Unboxing my Seiko SGG711 full titanium watch. has a quartz movement, luminous hands/markers, and a great overall look. Kind of small being that its only 37mm with a 20mm band, but fits me nicely. overall so far I like it sizing is easy only need a screwdriver and a pair of pliers. Also unboxing a 16 piece watch repair kit and a stream light nano…
Unboxing Seiko SGG711 Titanium watch!!! And some other stuff Find more on: MensWatchZone.com
Wimbledon is the place to be for celebrities who want to be seen this week. And we have the All England Club’s strict dress code to thank for the impeccable style on display, including David Beckham’s dapper three-piece suit and what looks like a vintage yellow-gold Rolex Datejust. Bradley Cooper also made an impression with an easily identifiable IWC Big Pilot.
But in the world of celebrity watch spotting, no wrist receives more scrutiny than a royal wrist. And this week’s focus was very much on Kate Middleton when she visited the Lawn Tennis Championships on Thursday. The Duchess of Cambridge wore a Cartier Ballon Bleu, a choice that is both interesting and predictable given her penchant for the French Maison’s jewelry collection.
The Ballon Bleu has been one of Cartier’s strongest timepieces in recent years, especially with women. Several models are available, with both quartz and mechanical options in a range of sizes, and while we cannot be certain which one currently sits on Kate’s wrist, our best guess would be the Medium (36 mm) or Small model (33 mm) with a quartz movement (mechanical models have the word "Automatic" on the dial).
Cartier has always been one of the Royal family’s favorite jewelry houses, and even owes its moniker “Jeweler to Kings,” to King Edward VII. However, not all members of the Royal family wear Cartier timepieces. Kate’s husband, Prince William, religiously wears his stainless-steel Omega Seamaster Diver 300M, a watch made famous by Pierce Brosnan during his James Bond years, and one that is part of a watch family strongly associated with the British military, for whom the Prince served for seven years. The watch was a gift from his late mother, Princess Diana.
This week, we start with a rare and obscure time-only watch – a truly fantastic piece that is undeservedly flying under collectors' radars. We then look at four chronographs – each offering something really special. And the mix is pretty great: from a yellow-gold original Zenith El Primero to a beautiful black dial Heuer Carrera, we've got almost all the classics covered. If you are into chronographs, you are going to enjoy. This is your Bring A Loupe for July 8, 2016.
When it comes to rare vintage watches, the big names usually jump to mind – Rolex, Patek, Vacheron, Audemars Piguet and so on. Yet, there are other less visible alternatives with amazing pedigrees and a rarity that is hard to match. We are talking about wristwatches made on special order with a Chronometer-grade movement – something specifically offered by Breguet and L. Leroy & Cie, which at the time were both based in France. The auctions already single out the vintage pieces from Breguet, going for multiples over estimates, as recently seen at Christie's here. L. Leroy & Cie (founded at the end of the 18th Century) still remains a favorite of insiders; these watches are changing hands among seasoned collectors, and rarely leave those closed circles. So I was pretty excited to see this piece from 1954, fitted with an outstanding movement that was highly rated by the Besançon Observatory (the grading sheet is provided with the watch). The engine inside this watch is a Peseux 260, and it looks like it's in absolutely immaculate condition.
This extraordinary watch is offered for 8,000 euros (or around $8,850) here.
We have often featured the emblematic Zenith El Primero reference A386, with its seductive tri-color registers, as seen here. The attraction of this chronograph is not just thanks to its good looks; it also houses the revolutionary movement El Primero 3019PHC, the first high-beat automatic chronograph in the world, launched in 1969. The reference G381 offers you all that the A386 does, and more. You get the same 38 mm case (but in yellow gold) and the same outstanding caliber – granted, the dial is different, but who doesn't love a panda dial? The G381 was only produced in 700 examples from 1969 to 1972, almost one-fourth of the volume of A386. And paradoxically, the G381 currently trades lower than the A386, despite having rarity and precious metal on its side – is the G381 the undervalued El Primero?
The U.S. dealer Matt Bain listed this golden El Primero for $11,500 here.
Undoubtedly, Longines produced some of the greatest chronograph movements of all time, from the 13ZN that we covered in detail here to the 30-CH, its successor equipping this reference 7413. In addition to the great movement and flyback complication, this 38 mm chrono looks amazingly contemporary thanks to its crisp silver dial and the stunning blue pulsation scale on its edges. And you can see the lume dots, all whole and present, as one so often hopes. Obviously, the dial side is appealing, but the beautiful movement is really the icing on the cake.
