It is often said that it is easier to send a person to the Moon than to the ocean floor because of the extreme conditions found at great depths, such as no visibility and overwhelming pressure. However, in 1960 a wristwatch (Rolex “Deep Sea Special”) accompanied mankind to the deepest ocean floor even before it accompanied mankind to the Moon in 1969 (Omega Speedmaster Moonwatch).
Sergio Galanti takes us on a journey through the socio-economic and technological events that have influenced the progress of timekeeping in Europe.
You may have heard of a few or more of the following historical people and events: Thomas Mudge, George Graham, John Harrison, the Longitude Prize, Captain James Cook, and the mutiny on the ‘HMS Bounty.’ However, you are less likely to have heard the name of a horologist who played a pivotal role in all of the above: Larcum Kendall (1719–1790). Come with me on a worldwide adventure involving timekeeping and history.
The SS Warrimoo would be long forgotten but for an unusual story of how the ship managed to navigate to a position in which it simultaneously existed in four different hemispheres and two different centuries. Ian Skellern shares the ships story here.
The saying “history repeats itself” is often associated with unfavorable occurrences. But this is definitely not the case with A. Lange & Söhne and December 7, a date that has marked milestones for the brand three times now. Sabine Zwettler explores the significance of the founding day of Glashütte’s finest manufactory.
Jan Lidmaňský interviewed Emmanuel Breguet, vice president and head of patrimony at Breguet. He chatted with this direct descendant of Abraham-Louis Breguet about fakes in the time of Breguet, which watch is still missing from the Breguet Museum’s collection, how many pieces the company has acquired at auction over the last 20 years, and much more.
In this first of a short series called “History of Ferrari Watches,” Elizabeth Doerr takes a look into the Panerai collaboration, which took place between 2005 and 2010. Start your engines!
When they hear the name Fabergé, most people immediately think of Imperial Easter eggs. The egg tradition hatched in 1885 when Tsar Alexander III commissioned his first Easter egg from Fabergé as a gift to his wife, Empress Maria Feodor. This became a yearly tradition, with Fabergé creating 49 eggs in total for the Russian court up to 1916. Here we have the story of the Yusupov Egg of 1907 and how it was restored by Parmigiani.
The rise of the internet, and the consequent evolution of the watch-watching community, has inevitably amplified the phenomenon whereby certain objects have come to exert an extraordinary hold over the collective imagination. Here, Colin Alexander Smith debunks three watch myths circulating widely and freely online and in print concerning former French president Nicolas Sarkozy’s Rolex and Patek Philippe, the Khanjar Rolex Sea-Dwellers, and what in fact Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay were wearing on their wrists as they summited Mount Everest.
Every year people working in the watch industry pass away, and brands come and go. Here Elizabeth Doerr highlights a special few of the people we lost in 2021.