In early June 2018, nearly 200 people from all corners of the planet traveled to the the quiet Vallée de Joux in Switzerland to celebrate independent watchmaker Philippe Dufour’s 70th birthday party. Ian Skellern thought the occasion might make for a nice film and asked a few old friends to help out.
Late in 2015 the news came through that A.H.C.I. co-founder Svend Andersen had sold his company. But how did Andersen get here? Let’s take a quick tour of 53 years’ worth of independent horology the Danish way to find out, which includes an extravaganza of worldtimers, unusual erotic watches, and even poker-playing dogs.
Strehler’s latest watch, the Trans-Axial Remontoir Tourbillon, takes his definitive style to create an even more accurate timepiece than he has made before. And since he also likes to focus on impressive mechanics, he has done it in a way that stood out among the multitude of new watches presented at Baselworld 2018.
In the picturesque Swiss town of Thun, Beat Haldimann and his small team distinguish themselves by focusing on technical virtuosity of the highest order as typified by the Haldimann H1 Flying Central Tourbillon.
I encountered Konstantin Chaykin’s Joker, whose “face” is literally just that with two googly eyes showing the hours and minutes with their respective pupils and a lolling red tongue displaying the phase of the moon. I was transfixed and moments later I placed my order. Find out why right here!
One of the rarest of the rare is going under the hammer at Christie’s June 21, 2017 sale of “Rare Watches and American Icons” in New York City: lot 216 comes from a collector who commissioned this extreme rarity, a timepiece by A.H.C.I. watchmaker Christian Klings.
SIHH week 2017 is off to a great start for our small group of California collectors. The highlight of our first day was our now-traditional Saturday night dinner with independent watchmaking legend Kari Voutilianen. Each year, Kari meets with us to share and explain the watches that he will be introducing at SIHH. And here they are.
In 1974 Dutch watchmaker Christiaan van der Klaauw founded his own workshop making astronomical clocks, then soon similar complications for wristwatches. He retired in 2009, passing his baton along to Daniel Reintjes, who is now in charge of the world’s only watch brand completely dedicated to astronomical watches. Quill & Pad’s Martin Green sat down with Reintjes to get a feel for where the brand is now.
Despite all its scholarly technology, I find Antoine Preziuso’s Stella Polare Tourbillon Muonionalusta to be far more wearable for slimmer wrists than some of Antoine Preziuso’s other creations. And a meteorite on the wrist is the culmination of Preziuso’s journey to capture a shooting star.
A piece that for me is a long-term keeper, is the wonderful Antiqua by Vianney Halter. The truth is that I fell for the Antiqua when I first saw one more than a dozen years ago; while many of my friends will freely confess that at the time they were at first put off by its looks, I was smitten from the start. But that’s not all that I love about this watch.