You can find this beautiful Longines offered here.
Chronographs from Omega do not stop with the Speedmaster; within the Seamaster and De Ville lines, the manufacture offered some more dressy alternatives, housing the caliber 320 (two register) and 321 (three register). As it happened with the Speedmaster, the 321 was eventually replaced by the caliber 861 in the late 1960s and it's the latter movement that's in this reference 145.018. And it is not just all about the 861 here – the dashing reverse panda dial is really attractive, with a rare grey color, and a very legible white handset.
A collector is offering this Omega on his private Instagram page here.
A roundup of chronographs would not be complete without a Heuer Carrera, here the reference 2447N – the letter N ("noir") standing for the color of its dial. The contrast between the deep black dial and the white rehaut is on point, while the well preserved case allows you to enjoy the characteristic lugs. Inside, you will find the ubiquitous Valjoux 72, a movement adopted by many brands at the time. Note that a watchmaker recently adjusted it, so you can expect it to run flawlessly.
This black Heuer Carrera is offered for $12,000 here.
The Space-Compax is a later design from Universal Geneve; its 38 mm case offers bold looks – in a good way. It was designed as a waterproof chronograph, hence the focus on the legible dial and the protection afforded by the screw-down crown and chronograph pushers. This piece is often faked so a checklist must be followed, you can find it here. The Space-Compax offered on a forum's marketplace here is not only genuine, but also in outstanding condition, and coming from a trusted collector.
And if you are into Universal Geneve chronographs you should check out the rare Uni-Compax "Big Eye" (below) that was recently snapped on eBay for no less than $24,900.
The pictures in the listing are not great, but the watch likely is.
There is one, basic, fundamental fact about watchmaking – I should add, about real watchmaking. Here it is: you get what you pay for. If you want a watch that represents a high level of taste, along with execution that represents a high level of mastery of traditional craftsmanship – hand finishing, adjusting to positions, construction, and so on – it's going to cost you.
Now, nobody is surprised (or nobody should be) that a good watch is expensive, although what a lot of folks are surprised by (especially when they first start looking at watches that really do represent fine watchmaking) is just how expensive watches by the brands who practice fine watchmaking have become, especially in the last 15 years. There are a lot of reasons behind this, and some of them are more palatable to us as consumers than others, but there's just no doubt that what it comes down to is that fine watchmaking has receded from view as an attainable goal for a lot of folks for whom it wasn't, 10 or 15 years ago. A round gold watch with a top-tier, hand-finished automatic or hand-wound movement used to be something that, say, a doctor could afford, maybe with a bit of saving. Today that watch costs anywhere from $20,000 to $50,000 or more, in general. According to Forbes, base pay for a family practitioner is less than $200,000 a year. Think about it: we live in a time when there are doctors in America (and probably a lot of other places) for whom the idea of getting a really great gold watch has become a terrible idea. Which may be one reason why the new Lange Saxonia Thin 37 mm was such an unexpectedly big piece of news for such a relatively small watch, from such a relatively small company.
The Thin is an entry level Lange (to the extent that there is such a thing). This is as traditional a piece of watchmaking as you are going to get: two hands, white dial, no seconds hand, no date, and hand-wound. It's quite thin, at 5.9 mm (the same thickness as the 40 mm version) with a movement – Lange caliber L093.1 – that's 28 mm x 2.9 mm. For comparison, the Jaeger-LeCoultre caliber 849, which we wrote about in our three-part series on ultra thin watches, is 1.85 mm thick, making the Lange exactly 1.05 mm thicker. I think it's obvious that the goal here for Lange wasn't to compete for any records; rather, it was to make a simple but substantial, high-grade wristwatch that's thin enough to look and feel elegant, but substantial enough to send that most challenging of subliminal messages for any luxury product to send, which is "I'm worth it." On how well the Saxonia gets that message across, Walt Odets probably said it best (again) back in 2002, writing about his impressions on taking ownership of his own Saxonia: "At 34 mm and a slightly thick 8.5 mm or so, it looked like a biscuit and was twice the weight a gold watch its size ought to be. The buckle was twice the weight it ought to be. Even the sapphire back had more gold in it than two solid backs from anyone else."
That watch was a Saxonia with small seconds and a large date; the latter is probably responsible for most of the extra height over the new Thin. However, both watches have an absolutely classic movement configuration. If you look through the display backs of Odets' Lange Saxonia from 2002, and the new Thin, you're going to see very, very similar views. The 2002 model, however, has a true three-quarter plate movement, with all going-train elements, including the crown wheel and ratchet wheel, hidden completely under the plate. (Check out our interactive movement model in Watch 101 for a refresher on those components). The Thin, however, has the crown and ratchet wheels on the same level as the upper three-quarter plate.
