Absolutely nobody needs an expensive high-end mechanical belt buckle built like an expensive high-end wristwatch. But then nobody needs an expensive high-end wristwatch either. For those with deep pockets and an itch that another Richard Mille, F.P. Journe, or Greubel Forsey timepiece can’t scratch, the Roland Iten R18 Superdriver might just do the trick.
While it was the UR-103 that first brought Urwerk attention from serious watch aficionados, it was the Harry Winston Opus V that really launched the boutique independent brand to the world. Ian Skellern takes a trip down memory lane with a deep dive into the history of Urwerk, the story of the Opus V, and a review of the UR-103.03.
‘Fifty Fathoms: The History as Told by the Pioneers Who Created It’ is a fast-moving, 30-minute documentary recounting the development of the world’s first diver’s watch told by the people who created it. Even non-divers are quite likely to enjoy this video.
Ian has a fairly narrow frame of reference when it comes to buying watches for himself: his taste runs to independents, in-house movements, and superlative hand-finishing. So why on earth did he buy a Corum Bubble, which is from a big (for him) brand and outfitted with an ETA 2892 movement with an industrial finish? And it’s huge!
The Grande Seconde is an iconic Jaquet Droz model. It’s a wristwatch interpretation of a historic Jaquet Droz pocket watch from 1748 featuring two overlapping dials forming a graceful figure eight. The Grande Seconde is as classic a Jaquet Droz as they come, but the Skelet-One, while retaining the same dial layout, is anything but classic. Ian Skellern takes a closer look at three new models from this surprising line for 2021.
Here’s a prediction by Ian Skellern: the relatively nondescript AMC movement Urwerk presented at the 2018 SIHH will not only become one of the horological highlights of the decade, but will take its place among history’s most significant timepieces ever. That’s a bold statement. Here Ian explains why he thinks AMC is so important.
Two-hundred fifty years ago, Longitude Prize-winning clockmaker John Harrison made clocks losing just one second per month. But that wasn’t enough for him: in his later life, Harrison claimed that he could make a wall clock with a then-unheard-of-precision of just one second over 100 days! And 250 years later, it turns out he was right.
The Geophysic True Second and Geophysic Universal Time were not just great value watches, they were great watches. Launched in 2015, this rebooted collection has now been discontinued, which for many has made the watches even more enticing.
John McGonigle has launched the H-B1, the first watch under his solo brand Oileán. It’s a beautifully hand finished triple-calendar column wheel chronograph powered by a highly modified new-old stock Valjoux 88 movement. While not cheap, Ian Skellern thinks it’s the best value-for-money, exquisitely hand-finished, complicated watch he has ever seen.
There are a plethora of places to see in Porto − the city center is a UNESCO World Heritage site − but one absolute must for wine aficionados is to spend a couple of hours across the river Douro in Vila Nova de Gaia visiting a Port house and tasting the wines. Follow me on such a journey . . . saude!