The first news from the 2018 edition of the “Oscars of watchmaking” – the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève – have arrived, and returning jury member Elizabeth Doerr thinks that overall things are looking very positive for the popular competition.
German watchmaking was well represented at Baselworld 2018, so without further ado let’s have a look at three Saxon manufactures with a variety of interesting new products introduced at the world’s largest watch fair in these The Watches TV videos
The ‘Superbia Humanitatis’ Louis-Elysée Piguet/Franck Muller/Paul Gerber super complication is one of the most legendary watches of our time. And what a story! And here it is in its entirety: from 1892 when Piguet made the movement through 1992 when Franck Muller altered it, all the way through the present day when Paul Gerber altered it three more times to make it the most complicated wristwatch in the world.
Armin Strom is one of the smallest complete watch manufactures in Switzerland and for nearly 10 years has introduced about one new movement per year, including a tourbillon in 2012 and the most recent highlight, the Mirrored Force Resonance, a true technical tour de force. Take a video tour through the factory right here.
Elizabeth caught up with Kiss drummer Eric Singer as Baselworld 2018 was drawing to a close, and he shared his personal list of the top ten watches he saw at the fair.
While Zodiac isn’t an obvious brand for us to feature on Quill & Pad, when I spoke to Kiss drummer Eric Singer at Baselworld and he excitedly told me that he had co-designed the new Zodiac Super Sea Wolf Topper Edition, I was intrigued. Singer has a great eye when it comes to all that is good (and not so good) about watches, both modern and vintage, and why certain designs work or don’t work.
Seiko’s story is much more complicated than most people might think. This is a manufacturer that doesn’t follow trends, but has created a few of its own, capitalizing on various types of expertise and knowledge that were the mother of necessity for a manufacturer located so far away from the established centers of watchmaking in Europe. Grand Seiko is the most appealing line to connoisseurs of fine watchmaking, and we look at it in some depth here.
Please join our traditional Quill & Pad round table discussion on Baselworld 2018, where we discuss what we did and didn’t like at the world’s largest annual watch exhibition.
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 50 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 restore by Parmigiani.
When they hear the name Fabergé, most people immediately think of imperial Easter eggs. This is logical because even today the breathtaking craftsmanship and detailed execution of these objets d’art are the stuff of legends.