Pretty much every part of the movement is so traditional as to be almost anachronistic, even allowing for the fact that a mechanical watch of any kind is pretty anachronistic. If it weren't in a wristwatch case, you'd think this was a pocket watch movement from the late 19th century. The train is laid out so that the fourth wheel is right where you'd want it to be for a seconds hand; every steel surface is black polished except for the spiral sun-ray brushing on the ratchet and crown wheels; and, of course, there are those screwed-down chatons, which are as unnecessary as they are beautiful. This deliberately classic and also rather old-fashioned movement construction has always been a major part of Lange's appeal, but it does rile some folks who think that deliberately introducing technical elements that, while attractive, actually represent a less successful technical solution than more modern ones (nothing wrong with pressed-in jewels, for instance) makes little sense. This, however, is a philosophical position rather than an aesthetic or qualitative judgement – except insofar as you find philosophies that contradicts your own aesthetically and/or qualitatively inferior, of course.
Now, this is not an inexpensive watch. In fact, this is a very expensive watch, at $14,800. However, it is also about $10,000 less expensive than the 40 mm version of the Saxonia Thin, and it's by far the least expensive watch of this quality in a precious metal case. In fact, I can't think of any watch that can really exceed it in quality not only in this price range – not even close. In general, this welcome a reduction in pricing over watches competing in quality necessitates sacrificing something – precious metal casing, some element or elements of elaboration in finishing, something. I struggle, however, to find anything that looks like a step down in quality in exchange for a more accessible price in this watch. It's interesting that in 2002, Odets paid about $13,000 for his Saxonia, with small seconds and big date; I think this has got to be the nicest watch in the world that you can get right now at close-to-2002 prices, fresh out of the boutique, which is a very, very interesting way to think about it. To paraphrase Mr. Odets (who was writing about a slightly different subject), it makes you think of a $50,000 watch in a way you usually don't. It makes you think of it as a bargain.
For more on A. Lange & Söhne, click here.
Quite often we find great stuff from watchmaking history on our own, of course, but a lot of the time we get help from readers too and in this case, a reader shared something with us in the comments that was so good we just wanted to make sure no one missed it. Here it is: NASA archival footage, via Spacecraft Films, showing LEM pilot Ed Mitchell putting on what looks like a Rolex GMT Master under the inner cuff of his space suit (skip ahead to 4:58 in the video).
Reader "Refractor Phil" commented, "This January 1971 Apollo 14 video shows astronaut-Lunar Module pilot Edgar Mitchell putting on extra watches underneath his spacesuit during suit up procedures for the third Lunar mission to land on the Moon. It looks like a Rolex on each arm tugged underneath the fire resistant long underwear sleeves . . . "
The Apollo 14 crew – Commander Alan Shepard, Command Module Pilot Stuart Roosa, and Lunar Module Pilot Edgar Mitchell – might have had butterflies in their stomachs after the close call of the preceding aborted Apollo 13 mission, but they look all business in the video and the nine-day mission went off without a hitch, famously including an interlude on the lunar surface, where Alan Shepard knocked a couple of golf balls around. We've seen stills of Mitchell's GMT Master before but never run across this footage, which is just a great piece of living history. Mitchell passed away at the age of 85 just last February – the last surviving member of the Apollo 14 crew – and we can't help but wonder what might have happened to his Rolex. Hit us up in the comments if you have any ideas!
Not too terribly long ago, we did a story on a watch you can grab on any given day for, probably, under a hundred bucks, that over-delivers so spectacularly it's become as iconic, in its own way, as any Royal Oak, Submariner, or Speedmaster. That watch is the Seiko 5, which has been around in one form or another since 1963. The Seiko 5's characteristics have made it the benchmark for an affordable, durable wristwatch that sure, could be considered entry level, but could also easily be the only watch you'd ever need. Today we're inaugurating a new column: The Two Watch Collection, and we can't think of a better way to start than pairing the Seiko 5 with another truly iconic and historically important timepiece: the inimitable, unbeatable, and virtually indestructible Casio G-Shock.
