For Joshua Munchow, the Hautlence HL Sphere is easily within his top ten favorite watches of all time: for him the HL Sphere has no equal and represents incredible engineering with firm design restraint. Find out why right here!
For Martin Green, one of the true pleasures of being a watch journalist is the ability to try out watches before they even hit the market. This joy increases when the watch in question is of a rare breed like the Habring2 Perpetual-Doppel, a seldom-seen combination of perpetual calendar and split-seconds chronograph. Habring2 unites these two complications in one watch to celebrate the independent watch brand’s 15th anniversary.
George Daniels’ first Space Traveller, which is one of the most famous pieces of the late Erivan Haub’s tremendous collection, hit the auction block on July 2, 2019 as part of Sotheby’s Masterworks of Time. The definitive highlight of the first of the four auction segments, it hammered for an astounding $4,561,407/£3,615,000.
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.
If you’re just beginning to collect the works of independent watchmakers, GaryG suggests that you give careful consideration to watches from Habring2, the small independent Austrian watchmaking company founded and headed by Maria Kristina and Richard Habring.
Elizabeth Doerr highlights George Daniels’ first Space Traveller, which is one of the most famous pieces of the late Erivan Haub’s tremendous collection, which is slated to hit the auction block as Sotheby’s Masterworks of Time. It is bound to be the highlight of the first of the four auction segments kicking off in London in July 2019.
There are high-end watch brands titled with a person’s name that have no reference to a specific human being. But more often than not in horology, there are actual people behind watch brands with human-sounding names. And there is hardly a brand more human in Elizabeth Doerr’s estimation than Armin Strom, an independent Swiss manufacture making some of the highest quality timepieces on the market.
For this edition of Behind the Lens, GaryG shares a series of photographs of one of the great watches of our time, the Philippe Dufour Duality. The Duality, with its linked twin escapements, was originally planned for production in a series of 25 watches. In a turn of events that seems almost unbelievable today, a lack of initial demand eventually led Dufour to limit production to just nine pieces, one of which is owned by a good friend of Gary’s.
Like explaining Dada without images or relating a dream, profiling De Bethune’s signature watch is a challenge – where does one start with a subject so alien? Tim Mosso not only makes a great start, he takes us through every detail of the flagship timepiece of this ultra-creative independent boutique brand.
“Insight Micro-Rotor is a haute horlogerie creation, but also a daily timepiece that can be enjoyed for its simplicity of use,” says Romain Gauthier. “You can wear it every weekday and almost forget that you have it on. It’s very comfortable, and the micro rotor winds the barrels quickly, efficiently, and silently so you don’t have to worry about winding them by hand.” Elizabeth Doerr is a fan and explains here why you should be too.