This Watch Changed My Life: The Jean Daniel Nicolas Two-Minute Tourbillon By Daniel Roth – Reprise
The Two-Minute Tourbillon by Jean Daniel Nicolas/Daniel Roth is a watch that changed Ian Skellern’s life. Here he explains how and why.
I am the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Quill & Pad. I also an Executive Producer of the feature documentary film 'Making Time' featuring Philippe Dufour, Max Büsser, Brittany Cox, Aldis Hodge, and Ludovic Ballouard.
The Two-Minute Tourbillon by Jean Daniel Nicolas/Daniel Roth is a watch that changed Ian Skellern’s life. Here he explains how and why.
In 2021 MB&F celebrated the tenth anniversary of the Legacy Machine collection and, fittingly, introduced a brand-new model to mark this milestone. While that watch is definitely increditastic, Joshua Munchow takes us on a journey through all the models, looking at key points and how the concept has evolved over the years before ending up with MB&F’s piece for the anniversary, LMX.
One of Ian Skellern’s highlights during Geneva Watch Days 2021 – in fact one of his highlights of 2021 altogether – was meeting a new young independent watchmaker called Vincent Deprez, who showed him an early prototype of his first watch, the Tourbillon Classique. Ian was immediately impressed by both Deprez’s obvious passion for traditional watchmaking and the extremely high quality of his watch.
Blast from the past! This post is a “reprint” of an article by Ian Skellern that was first published on The PuristS in 2005. This article is divided into four parts: Felix Baumgartner and Urwerk, Harry Winston Rare Timepieces and the Opus V, The Urwerk 103.03, and The Urwerk 103.03 user review.
This Breguet souscription pocket watch number 1836 was created just after the French Revolution in 1796 and was sold in 1807 for £600. A testament to the quality of the movement’s design and the skill of its watchmaker, after more than 200 years it still runs impeccably today, which makes it the perfect role model for Breguet’s modern Tradition line. But what relationship does Ian have to it?
Every time Ian Skellern writes the words “relatively affordable” here on Quill & Pad, he braces himself for the stream of comments reminding him that he must live in an alternative reality to most of the world. So he doesn’t describe the Patria Brigadier Flyback Chrono as relatively affordable (though compared to most of the watches we review on Quill & Pad he thinks it well merits that description), but he does think that it’s fantastic value and the bargain of the year. And here he explains why.
“It’s not a pocket watch,” Felix Baumgartner, Urwerk’s co-founder and chief watchmaker, emphasized, “It’s a ‘Zeit Device’.” This ultra-complicated calendar-cum-pocket watch is one of the most unique timepieces in the horological world today. Enjoy its starring role in this new ‘Easy Rider’-style video.
Stephen McGonigle, co-founder of McGonigle watches and founder of Magon watches, has developed (or perhaps more accurately “is developing”) an IOS app called Livingwatch, now available (for free) on the Apple Store.
It’s no exaggeration to say that here at Quill & Pad we are big fans of the Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso. And in 2017 Urwerk introduced its own, very robust version of a reversible watch: the UR-T8 Transformer. It’s a T-Rex for the wrist that acts much like a Reverso!
Watch straps and buckles (both pin and folding) are the nearly ideal way to fit your watch to your wrist, but they have an inherent drawback: the standard holes in the strap are 8 mm apart, so unless you are very lucky you have to select a hole that either makes the strap too tight or too loose. The perfect answer is either paying for a custom strap and hoping that your wrist size doesn’t change or a Roland Iten RWC09 adjustable buckle.
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