New: The IFL Watches Tissot PRX "Moji"
The IFL Watches Tissot PRX “Moji” is the artisan company’s latest limited-edition project. It brings a decidedly colorful and whimsical look to a very popular platform. Modified watches that show a level of craftsmanship are hot right now, so let’s take a look at this new entry to the fold.One look at the IFL Watches website reveals an interesting phenomenon. Most of the small company’s watches are sold out! As someone who generally keeps his watches “stock,” I was admittedly surprised by the popularity of modified pieces. Then again, when I look at IFL’s past creations, I can see why collectors love them. They’re colorful and somehow not...
Louis Vuitton Tambour Automatic 40mm Steel & Rose Gold
Remember when Louis Vuitton’s Tambour line was all about loud and bold statement pieces? Well, neither do I… But before we knew it, the luxury line transformed into something that whispers class rather than shouts it. Twenty-one years since the debut of the original model, 2023’s 40mm Tambour marks a rebirth of this collection. Cradled in our hands today is the Tambour Automatic 40mm in steel and rose gold.From substantial show pieces, the Tambour has gracefully transitioned into a slimmer, more refined drum-shaped silhouette. The latest iteration presents itself with casual elegance and sculptural, fluid lines, promising a new direction of sophistication. This new unisex d...
Hands-On With The Beaucroft Element
Many, if not most, watch enthusiasts want the best value for money when buying a new timepiece. And it's normal to want a good deal whether you're buying a car, a house, or flight tickets for your summer vacation. After all, we work hard to earn our money and want to spend it wisely. We want to get our money’s worth out of whatever we're buying, watches included. So, of course, when it comes to watches, it is normal to want good specs and nice designs - the more original, the better. The ideal situation is to have as much of both as we can for as little money as possible (though the latter mostly remains subjective).Well, I've got some good news for you! Today, we're going to take a lo...
The Lederer Triple Certified Observatory Chronometer
During Geneva Watch Days 2024, we had the opportunity to visit Lederer. The brand focuses on highly technical escapements, which are made by Bernhard Lederer. The new Lederer Triple Certified Observatory Chronometer stood out among the various timepieces we saw due to its impressive movement and testing schedule.My colleague Dave Sergeant and I paled around at Geneva Watch Days 2024, and he introduced me to brands I hadn’t seen. Lederer was one example, and I’m pleased that I accompanied him. Bernard Lederer is a master watchmaker who has restored challenging vintage and antique movements. He has also created an eponymous brand that blends traditional methods with innovation. His...
Hands-On: The Seiko 5 Sports Denham Limited Edition SRPL35
The Seiko 5 Sports Denham Limited Edition SRPL35 (or SBSA281) is a limited edition of 2,000 watches. The fundamentals of this fusion watch can be traced back to the famous SKX series, and the details are done in shades of indigo. There are lots of jeans-like hues on the bezel, dial, and strap. And in case you're looking for the Denham logo, take a look at the 12 o'clock position. The upside-down equilateral triangle shows the logo very subtly.For those who aren’t into blue jeans or may not know this, English jeans maker Jason Denham founded his eponymous premium denim brand in Amsterdam in 2008. One of Denham’s taglines is The Truth is in the Details, and the logo is a pair of sc...
Farer Reintroduces Its Field Collection
In 2021, Farer introduced its Field Collection. It consisted of three watches, all with the same compact stainless steel case but rather diverse yet colorful dial designs. The common denominator was that they were all inspired by field watches. Now the British-based brand has reintroduced its Field Collection. The Pembroke II, Lomond II, and Exmoor II all have a slimmer bezel and updated dial designs. Don’t worry, though - they’re just as colorful as before, as befits the Farer brand.Founded in 2015, Farer is still quite a young company. However, it has established a distinct design language during its nine-year existence. Like many watches these days, Farer’s models take i...
Watchmaking School: Visiting the Ecole Technique at the Vallee de Joux in Le Sentier
Jeff Kingston visits the Ecole Technique at the Vallee de Joux in Le Sentier, one of five watchmaking schools in Switzerland. What does it take to become a watchmaker?What is the curriculum? We get a guided tour through the Watchmaking School and see some of the different stages of the 3 year curriculum that the students follow to become trained as watchmakers, qualified to work for a watch company. Enjoy this special look behind the scene from the watchmaking school Ecole Technique....
