Report: An Impression of the Speedy Tuesday Tokyo Event
This year, we visited 7 different locations to host a Speedy Tuesday Event. The kick-off took place in Biel, at the headquarters of Omega to introduce the new caliber 321 to the Speedy Tuesday community.What followed were events in Milan, Frankfurt, Singapore, Hong Kong, New York, and last but certainly not least, Tokyo. We spent countless hours in preparing these events, but the results have been amazing. Hundreds of Speedmaster fans signed up for these events, even though we had limited capacity, and we received (and still do) many requests for other locations to host these events.Last week, we did the last Speedy Tuesday event of this year in Tokyo.Speedy Tuesday Tokyo EventJapan is an im...
Peren Hintz Hints At More Good Things To Come From Transylvania
I love a bit of color. Weird color combinations are always good for a discussion. They aren’t always successful, but when it works, it makes you wonder why people don’t try crazy stuff more often. Here, with Transylvanian brand Peren’s latest release (an homage to Eugen Hintz, a pioneering Transylvanian watchmaker), we see burgundy and orange team-up for what is sure to be a memorable ride…Fashion is a funny thing. It is genuinely strange to appreciate how tastes change over time. As we live and age we see the cyclical nature of trends evolving around us. Clothes change their fit, style, and colors. Hairstyles careen from the conservative to the crazy, from the neat t...
ORIS Calibre 400 Anti-Magnetic, 5 Days Power Reserve And A 10-Year Warranty
Big news from a small Swiss village! Oris proudly introduces its in-house caliber 400.It is not the first time Oris has come up with an in-house developed movement. The brand’s back-catalog an already boast the Calibre 111, 112, and 113 movements hailing from the Atelier collection. But this time, Oris shows us a totally different caliber. Not one with a specific complication as we’ve seen in the Atelier collection, but a no-nonsense three-hander (with a date). Oris made its Calibre 400 movement available to us, to have a closer look at and take some images of it.Oris Calibre 400According to Oris, this Calibre 400 was conceived five years ago. The watch manufacturer in Holstein, ...
Hands-On With The Yema Superman GMT With An In-House Movement
French brand Yema never ceases to amaze me. Its soon-to-be-released Kickstarter campaign will offer a flagship Yema Superman model in bronze boosted by a GMT model built onto an in-house movement. All of that (with a sapphire bezel to boot) for the eye-popping price tag of $750. That sounds aggressively good to me and quite scary to the competition.To get a look and feel we don't have to wait until the Kickstarter campaign is over. Yema sent us at Fratello a?fresh prototype so we can inspect it closely! You be the judge of what's in the game and join our readers vote to see if the new Yema Superman GMT is worth spending some bucks on.Bronze Yema Superman with extra handOne important note to ...
The Hamilton Khaki Aviation Converter Collection
Hamilton is having a good year. A spate of affordable and versatile releases was perhaps crowned earlier this summer by the Hamilton Khaki Aviation Converter collection. It was popular among the Fratello team when it was announced. As such, I’m taking another look at it today as it is now available to buy (after a long wait).Rather than burying the lede for the sake of suspense, I will do something rather unusual for Fratello and mention the price in the first paragraph. That’s not because the cost of these watches is the?only reason to buy them, but rather because it makes assessing the quality of the design elements (and their execution) all the more interesting. The automatic ...
A Watch Of Few Words: Vintage Tissot Calatrava
Way back in the late 1950s, somewhere in post-war Germany the original owner of this vintage Tissot “Calatrava”, Werner Schonhalls, received the watch as a communion gift from his grandfather. He was clearly someone who very much cared for and valued his possessions, so the value of the watch and its meaning made it far too precious for him to actually wear it.Though the watch did spend some time on his wrist, it was not long until Werner decided to keep the watch safe by placing it into a box in a drawer. As fate would have it, the watch would spend the better part of 50 years in said box. In 2019, Mr. Schonhalls decided to sell this watch, and I was lucky enough to be the first...
