Selection of Watch Straps Straps By Fleur
Being infected by the hobby of her husband, Fleur started her interest in watches a few years ago. While owning a , TAG Heuer Aquaracer, and an Omega Speedmaster she found that she could easily change the look of her watch by switching straps. Shortly after, the idea was born to start her own little webshop, with only those straps she likes and are of good quality.While going through piles of straps from different manufactures, and through piles of leather samples, she selected only those that offer good quality and thus will last a long time.The selection of straps Fleur carries are carefully selected and with the following in mind: Bring a bit of that vintage touch to modern watches, and m...
#TBT Bulova Sea Hunter Chronograph One Wild Watch!
I'm staring at the Bulova Sea Hunter chronograph and, frankly, I'm lost. This watch has to be the most polarizing vintage watch that I own. It defines strange, but I see an almost elemental beauty in its simplicity. That being said, what the hell is this thing?!?! Where did it come from and why had I neither seen nor heard of this watch prior to just a few weeks ago? In this week's #TBT, I'm going to do my best to share with you as much as I've been able to find about this seemingly rare chronograph and in what has proven to be an even greater challenge, I've done my best to photograph this impossible beast. Let's reverse plunge off the gunwale into the murkiness with the decidedly different...
Assembly Of AP Oak Offshore Grand Complication?
Jeff Kingston visits the Grand Complication Workshop of Audemars Piguet in Le Brassus where the Grand Complications are assembled. He shows us different stages of assembly of the Royal Oak Offshore Grand Complication that debuted at the SIHH in Geneva in 2013. We will get to see different elements and how they come together, such as parts of the Perpetual Calendar, dials, hands and the casing up, the final stage of construction for this Grand Complication. The guide Mark Schmidt leads us through the process of the building of the Royal Oak Offshore Grand Complication, starting with the way the parts arrive into this Grand Complication room.Want to know more about the assembly of the world's ...
In Detail Frederique Constant Flyback Chronograph Manufacture
Forget about the level of difficulty concerning perpetual calendar or even tourbillon movements. A chronograph movement is the toughest to design and produce. Perhaps the reason why Audemars Piguet is able to come up with the craziest complications, but not (yet) with their own in-house chronograph. Peter Stas, CEO of Frederique Constant stressed it once more last Tuesday during a diner in Amsterdam, that a chronograph movement is a very difficult complication to produce. A flyback chronograph even more so.Frederique Constant Flyback Chronograph ManufactureAlthough the?Frederique Constant Flyback Chronograph Manufacture was already introduced and shown to us in Basel this year, Peter and Ale...
Hands-On: Omega Speedmaster Silver Snoopy Award 50th Review
Yesterday, Omega announced its new Speedmaster Silver Snoopy Award 50th anniversary watch (click here). The third Speedmaster with the Snoopy theme and the 4th watch commemorating the Apollo 13 mission.I am lucky enough to own the first two Speedmaster Snoopy watches (2003 and 2015) and the Apollo 13 watch from 1995. But, that’s not a reason to blindly buy the next one as well. I need to like - no, love - a watch before I spend that much money on one. Perhaps it would be different if I had unlimited financial resources, but I don’t. I need to make choices. Spoiler alert, though: I did order the new Snoopy. The first deliveries will take place in November, we’ve been informe...
The Hamilton Khaki Field Titanium Automatic Far Cry 6 Watch (2021)
The Hamilton Khaki Field Titanium Automatic Far Cry 6 Limited Edition watch offers a watch for video game and watch enthusiasts alike. I'm sure that anyone that enjoys the kind of gaming experience that the beloved Far Cry series provides has found themselves wishing they could jump into this world and take part in the adventures themselves. Immersion is a key aspect of video games. It's the feeling of losing yourself in a world created by the developers, and something that is made possible by a combination of next-level visuals, a well-written script, immersive sound effects, and relatable characters. Those familiar with the Far Cry universe will almost certainly know this feeling. With thi...
Hands-On The H. Moser & Cie. Heritage Dual Time Watch (2021)
H. Moser & Cie. is all over the place. Literally and figuratively speaking. The brand from Neuhausen am Rheinfall made the Swiss Mad Watch from cheese, the Swiss Alp Watch that made fun of the most popular smartwatch, and made people wonder how a perpetual calendar could work without looking anything like a traditional perpetual calendar; polarizing designs in every aspect. And to literally travel all over the place, the brand now introduces the H. Moser & Cie. Heritage Dual Time.Until recently, H. Moser & Cie. had the Endeavour Dual Time in its collection. The watch incorporates a second hour hand in red, allowing its wearer to read their home time zone wherever they are. It had...
