Adventure and exploration happen every day and everywhere; there just happen to be explorers who make a little more noise about their exploits. And for that reason we know some of them by name – like Christopher Columbus.
Released this year, the Zenith Academy Christophe Colomb Hurricane Grand Voyage II outfitted with a gimbaled zero-gravity escapement and chain and fusée continues that path in a grand manner.
Govberg Jewelers has just released a new app for the watch enthusiast called Govberg OnTime. The new multi-functional app allows the user to keep up on the latest watch industry happenings and product releases thanks to feeds from leading online publications and blogs. It also allows you to manage your collection’s information and buy/sell new and pre-owned timepieces.
An automatic watch’s oscillating weight, or rotor, is what winds it up. It does so using the motion of one’s wrist. In many automatic watches, the rotor’s activity is clearly visible via a see-through case back. But in the Dior VIII Grand Bal, this essentially functional component is transformed into a gorgeously decorated focal point of the dial.
MB&F’s Legacy Machines are the avant-garde brand’s take on traditional complications. With the limited-edition LM101 Frost, MB&F has added a new string to the brand’s traditional bow, which until now had been strung with reinterpretations of traditional complications and mechanisms: finish.
Rolex had a very interesting Baselworld that included updates of many much-loved standards, in particular a very handsome facelift for the Yacht-Master, and – almost unbelievably – springtime coloring on the dials of the new Oyster Perpetuals. Funky colors! That’s what hit us squarely in the eye when regarding both the new Oyster Perpetual and the Datejust Pearlmaster 39 models.
Ulysse Nardin was expected to introduce the Ulysse Anchor Escapement in a production watch. And with the Ulysse Anchor Tourbillon, the brand did not disappoint. In fact, this constant-amplitude escapement is now housed within a one-minute tourbillon for an added pinch of technical virtuosity.
The Le Garde Temps, Naissance d’une Montre project separates true lovers of watchmaking from the chaff: there is no big brand name on the dial, celebrity ambassadors, or expensive marketing campaign. It is pure watchmaking for it’s own sake to perpetuate traditional crafts and skills. There is, right now, in this universe, a watch that features the names Greubel Forsey and Philippe Dufour on its dial.
Roger Smith holds a special place in the pantheon of independent watchmaking, both on his own merits and as the man who worked most closely with the legendary George Daniels. While any Smith watch is rare, the particular Series 2 that you see photographed in this article is in fact unique: it’s the only such watch in stainless steel that Smith has yet produced.
Please join our Quill & Pad round table discussion on Baselworld 2015 as we discuss mood, trends, and timepieces we liked and didn’t like so much. The participants of this discussion are: Ian Skellern, Elizabeth Doerr, Boris Pjanic, Nancy Olson, Louis Nardin (editor-in-chief The Watches TV), and Benjamin Clymer (executive editor Hodinkee).
Welcome to the 2015 Quill & Pad Baselworld “awards,” in which we highlight a few of the watches and ancillary Baselworld potpourri that caught our eyes at the world’s largest watch exhibition. Please accept these citations in the way they are presented: generally tongue-in-cheek, sometimes serious, always fun!