Both of these watches are famous, both are affordable, and either alone could be the only watch you would ever need. However, the whole idea behind this column is to find two timepieces that not only fill as many of your watch needs as possible, but which also complement each other in such a way that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
Let's talk about the Seiko 5 first. It's easy, with all the interest Seiko has generated in the last few years, in Grand Seiko and the higher end Prospex models (to name just two) to start to feel like the Seiko 5 is like a collier on an ocean-crossing luxury liner in the Roaring Twenties – indispensable for keeping up a head of steam, but also someone the captain is more than happy to keep below decks and out of sight of the gents and ladies drinking champagne in First. Seiko, however, continues to take considerable pride in what the Five represents, and provides a pretty comprehensive history of the Sports 5 and subsequent "5" models for your perusal. The short version is that the first "5" model was introduced in 1963 as the Sportsmatic, and the various 5 models have been around ever since. They've been used just about everywhere and anywhere that someone who needs a bulletproof, mechanical watch has been. People come to the Seiko 5 for different reasons – desire for reliability, or for a weekend beater, or simply for the pleasure of owning a mechanical watch with a great story behind it. Not everyone who gets a Seiko 5 does so because they need, on the whole, to save money rather than spend it, but there's no denying that its cheapness and utility has done a lot to make the 5 possibly the single most widely owned and produced automatic watch in existence.
One of the reasons I first got interested in the Seiko 5 is rooted in a childhood fantasy: an avid science fiction reader, I used to wonder about time travel, and about what would happen if you got stuck in the past without any way to change the battery in your quartz watch. Depending on what era you were trapped in, you could use a watch for everything from wowing the locals, to seeing exactly what time you were being devoured by something with big sharp teeth and an appetite to match – but what you wouldn't want was something that would die on you in a couple of years. Clearly the boy who thought an automatic watch would be the solution to this non-problem had not yet heard of recommended five year service intervals, but I suspect most Seiko 5 owners haven't either, and are happy to wear their watches until they simply wear out, which, at least from anecdotal evidence, seems to take at least a couple of decades.
The Casio G-Shock is at least as well known, and almost certainly more widely worn, than the Seiko 5. Just as the Seiko 5 is defined by five basic attributes – durability, recessed crown, day and date in a single window, water resistant, and self-winding – the very first G-Shock of 1983 was defined by the number 10. The three basic goals that Casio inventor Kikuo Ibe set for himself, and the watch, were that it should have a 10-year battery life, be water resistant to 10 bar/atmospheres, and most critically, it should be able to survive a 10 meter drop onto a concrete floor. The sheer number of life changing events, whether tragic, heroic, or sublime, that the G-Shock has witnessed certainly exceeds those witnessed by any other watch. They have been everywhere from high mountains to deep oceans to supersonic flight, to outer space, and they require an interesting amount of applied force and determination to destroy. In addition to the shock resistance conferred by the "container within a container" structure of the G-Shock, they seem to be able to put up with other, more exotic forms of punishment as well. I put mine (shown in this story) on top of a neodymium magnet with a 4000+ gauss surface strength, with no effect at all. Casio does mention that its G-Shocks are designed to resist magnetism, but this is a level of immunity to anything you are ever likely to encounter in a real world situation that I was not expecting.
In fact, the Tough Solar version of the G-Shock seems as likely as any watch to be the one you really should take you if you fall through a carelessly unlocked one-way wormhole into the Triassic era. Absent a failure of the chip or the quartz timing package, it seems likely to last, if not forever, at least for a boringly long time. The most common causes of failure for integrated circuits aren't that exotic; mostly, it's the effects of heat, oxygen, and moisture and as long as the case is sealed properly (and a G-Shock is nothing if not sealed) it should outlast you in any reasonable Lost World scenario. I'd guess that its Achilles heel would probably be gasket deterioration.
The Seiko 5 had already been out in the world for 20 years by the time the G-Shock was born, and between the two of them, these watches have over 80 years of collective history. They represent a range of human experience that no other two watches I can think of can conceivably match. And, in their way, each represents a certain kind of uncompromising purism. Together, they represent the apotheosis of watchmaking at scale.
Yet without something that watches at any price level often lack – a clear technical and design vision, and moreover, one that is pursued without compromise to those essential visions – neither would be what they are, and neither would be a complement to the other. It's interesting that two watches that represent such single-mindedness both come, not from Switzerland, or Germany, but from Japan. We hope you've enjoyed the first installment of our new column, featuring two of the most popular and iconic timepieces of the post-World War II era. The G-Shock and the Seiko 5: two watches that, irrespective of price, are such classics of wristwatch engineering and design that they more than earn their place as our first pair of timepieces in The Two Watch Collection.
In this story: the Seiko 5 SNKL23 and the Casio G-Shock Tough Solar.
