In recent years, the word “skeletonization” as it is used in the world of watches has shifted slightly in meaning to include movements designed from the outset as skeletonized. Let’s take a look at a few different types of skeletonization, both modern and traditional, as seen on five different timepieces at Baselworld 2017.
Chronographs are very difficult movements to master in a reliable, interesting, and original way, even if these wrist timers constitute what is most likely the most popular complication in wearable horology. And this makes the variety of in-house chronographs introduced at Baselworld 2017 a real treat. Here are five of the most interesting specimens we found at the world’s largest watch fair.
Please join our traditional Quill & Pad round table discussion on Baselworld 2017, where we discuss what we did and didn’t like at at the world’s largest annual watch exhibition.
While there are no lack of lights, colors, and sparkles during the day at Baselworld, it’s when the lights go down that you get to learn which watches come out and party after the sun goes down.
Here are a few of the watches that I saw donning their colorful glow-in-the-dark party clothes at Baselworld 2017!
The year 2017 wasn’t just good for both interesting and exciting new wristwatches at Baselworld: I’d go so far to rate it as a vintage year. This article started as a pure Top 5 rundown, but the sheer number of superb watches soon had us reaching for our “Special Mention” over spill. And that’s all without the really big surprises. So without further ado, welcome to our team’s top picks of Baselworld 2017.
To my longtime friends in the watch hobby, and perhaps to regular readers here as well, the mention of my name may conjure up a number of connotations: patron of the independents, fan of A. Lange & Söhne, admirer of Patek Philippe grand complications, and longtime customer of Jaeger-LeCoultre, among other characterizations more or less favorable.
But these likely never included vintage maven! So how did I get here?
Until the advent of Vacheron Constantin Reference 57260 in 2015, Patek Philippe’s Caliber 89 held the record for being the most complicated timepiece in existence; it remains Patek Philippe’s most complicated timepiece. And now Sotheby’s is auctioning it in May 2017.
In the 1980s you may have read perhaps a few entertaining books by Jackie Collins, who passed away on September 19, 2015 at the age of 77. She was a very wealthy woman after 47 years of publishing bestselling romance novels, and now Bonhams is set to auction her estate of 1,000 lots for an estimated total of $3 million on May 16 and 17, 2017 in Los Angeles, and there are a few interesting watches included. In fact, I’d say surprising watches.
The first weekend of November 2016 was a big one for me: in addition to attending the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève, I collected not one, not two, but three spectacular watches. The watch I left home certain to bring back was one that I had been waiting patiently for since January 2016: the split-seconds chronograph Reference 5370P from Patek Philippe. Here’s why I bought it.
Anyone who visits online watch forums with any frequency very likely comes across at least a few heated discussions of “finishing,” a topic that seems to fascinate, and divide, enthusiasts. What is it and why are opinions divided?