Forstner A-12 Watch With Bullet Bracelet New For 2021
The Forstner A-12 with Bullet Bracelet is as close to a 1:1 aesthetic reproduction of the Bulova Astronaut as it can be without being one. And it is truly amazing.Sometimes, it’s plain to see. Faithful re-editions of watches are rarer than they should be considering the wealth of unabashed heritage mining that goes on in our industry. When brands really have the guts to pull a page from the copy-and-paste playbook and successfully meld the desirable quaintness of old-timey designs with modern manufacturing techniques it can be glorious. There will be some who find that approach less ambitious than watches “inspired by” past models. But to them, I say, “we have plenty ...
The Best Omega Watches Of Daniel Craig's James Bond Era
Well, it's come to a close in perhaps the most fitting fashion, but rather than reflect on the stunning silver screen conclusion to the Daniel Craig era (for fear of spoiling it for those of you yet to watch it) it's time to appreciate the generous helping of wrist candy we were treated to over the past 16 years. Since 1995's Goldeneye, Omega has furnished our super spy with watches aplenty, but how do the watches seen on Craig's wrist since his 2006 debut stack up against one another? Here are my top five Omega watches of Daniel Craig's James Bond era in reverse order.As always, I'm sure this will stir up some controversy, so let me have it in the comments section. Feel free to bring in com...
A Case For Future Watches: The Supercomplication Smartwatch
A smartwatch does quite a lot. From a watch enthusiast’s standpoint, however, it doesn’t do nearly enough. Sure, you can get watch faces that display the time in analog. But the similarity to an actual mechanical watch is akin to a child’s R/C car versus an actual car. Where are the gears? Where are the complications? In short, where is the horology? It may seem like such a technological device must forgo the mechanics of time for simple emulation by necessity. I’m here to say that smartwatch developers are missing a huge opportunity. The grandest one, even.For all of its computing power, a smartwatch like the Apple “Watch” allocates very little of it to t...
Introducing: The Zodiac Super Wolf GMT Blueberry
Zodiac released a new limited edition to its line of Super Sea Wolf GMT watches last week. This time, we get a black dial and two shades of blue on the bezel. A traveler’s watch for those with a taste for ’60s design.Zodiac named this the Blueberry. Now that is a bit of a cheeky move. Let's unpack that before we look more closely at the watch itself.Blueberry originsI just have to address this watch's name. Browsing the press materials, I found that Zodiac describes how the blue is inspired by the ocean. The brand specifically refers to the lighter blue as Mediterranean, representative of light breaking through the surface while the darker shade is alluding to the inky depths bel...
I Bought This Jaeger-LeCoultre Master-Quartz For $800
On the first Sunday of October, I visited a local watch fair with my colleague Sofia Severino. There, we found hundreds of people shuffling past the tables with displays showcasing thousands of watches. Funnily enough, I almost bit the bullet on a Jaeger-LeCoultre Atmos clock in the first few meters from the entrance. However, in the second row with tables, there was a display with this funny-looking Jaeger-LeCoultre wristwatch on a watch pillow. A Jaeger-LeCoultre Master-Quartz, to be precise. I moved on to look at other watches but couldn’t get this one out of my head.Buying a Jaeger-LeCoultre Master-Quartz at a watch fairAfter a coffee (espresso!) break with my colleague Sofia, we l...
Introducing: The New Leica ZM 11
It has been just over five years since the announcement of Leica’s watch debut with the L1 and L2 in 2018. And though you might know the brand primarily for its high-end cameras and lenses, that’s not all that it has put its expertise in mechanical manufacturing into. To call it “dabbling in horology” would be a serious understatement. It seems that, in true German fashion, when the Wetzlar-based brand does something, it does it well. Now, long after the impressive debut, it’s time for something new in the form of the Leica ZM 11 collection.These new watches from Leica take a more pared-back approach. Still, as you might expect, they have a trick or two up their...