The Seiko 5 was the subject of one of our most popular stories: The $75 Watch That Looks Like A Million Bucks.
For a look at a very different G-Shock that shows just how far they've come, check out our coverage of a $6,000 G-Shock.
Until very recently, I must admit I had only ever stepped foot in Harrods during the month of December. You see, I grew up in London, back when you could spend weeks in London without bumping into another Frenchman, and part of living there as an expat meant that, every year, my family would plan an all-important trip to Harrods in order to buy something quintessentially British – well, mostly tea really – to take to the other side of la Manche/the English Channel during the Christmas holidays. Since my move back to the capital (now the sixth largest French city in the world, according to the BBC), I’ve been going back much more frequently, but never to buy tea. That’s because The Fine Watch Room has a concentration of some of the finest watches made around the globe – minus (and this is a big minus) the independents.
This summer, watches will be taking over the store, which has launched a “Made with Love and Precision” campaign aimed at luring pedestrians walking past the Old Brompton windows into the store to discover some of this year’s most exciting timepieces. Not only that, but Harrods has convinced 23 watchmakers to join the commercial exhibition, and in turn they have each presented an exclusive piece for the store. Some even went the extra mile, producing a limited edition for Harrods. Had this exhibition taken place while I was growing up, I suspect I would have found out much earlier what Harrods looks like during the summer.
Well, everything you need to know about this watch, you can find in the name. Except that this particular PAM00693 is in fact a limited edition of 100 pieces, all made specifically for Harrods. Hence the green dial and the retailer’s logo engraved on the case back. This Harrods exclusive comes with a choice of bracelet or green canvas strap, and retails for £6,800 (approximately $8,000).
Few modern watches say “I am a man who likes oversized watches” and “I still enjoy pure and innovative watchmaking” like the Big Pilot Annual Calendar Spitfire. Part of the new Pilot collection, the 46 mm Annual Calendar Spitfire with slate-grey dial is the most tool watch we can recall of this useful complication. This chunky pilot's watch is available, as a world exclusive, for £14,950 (approximately $19,350).
JLC is celebrating the 85th anniversary of its most beloved design, the Reverso, by launching several new timepieces using the reversible case. None is more faithful to the original model than the Reverso One Réédition. The proportions of the watch – the smallest Reverso in the new lineup at 32.5 mm by 16.3 mm – and the black dial, capture the essence of the 1930s. The Reverso One Réédition is available for £3,700 (approximately $4,790) at Harrods exclusively in the UK before it hits other stores.
One reason people adore the Day-Date is its fluted bezel, a design feature that is synonymous with Rolex’s most presidential watch. The one before us doesn’t have that, but the substitute – 48 brilliant-cut diamonds in honor of the model’s 85th anniversary – doesn’t look out of place. The precious stones come with a much higher cost, of course. The new Day-Date 40 with diamond bezel is listed at £35,800 (approximately $46,325).
What you see before you is the most complete world-timer there is, now in stainless steel. The Overseas World Time is part of a total revamp of the Overseas collection, which also includes a new in-house self-winding chronograph, a new in-house base caliber with date, and ultra-thins for the time only and perpetual calendar models. Here is Ben's take on the new blue-dial version of the World Timer. The watch is priced at £28,000 (approximately $36,240).
If this doesn’t look like a first ladies’ luxury wristwatch, I don’t know what does. The Petite Promesse is uncomplicated, powered by a quartz movement, and doesn’t even have a crown, but it’s got a very fashionable wrap-around strap and a pretty mother-of-pearl dial. All for £1,800 (approximately $2,330).
According to Roger Dubuis, 2016 is the year of the woman. The avant-garde watchmaker has an important female clientèle (around 30%), won over by watches made to their specifications. While the company hasn’t made a ladies’ complication yet, they produce high-end components, such as the carbon case of the new Black Velvet collection, which resonate with women who prefer lighter timepieces. Price: £26,000 (approximately $33,650).
Even the best stories become at risk of turning into background noise when they keep getting repeated. However, this has yet to become an issue for Breguet. The Swiss watchmaker continues to draw from its rich past seamlessly, as exemplified by the latest Breguet Classique reference 7337. The 39 mm wristwatch is inspired by the Breguet no. 3833 – a pocket watch sold to M. Thomas Hawley in 1823, from which the exquisite silvered gold dial, hand decorated with rose-engine-applied guilloché, comes from. This “Special Edition” with blue dial launches exclusively at Harrods for £29,000 (approximately $37,500).
For more on Harrods watches, click here.
