Chalk this up as a move I didn’t see – though I did think my Skagen and Fossil watches were getting a bit chummy in the watch box.  We learned today, courtesy of the folks at IW Magazine, that Fossil will be buying Skagen Designs.

What this means for us of course remains to be seen.  Both brands have a track record of solid, fashion-oriented watches.  I’ve liked Skagen’s sleek and slim designs, and Fossil has had some clean designs of it’s own over the years in the sports segment.  Time will tell if one will influence the other, or if they’ll continue on independent paths.

For more reading, here’s MarketWatch’s take.

Here it is, folks: the book on writing for blogs by Charlie White (of Mashable) and I. Pick it up now at Amazon for $20 or grab it on the Kindle for $16. We’ll be doing some very interesting things in the next few weeks as well, so stay tuned.

Bloggers Boot Camp: Learning How to Build, Write, and Run a Successful Blog [Kindle Edition]

Bloggers Boot Camp: Learning How to Build, Write, and Run a Successful Blog

Artya is introducing a line of firearm-inspired pieces with their first, the Son of a Gun. I’ve got to say, it’s not something I’d necessarily look to strap on my wrist, but I understand the appeal.  Just don’t try to wear it when going through security!

From their press release:

Specs

• Movement:  Self-winding, Swiss-manufactured; 42 hour power reserve; 25 jewels
• Case: 47 mm steel
• Crystal:  sapphire (front and back)
• WR to 50 m

The designer of the iconic Audemars Piguet’s Royal Oak and the Omega’s Seamaster Constellation. He was 80 years old and left an indelible mark on the luxury steel market.

The timepiece genius was 80 years old and was born in Geneva in May 1931.

Among his pieces is the Gerald Genta Octo Granda Sonnerie Tourbillion, which features four gongs and rings out the Westminster Quarters tune every hour.

via Watchshop

A little bird sent us these images Swatch’s upcoming Tourbillon collection, the Turn to Her and Turn to Him. I don’t have much information but I do know that Swatch used to make automatic mechanical movements but stopped some time in this decade. This new movement appears to use a rotating cage to move the balance wheel in a full rotation around the central stalk, a design decision which differs from the standard stationary tourbillon cage.

This looks like a limited edition movement and the guy’s model is beefier than the iced-up ladies’ model. It seems to come in a limited, numbered edition and may be similar to the special edition tourbillon sold quite a while ago.

A tourbillon is a rotating cage that turns a balance wheel to offset the effects of gravity. It’s been quite popular of late but Chines manufacturers have essentially perfected the low-cost tourbillon and with the economy it may be a good idea to convince the world at large that a turby is the right way to go for your next watch. Here’s a demo of a Glashutte model.

Obama wears a Jorg Gray 6500 Series Chrono and now you, too, can own the same watch. How much is this piece of presidential ephemera? $325, babies, and worth every penny. Here’s the story:

org Gray 6500 Chronograph worn by President Obama was given to him as a 46th birthday present by the members of his Secret Service detail. President Obama was the earliest Presidential candidate to be assigned a full Secret Service detail (in May 2007) and his relationship with the members of his security team has been reported to be very close.

It runs a Citizen Miyota quartz movement, which makes President Obama another proud member of the quartz majority. Pick it up now and own, quite literally, a piece of history. It’s a basic chrono movement with the following complications:

12-hour main watch with luminous seconds hand
24-hour indicator inset dial at three o-clock position
Continuous seconds indicator at six o-clock position
Chronograph minutes (stop-watch) at nine o-clock position

You know me and my watch fetish. Well, there’s one rarified section of the watch industry where mere mortals dare not tread. While you and I can’t “go there,” MB&F certainly went, producing the Horological Machine #3, a dual read-out crazy clock with a large date wheel and an odd inverted power transmission system using bearings and disks.


What does that mean in Swatch terms? It means this is a piece of real innovation in a market saturated with the same old same old. Watchmakers like MB&F are kind of the funny car builders of the watch world: they strip everything out and then put it back together in odd ways and then make them belch fire.