Speedy Tuesday Speedmaster GTG Munich Event Report
On October 28th we held a Speedmaster Get-Together in the center of Munich. We invited you, our readers, a few weeks ago and we received a huge number of registrations. We could ‘only’ invite about 40 people, for security and logistical reasons. But don’t worry, we will be doing more of these in the near future.Speedmaster GTG MunichWhy Munich? Well, the other event during that weekend was MunichTime, so we guessed it might be interesting for people to visit that show and come to the Speedmaster GTG as well. A dedicated watch weekend, you could say. More so, a lot of our (Speedy Tuesday) readers are from German (Germany is #3 in the list of our reader’s origin, the US...
Preview of Geneva November 2017 Auctions Antiquorum
I continue to see progress at Antiquorum Geneva. The level of watches has seen a step up in this catalog and they already had some great results in their most recent Hong Kong sale. There is no massive pocket watch collection this time around, which is a relief for me as well. Overall, the outlook has been good ever since their separation with Antiquorum New York and I hope they keep up the good work.I had an interesting discussion with Julien Schaerer, Managing Director, during my early preview visit in Geneva. I was, again, curious about the massive size of this catalog. Just to clarify, when I say large catalogs I mean they regularly have 500+ lots in their sales and others like Christie'...
Certina DS PH200M Hands-On Review Of A Great Diver
This year's Baselworld was a treat for everyone who loves vintage watch reeditions. A lot of brands released a number of cool reinterpretations of old models. Certina, a brand that albeit has a huge history, mostly creates contemporary watches also blessed us with something special. It is the Certina DS PH200M, a diver that is the descent of the legendary PH200M from 1967. This was a memorable release for a number of reasons. Just to mention one, as I said it above, Certina was never the brand that focused too much on their heritage models. Whether it was a conscious move or not I don't know but I'm happy the DS PH200M came to production.DS PH200MThe DS (DS stands for double security) is a t...
Munichtime 2018 Photo Report
As an official media partner of Munichtime 2018, we visited Munich in the weekend of October 26-28th. In this article, we will give you an impression of what went down in one of our favourite German cities and run down some novelties that were presented there as well.Hotel Bayerischer Hof hosting MunichtimeMunichtime 2018One can’t overlook that the Munichtime event is a very German one. The way it is organized, the location, the exhibitors, and the visitors. Everything breathes a German atmosphere and German culture.There was already a slight giveaway before we left for the event because their?website isn’t available in another language than German. Even when you click the Englis...
Hot Take: New Breitling Avenger Chronograph 45 Night Mission
With the new management at the helm at Breitling and the increased focus on appealing to Far-Eastern customers, you'd be forgiven for assuming classically styled timepieces, such as the Premier, were destined to become the norm.Whilst Breitling is streamlining their collection, masculine timepieces tied to the military still have a strong resonance with the Breitling community.New AvengersContinuing the Summit' ethos, whereby Breitling uses their own platforms to announce new watches to their own schedule, a slew of revitalised and reenergised Avenger models were unveiled in October 2019. A noticeable facelift on the new Avenger was the bezel with fewer numerals on the scale, save only for t...
#TBT Unusual Black Rider Chrono Tissot Navigator 2160
What I like the most about this Tissot Navigator 2160 with the caliber Lemania 1343 movement is that it doesn't look like a chronograph at first glance. The Tissot 2170 with a Lemania 1341 caliber featuring a 12h counter proudly posed as Mona Lisa for the recent Tissot re-edition that Balazs shortlisted as one of the best 1970s chrono re-editions of all times. Today's vintage gem in question, the Tissot Navigator 2160, is missing the chronograph hour counter. Although it may appear like it is the poor brother of the aforementioned chronograph, let me try to explain its charm to you.Tissot Navigator 2160Tissot dress codeEven vintage watch collectors, rare specimens as they may be, are still h...
