Just when Joshua Munchow thought he was out, Ming Watches pulled him back in! The brand is (still) on a roll with two pieces having been nominated for the final round of the 2020 Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève plus a new concept featuring an AgenGraphe chronograph movement by Agenhor. Here Joshua checks out the GPHG contenders, Ming’s 18.01 and 27.01, two very different watches.
Halloween, a word contracted from “All Hallow’s Eve,” is a predominately American celebration whose traditions come from late nineteenth-century Celtic origins. And along comes a modern mechanical time-telling spider in celebration, the MB&F Arachnophobia – a realistic-looking arachnid made of metal and other materials traditionally used in watchmaking. Look upon it if you dare!
Ever wondered what the inside of a Rolex Submariner looks like, then (sensibly) thought better of trying to find out? Well, wonder no more. The Watches TV has teamed up with The Naked Watchmaker, Peter Speake, to take a modern Rolex Submariner completely apart – diving right into the heart of this famous diver’s watch.
The Breguet Classique Double Tourbillon 5345 Quai de l’Horloge features two separate tourbillons – but that isn’t all: the hour wheel moves a plate that makes a rotation once every twelve hours, taking the hour hand (and everything else on the dial) with it. The open movement on the dial side puts everything beautifully on display. But possibly it’s the hand-engraved case back, a poetic story in itself, that is Elizabeth Doerr’s favorite detail of this new watch.
Parisian haute couture house Dior currently has three watches in the running at the 2020 Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève, two of which are based on the magnificent Grand Bal concept. Elizabeth Doerr takes a quick look at them.
In the Waipara region, North Canterbury, in the southern part of New Zealand’s South Island there is a cult winery called Pyramid Valley that Ken Gargett has visited a few times. Today he tastes several 2018 wines from the place with the picturesque vineyard names and shares his opinion with us.
Is the universal attraction of a chronograph found in the ability to control part of the timekeeping yourself using the often-dynamic-looking extra dials and hands? For the GPHG, at any rate, this is an important category with, as usual, a very strong lineup. So how is our panel leaning when it comes to picking a winner? Find out here.
Diver’s watches are meant to be rough, tough tool watches, and limited editions are made to cash in on a model’s popularity. The Bell & Ross BR 03-92 Diver Full Lum is both, yet disproves these paradox presumptions as Martin Green discovered after wearing this watch for a while. What did he think? It’s lit!
The Mechanical Exception category features men’s or ladies’ watches with a special mechanism such as an innovative or sophisticated display, an automaton, a belt-driven movement, a striking or other acoustic function, or any other original and/or exceptional horological concept. And we surely have an intriguing set of finalists in the Mechanical Exception category this year: everything from a tumbling triple-axis tourbillon to an electronically controlled hybrid timepiece to a paper-thin mechanical watch and an automaton minutely replicating a 16-cylinder engine. And even more!
Our friends at The Watches TV had a chance to see the Hermès watches for 2020 – and they (and we) were in luck to also hear from La Montre Hermès CEO Laurent Dordet. Host Marc André Deschoux goes through the new Hermès pieces one by one, beginning with the 2020 L’Heure de la Lune, the first version of which launched in 2019, which he thinks is “A super-hot watch.” Things go seriously wacky from there.