In late 2017, a woman brought a Rolex Submariner to the BBC’s Antiques Roadshow that was missing its distinctive black bezel, which was appraised for about £20,000. She had been given the watch by an ex-boyfriend and it just sat in a drawer. But extra printing on the dial and a helium escape valve shouted Comex!
Joshua Munchow has a soft spot for alarm watches; they provide something so fundamentally necessary in a timepiece that he might call them the most useful and underrated complication in horology. And a recent entry to the miniscule field of alarm watches was shown at Baselworld 2018: the Breguet Marine Alarme Musicale 5547 stood out for him as a winner of the fair, with very little competition in its category.
A long-term keeper for GaryG is the wonderful Antiqua by Vianney Halter. He fell for the Antiqua when he first saw one more than a dozen years ago; while many of his friends will freely confess that at the time they were at first put off by its looks, Gary was smitten from the start. But that’s not all that he loves about this watch.
A generous friend recently offered GaryG the opportunity to shoot his white gold Kari Voutilainen Masterpiece Chronograph II so that Gary is able to share photos of both his custom pink gold Chronograph II in comparison to his friend’s custom white gold version.
In the “Objects of Desire” series, I look at pieces that fall into the categories unobtanium and timenotrightium, as my Quill & Pad colleague Joshua Munchow might say. And, where better to start on the topic of desire than with the watches of Robert Greubel and Stephen Forsey?
The lines between form, fun, and functionality have been blurry, especially in recent years. Which is why we see more and more mechanical objects with relationships to time but perhaps not directly related. Here Martin Green explores three such objects by Jaquet Droz, Urwerk, and MB&F.
One of the three Limited Edition program releases from Habanos for 2017, the Partagás Series No. 1 has hit the shelves. This cigar is still very young, but Ken Gargett has distinct opinions on it.
American actor Mark Wahlberg recently uploaded a video to his Instagram account wearing an early-delivery Rolex GMT-Master II ‘Root Beer,’ once again putting his penchant for precious metal watches on display.
With the FIFA World Cup 2014 long finished, Elizabeth takes a brief look at ten – well, eleven – of the most interesting soccer-related timepieces. Among these are the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Leo Messi and Richard Mille’s RM 11-01 Roberto Mancini. Flip through the list and see which is your favorite.
In the early 1960s, engineer Kelly Johnson of Lockheed Martin came up with “keep it simple, stupid,” which became better known by its acronym, KISS. Watches that employ clever levers and clearly adhere to the KISS principle are always something that can turn me into a giddy fan boy, and one such piece is the Konstantin Chaykin Genius Temporis. Heck, even the name implies some genius.