The G-Heritage Story: Evolution Of The Casio G-Shock Origin (2021)
It all started with the DW-5000C in 1983. This watch is The Origin. The equivalent of Genesis if you will, of the Square, Casio's unbreakable, shockproof watch that grew out to become an icon of contemporary watchmaking. A watch that reached the mainstream and could be held responsible for creating watch collectors - the Square is still popular amongst high-end collectors because this watch takes them back to when the watch virus got a hold of them. Let's take a walk through the recent evolution of the Casio G-Shock Origin by looking at a trio of very different, recent Origin models.Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither was the Casio G-Shock DW-5000C. The development of this very first G-S...
The Titoni Master Series 94388 Power Reserve Chronometer (2021)
Blue and green. To some people, the combination is a serious no-no. Not to this writer, however. Nor to the Seattle Seahawks, whose team nickname I recently hijacked and applied to the NOMOS Glashutte Tangete Update. With that moniker taken, I need a new one for this surprisingly engaging Chronometer-certified Titoni Master Series 94388 Power Reserve model I had the pleasure of spending time with last week. Why? Because I think it deserves it.Titoni is a brand I’ve grown to respect over the past year very much more than I did in the past. In fact, until I started getting the watches in my hands and on my wrist regularly, I had the brand pegged all wrong. It goes to show that even thoug...
#TBT Vintage Inspiration With Fabre-Leuba And Citizen
Which would you pick - the unorthodox lume design on the Favre Leuba Daymatic Waterdeep or a simply structured Citizen dial? Choose your favorite!?In the last #TBT story, I introduced the Juvenia Architect “Protractor”, which has been sitting on my wishlist for quite some time. I don’t know if it was a side effect of the weather, but I slowed down a bit last week. Nostalgia hit me, and I got back to things that I hadn’t thought about for months or years. That included reopening my vintage watch inspiration list that I hadn’t updated for quite some time. As I scrolled through this list, I bumped into a few timepieces that I completely forgot I added to it. Since ...
Case Finishing: What Separates The Good From The Bad?
The finishing quality of a watch is one of the major determining factors in how that watch looks and feels. The term is thrown around all the time but seldom explored. Prices are often justified or criticized on the basis of finishing quality. I am talking about case finishing in particular here - the way the surfaces are polished, brushed, and beveled. If you have not had the privilege of handling a lot of watches, you may not have an intuitive feel for what that actually means. So in this article, let's have a closer look at case finishing.I will try to cover some of the challenges brands encounter and some of the techniques that they use. I will also aim to share some examples of case fin...
The New Linde Werdelin Oktopus Moon 3DP Black Ink
I have written many stories on Linde Werdelin and its hewn-from-granite Nordic design language. But this time, no, it's not a round retro 38mm field watch. The Oktopus Moon 3DP Black Ink is more of the same, yet different. And that is the clue to Linde Werdelin persisting in its niche space of futurist tool watches in a world of retrospective wristwear. For fear of repeating myself, I love LW’s single-minded design philosophy.Therein lies the magic of this small brand, because the main shapes of its Oktopus, Spido, and 3-Timer watches have been around for 20 years. In 2022, they are still recognizably LW and continue to confound me with newfound twists to their tool-watch recipe. Acros...
Is The Marinemaster (SLA021J1) The Best Seiko Watch?
Seiko offers professional dive watches all over the price spectrum, ranging from around $550 to over six grand. But is the best of them necessarily the most high-end, or can we find the sweet spot somewhere in the middle? Today, we’ll look at the Marinemaster line, from the very first reference to today’s Prospex SLA021J1. Priced at $3,200 / US$3,100, I believe the current model offers Seiko’s most attractive qualities in a very competitive package. Indeed, it may be the only Seiko to rule them all!I bought my first Seiko watch back in 2014 after I had already been into watches for many years. That's right; I’d never owned a Seiko before then, other than a random ladi...