This Week In Watches: November 7, 2020 Zenith, Omega, Breitling
This week has seen some very interesting emails pop through into the Fratello inbox. A new watch that gets me hot under the collar, a Speedmaster with genuine space-flown provenance, and brands adopting new technology to help beat the forgers and fraudsters.Zenith Defy Skeleton CarbonThis edition is named The Party In My Pants Edition'. Why? Well, as the name of this edition suggests, there's a party in my pants, and this watch is the sole reason. To my friends, it's no secret that I am a fan of what Zenith has been doing recently, especially the Defy range. From the moment the brand relaunched the Defy series back in 2017, I've was hooked. The combination of the angular case shape and the s...
Omega Speedmaster World Cup Group E: Balazs
Welcome to the Speedmaster World Cup. In the absence of Euro 2020, we thought our beloved readers might enjoy a tournament of a different kind. We’ve assembled eight groups (ACH), each governed by a different Fratello team member. Each writer has been assigned four watches, which they will pitch to you during the group stages.All we need you to do is vote for your favorite to move on in the competition. The next round will be the quarter-finals, which will see the eight group winners go head-to-head for your votes. The four winners progress to the semis. Following that, a third-place play-off will precede the final round, due to be held on Sunday, December 13th (get the beers in…...
The Allure of Japanese Independent Watchmaking: Part Four (2021)
Kurono (subtitled Bunkyo Tokyo) is a young brand, typifying the allure of Japanese independent watchmaking. The watches have the rare quality of being budget-friendly while touched by a master. There is a tiered ordering process that gives you the feeling of being part of a small Japanese family, something few brands master. But then Kurono is not your normal run-of-the-mill microbrand. Kurono opens a back door to Haute Horlogerie perfection with a great price point, as a sub-brand of the Japanese master of Art Deco cool, Hajime Asaoka.A selfish brand?I went as far as proclaiming Hajime Asaoka to be our eye-opener into the quiet world of Japanese high-end independent watchmakers, and I'm sti...
Unimatic Introduces Three New Titanium Watches
Titanium is what it’s all about these days. We see more and more brands dip their toes in the titanium pool or expand the number of titanium watches in their collection. Unimatic has just taken its first steps in the titanium universe with three new releases featuring a titanium case. Two of them are familiar models that come in a combination of titanium and blue. The third is a great-looking Modello Uno GMT that is a long-awaited follow-up to the GMT model the brand collaborated on with Hodinkee. The GMT model is the new pinnacle of the Modello Uno line, so let’s find out more.For those of you who are regular readers of Fratello, you probably know that I like the Unimatic brand ...
The Rise Of Microbrands: Filling Gaps Left By Big Names
The rise of microbrands is one of the key developments of today's watch market. We get a press release for a new Kickstarter brand almost daily. The vast majority make terrible watches and do not survive. The small selection that makes it, however, has the potential to be warmly embraced by the watch community. Several of them are highly successful, consistently selling out their limited production runs. Those runs are usually so small, however, that they do not pose a threat to big brands in terms of numbers. But they do challenge them in other important ways.At Fratello, some of us are big fans of certain microbrands. Others still have some justifiable reservations. In this article, I will...
Rediscovering The Panerai Luminor PAM00116 (And More)
The Panerai Luminor PAM00116 was never an outrageously flirtatious watch. Made between 2002 and 2003 in a series of 300 pieces, this 44mm model was the titanium version of the steel Luminor Base PAM00118. The brown dial was the most exotic feature, if you don't count the grayish titanium, that is. Still, that lightweight alloy is always more technical and functional than attention-seeking by nature. But a renewed meeting with the watch sparked something in me. Twenty years after first seeing it, this particular Luminor brought back some memories. I'm sure you’ve also had this same kind of experience with watches from your past. And if you can’t think of any to talk about in the c...
Titoni Freshens It Up With The Airmaster Glacier Turquoise
With Swiss heritage stretching back over a century to 1919, independent family ownership, and an extensive catalog of men's and women's watches, Titoni is a brand that deserves more of the spotlight than it sometimes receives. As part of such a diverse catalog, some models are fundamental. Nestled between the dress watch and the toolish diver sits the Airmaster.This is the model that will be able to satisfy most of the needs of most customers. While the Titoni Airmaster model occupies the safe center space as a moderately sized, elegant three-hander with a date, the new Glacier Turquoise colorway pushes that understated nature to one side with a big smack of vibrancy. This new Airmaster mode...