MB&F will make 25 of these next year and they will, without a doubt, be purchased by men of some means. You and I will never see these and, sadly, we’ll probably never see the innovations within. But they sure are pretty.

HM3’s twin cones indicate hours and minutes respectively, with the hour cone capped by a day/night indicator. An over-sized date wheel – the wheel is actually a larger diameter than the movement – allows for large, clearly legible numbers, with the date indicated by a neatly engraved triangle.

Sure, we can talk about watches all we want, but can we say we know how to remove a watch cyclops? Tick Talk is a blog by a certified watchmaker and he tells the story of Cyclopsi in real life.

There are two kinds of people in the world, those who like a cyclops and those who don’t. I often see people on timezone wanting to know how to remove the cyclops from their watch. And then other people come into my shop and want me to put one on their watch. I have one customer who brings in every new watch he buys and has me install a cyclops.

Cyclops Removal [Tick Talk]

Reader and watch fan Sven just sent me some concept art for his new line of watches, Buscum Ducis. He’s building prototypes right now and we can expect final product in about two months. I always love it when folks decide to build their own watches. It shows that not just the big houses can add some magic to this tired market.

Product Page

Go to Christopher Ward Watches, and see the work of a visionary. Chris Ward is an entrepreneur who returned to the watch industry, and has made a bit of a splash. His goal is to make “the cheapest most expensive watch in the world” at “the biggest ‘smallest’ watch company”.

He uses first rate Swiss movements, currently ETA 2824 automatic, ISA quartz, and Ronda quartz movements (but Valjoux may be on the horizon). Style and substance go together when these bits of quality mechanism are put inside tasteful cases with restrained dials and hands. The basic watches, in his Russell and Malvern lines are relativel small by modern standards at 38 mm, but some of the other chronographs and his dive watches are a little more typical at 42mm. The styling of the chronographs was also a pleasant surprise as it was not the customary Rolex, or Breitling homage, but a distinct designs that took a few risks without getting as gaudy as the fashion watches. The Russell line stands out as distinctive and classic, and one of the other lines was inspired by early IWC aviators’ watches, but still look good. The attention to detail comes through in the photos, and they certainly look like $500 to $1000 (U.S.) watches, but the collection averages about half that.

The prices seem low, and this sounded too good to be true. But Chris’ business model is everything, and provides the context to make sense out of something that seemed unlikely. I have never heard of anyone trimming costs as efficiently without sacrificing standards. The first thing to go was a physical store front. No showroom to stock and staff. He accepts a fairly slim margin, but that wasn’t that radical. Next is marketing. His model is the closest to pure word of mouth I’ve heard of. This is the big one. A web site, and … happy customers. He must be doing something right, as he continues to make plans for new models over the next few years.

Given the business model, it has been easy for some bloggers to make what I feel is an unfair comparison to Invicta. I say unfair, because Chris uses only Swiss movements, only does direct retail, doesn’t have a suggested retail price, and has much more reasonable actual retail prices. I asked him about this, and he said “I’m not going to knock Invicta….I think perhaps when they compare us to Invicta they do so on a price level only…and as we are direct to the consumer at a similar price point and they have more margins and middlemen to squeeze in then inevitably they are going to be a lower quality product..or so sense would say…however they do have more volume than us so perhaps they can and do offer a similar quality product as us …but I doubt it some how….the movement as you know is pretty important to customers, for others its about look or particular brand.”

In an earlier interview, Chris mentioned a design team in Tibet. This intrigued me, but I was actually a little disappointed when he said “That one was rather tongue in cheek….I was referring to hand painted dials …currently we have nothing on the cards but we do have contacts both in Tibet and China that can do specialised hand painting of dials”.
On the other hand, this opens the doors for some interesting directions in the styling of these watches.

I look at his watches, and I see a good variety of tasteful dress watchs and robust looking dive watchs and chronographs. The prices are surprisingly affordable, but the movements are excellent. I haven’t handled one yet, but I’m thinking that a C1 Russell, a C5 Malvern Automatic, or C5 Aviator Limited Edition might make a nice step up from my usual knockabouts.