Fratello's Top 5 Recent German Watches
Another Friday, another Top 5! Last week’s list focused on field watches, a very popular genre for people who are not looking to spend a fortune on a luxury watch. This week, we’ll shift our focus to something completely different. This Top 5 focuses on the best recently released German watches. Scanning the landscape of German watchmaking is interesting. There are a lot of great brands that produce some amazing timepieces. It makes this Top 5 just the tip of the iceberg of what is out there. Nevertheless, we feel that these five picks stand out and deserve attention.When we started discussing this Top 5, several brands instantly sprung to mind. And that’s understandable as...
Introducing: The New Longines Spirit Flyback Titanium
The new Longines Spirit Flyback Titanium is a really attractive watch. It shows how Longines, with each release, is becoming more of a force to be reckoned with. As prices from Omega and others have moved upmarket, Longines is seemingly positioned to take on the likes of Tudor, and the brand has started bringing the goods. Will today’s chronograph keep the string of hits going, or will it let us down?If you’re a fan of any television series, you’ll likely encounter slight disappointment at some point. Whether it’s a whole episode or just a part, it happens. As part of my English immersion, I’m watching the sketch comedy series The Fast Show, and I love it. But t...
Hands-On: Roger Dubuis Excalibur Monobalancier Titanium
There are 94 watches in the current Roger Dubuis lineup. Say what you will about them, but in any case, they're remarkable and unmistakable. Since vanilla is not a favorite flavor at Roger Dubuis’s HQ in Meyrin, all 94 watches in the RD catalog are polarizing creations - or are they? The new Excalibur Monobalancier Titanium is perhaps the least upsetting watch that RD makes. With its gray titanium exterior and matching open-worked movement, it paradoxically combines soothing shades with bold, edgy lines and shapes. And just like every Roger Dubuis timepiece, the new Poin?on de Genve-certified Excalibur in titanium proves to be incredibly photogenic.Shall we first get the small matter ...
Sir Roger Moore's Speedmaster Mk40 Fetches 61,360 At Auction
Fifty years after Sir Roger Moore's first appearance as secret agent 007, Bonhams auctioned off some of his belongings in the “Sir Roger Moore - The Personal Collection” auction. Among them was a mohair dinner suit jacket he wore in Octopussy, a personal Gucci notebook, his Olympia SM3 Deluxe typewriter, his passport (from 1991 to 2001), shoes, lots of (sun)glasses, and his Omega Speedmaster Mk40.A reproduction black and white photographic print from the original taken by Peter Ruck, signed in black ink by Sir Roger Moore - Image: BonhamsSir Roger Moore debuted as James Bond in the 1973 movie Live and Let Die. Starring in Bond movies until 1985 (A View To A Kill) also resulted in...
Hands-On: The Zodiac Sea-Chron Dive Chronograph
This year, Zodiac celebrates 70 years of the Sea Wolf, one of the very first dive watches as we know them today. But it’s not the only thing the brand can be proud of in 2023. Expanding the range of materials that Zodiac uses in its watches was also a major touchpoint. We’ve seen ceramic, titanium, meteorite, and bronze added to the range. Currently, a complete revamp of the Super Sea Wolf line is in the books, with new models arriving every month. Last but not least, the revival of the Sea-Chron can also be bookmarked as pretty significant. This was the move Zodiac made this year that stood out most to me.Suppose you’ve been reading Fratello for a long while now; you might...
Hands-On: The Brand-New Baltic Hermetique Tourer
Today, Baltic introduces the Hermetique Tourer collection. This is an adventure-focused everyday watch that comes in four colors. As we have grown accustomed to from Baltic, the styling and proportions are distinctly vintage. Still, the lack of faux patina makes these watches feel fresh and current at the same time. And all of this comes at a price lower than the average regular service. Time to go hands-on and see what's what!If it all looks and sounds a tad familiar, that makes sense. The case shares much of its styling with the IWC Hermet case from the 1940s. Baltic subtly refers to this inspiration in the name Hermetique Tourer. Still, this is far from a straight homage. I got to wear t...
Taking Time Off From Time: Not Wearing A Watch On Holiday
Going on a holiday is always something I look forward to. I work in quite a hectic field (daily international news), so any break is always welcome. After a recent trip, I have realized that sometimes it’s also nice to take a break from the watch hobby - taking some time off from time, so to speak. Wearing a watch on holiday is not always a given.Recently, I went on a break with my partner to visit her family out of state here in Australia. This was an important break as it had come off the back of a particularly intense period at work. In the lead-up to that, I was considering what watch to take. For many of us, this will be a familiar process. Let me outline my thinking,?where I got ...