Longines Spirit Flyback Titanium Vs. Tudor Pelagos FXD Chrono
Whenever a new watch is released, we always try to compare it to another that already exists. The Longines Spirit Flyback was released in titanium last week, and we happened to have the complete Tudor Pelagos FXD lineup in the office for a photo shoot. Both the Tudor Pelagos FXD Chrono and the new Longines Spirit Flyback Titanium are lightweight chronographs. We thought it would be a good idea to put these recently released watches up against each other to see which becomes the midrange king of their category.The more appropriate battle here might’ve been the Longines Spirit Flyback Titanium against a Tudor Black Bay Chrono in titanium. That would make it a battle between two properly ...
Multiple Displays: The Coolest Thing Since Tourbillons?
Even if I do favor the cool expressions of indie brands, the majority of my watches are traditional. But my $2K Otsuka Lotec got the strongest reaction I've ever seen at Geneva Watch Days this year. As usual, I was trying to wear an inoffensive but interesting watch. I didn’t want it to clash with brands' novelties, but its multiple displays captured much attention.In fact, it worked too well. Quite a few meetings ended with the tables turned as execs or PR people wanted me to tell them about the oddball 40mm charmer. And with $100K all-singing, all-dancing novelties on the table, that says a lot about the value in offbeat charm.Vianney Halter TrioMaking watch designs as different as t...
Raymond Weil Millesime Chronograph Limited Edition Largo Winch
Raymond Weil struck gold with the Millesime, a vintage-inspired watch that won a GPHG award. Belgian comics artist Philippe Francq (1961) also received praise and awards with his Largo Winch series of comic books. The titular character, a Yugoslavian adventurer whose birth name was Largo Winczlav, first appeared in 1990. Since then, 24 graphic novels have come out in French, the original language, and many other languages worldwide, entertaining millions of readers. The Raymond Weil Millesime Chronograph Limited Edition Largo Winch comes out in a universal watch language and will entertain just 300 watch and comic book fans.What I found most appealing about the vintage-inspired Millesime Tri...
The Vintage Watches On Our List
Welcome back to another episode of Fratello On Air! This week, your hosts discuss the vintage watches currently tickling their collective fancies. Before that, though, there’s plenty of banter about sneakers and watches. For your convenience, watch content starts after 20 minutes....
An Ode To The Casio G-Shock GW-B5600-2ER
We watch collectors come up with “rules” regarding our hobby. For example, “Every watch collection should have a dress watch, a sporty piece, and a beater.” This is the imperative many of us live by. While the former two may not be the cornerstones of my collection, at least not intentionally, I do have a beater - not in the classical sense, though. I don't wear a watch at home while sleeping, gardening, or changing the oil in my '72 Porsche 911 (that I don't own). However, I have a special piece that accompanies me almost every time I hop on a plane, which I do often, or jump in the car to drive however many hundreds of kilometers. Meet my beloved Casio G-Shock GW-B5...
An impressive post on TimeZone
There are thousands of posts on watch forums and sometimes the forums are so crowded, that it is nearly impossible to even read and remember the most interesting ones. But once in a while, almost anonymously, someone posts a message that will remain in your thoughts for a long time. Click....
Girard-Perregaux Sea Hawk Hands-On Review
Girard-Perregaux is one of these interesting manufacturers from Switzerland that is not on everyone’s radar. It is a rather small manufacturer located in La Chaux-de-Fonds but with very impressive and skilled workshops. We’ve visited the manufacture of Girard-Perregaux earlier this year (click here) and were quite impressed by their current collection of watches. One of the watches I really fancied myself is their sporty Sea Hawk in stainless steel. Girard-Perregaux sent us this particular watch so we could test drive it for a while and do a review on the Sea Hawk.Some of you who already know Girard-Perregaux quite well, might recognize the Sea Hawk name from their collections fr...
Trip Report: H. Moser & Cie in Schaffhausen
It was already in the pen since last January; my trip to the small and independent brand H. Moser & Cie in Schaffhausen, that finally took place this July, just before most brands were closing down for the Summer Holidays. I was really looking forward to this visit, since I have a weak spot for these small independents, that so often stick their neck out, to come up with something out of this world.Many of these brands, like Hautlence, Urwerk, MB&F or DeBethune were established about ten years ago and in most cases they were founded by one or two watchmakers that started their own brand out of passion, or sometimes out of frustration. Besides what these genius founders have done in t...