In this final round table discussion of the 2017 Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève, the Quill & Pad team discusses the amazing evening of November 8, 2017 and what we thought of the big night’s winners (and losers).
The Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève’s Aiguille d’Or category is a prize rewarding the best overall watch among all categories. It is the most prestigious award in the entire competition. Here, the Quill & Pad panel discusses which watches it thinks has a good chance of winning this prize in the 2017 competition.
Artistic Crafts is a Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève category for beauty; it’s as simple as that. Mastery of techniques is the only requirement, and the results are always stunning. It is also a great place to see some unique applications of skills rarely seen, allowing us to view just what artists can imagine when given such a small canvas.
Mechanical Exception is still one of the craziest categories in the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève. Each of these watches has an incredible amount of talent, time, and resources invested in it. Martin doesn’t think that there is any other industry where we go to such trouble to further perfect a technology that is by all means obsolete, and that is why he loves it so much. Find out our predictions for this category here!
Vacheron Constantin has been producing timepieces uninterruptedly since 1755, and it often draws on that heritage for the models in the Historiques collection. A great example is the brand new Historiques American 1921 Small Model, a terrific unisex wristwatch.
Why watches? Ask what makes a watch enthusiast tick and the idea of the “soul” of a watch might well feature in the response – the idea that something elevates the watch from a cold object of engineering to something of greater import. Here Ryan tracks “soul” down and gets contemplative on its nature along with some very special imagery.
Post-war United States boasted unique market conditions that allowed for diamond-set men’s watches from a variety of brands to thrive. Martin Green takes us on a journey to discover how and why diamond-set watches became part of the American Dream.
My thoughts have turned to one major system that is always there, but generally hidden from sight: the movement. Here are a few of my favorites and why. And in the philosophy of putting my money where my mouth is, these movements have appeared in one or more watches that I’ve owned personally.
A Nobel prize laureate wrote in 1964 that, “The times they are a-changin’.”
It is now 2017, and the locus of the changes in the horological world is a company known as Compagnie Financière Richemont SA. And there are a lot of changes.
Please join our Quill & Pad round table discussion, where we talk about what we did and didn’t like at the 2017 SIHH (Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie). And get ready for a cornucopia of beautiful photos and colorful opinions!