as well or better than Swiss manufacturers.
For example, I got this email today offering me OEM services from a company in Shenzhen, China, the heart of world manufacturing. Shenzhen is where they make almost all Apple products as well as huge range of precision equipment. Read more…
Our buddy at Hodinkee took some amazing video of the Audemars Piguet. Here you see how the Royal Oak face is made – using a powered pantograph that is one or two steps removed what Mssrs. A and P would have used in the 19th century.
But just how exactly is this pattern created? Well, AP has been subcontracting the production of its Royal Oak dials to one famed dial manufacture all the way from the beginning – Stern Creations. Stern probably sounds familiar to you. That’s because it was founded by the Stern Familiy, the family that would later go on to purchase a little Geneva watchmaker called Patek Philippe. Stern Creations founder Henri Stern is also known on HODINKEE as the grower of one super mean mustache.
You know a watch company is good when they have an “und” in the name. Und denotes a sort of Old World patrimony, a sense that no matter what happens in the world at large, that old Teutonic “und” will be there to keep things ticking. It’s what you want to see in a watchmaker.
To that end, I’m pleased to report that the Ochs Und Junior Tinta deserves its “und.” This watch, initially wild-looking at first, is a fascinating marriage of form and function that offers a set of very cool features in a very cool package. Read more…
‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house
the WWR readers were stirring and thrashing about.
“Where’s my new watch this season? I had planned to buy
but bills and car payments made things bad for this guy.
But old John and Patrick had both read up on your lists
and decided a Diesel would look good on your wrists. Read more…
Another day, another Tokyoflash watch. This one, the On Air, has an LCD screen with backlight and you tell time by reading the numerical minutes read-out as it rotates around in place of the hour hand. It is, to be fair, pretty darn ingenious.
The watch is another fan submission created by skender Asanaliev & Adilet Asanaliev, from Kyrgyzstan. Tokyoflash liked the idea so much that they actually designed and built the working watch. Read more…
Planning a trip around the world in 80 days? Spending some time with the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen? You’re going to need this $149 Tokyoflash, touchscreen pocket watch that, is as far as I can tell, unreadable by mere mortals. Read more…
Welcome to the HourTime show, the best 30 minute (+/-) hour podcast on the web
Today we speak on Nivaroxand their min-opoly on the watch-part market, the Hydro Mechanical Horologists and their use of green goo in a watch, the Parmigiani Toric Minute Reaperter (ding) andmaybe finish our ‘Holliday watch guide – oligarch edition’.
Come on, just sell your house and buy one – you know you want to.
In the strange, small world of watchmaking, there’s lots of money to be made on items that we would call, at best, totemic. To make those items, you still need small mechanical parts. That’s where Nivarox comes in.
UPDATE – Just realized Patrick already wrote his, but I’ll leave this up for Twitter folks. Also, Patrick: Double-post! JINX! Read more…
I’ve just found a box of watches I collected during my early Seiko days and I wanted to see if any of you guys wanted to pick one up. They’re in excellent, if used, condition and all are working. They need a good lube, obviously, but these are some classic pieces.
I wrote about all of these guys five years ago and, sadly, they haven’t seen much wrist time since then. I need to get them out into the world to breathe. Read more…
‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house
