VIDEO: The Breguet Marine Collection
Earlier this year, Time+Tide celebrated the arrival of the 2019 Breguet collection in Australia. For those who attended, it was a night nobody would forget in a hurry, in part due to the impeccable setting, but mainly thanks to the sensational watches that were on display. Of these sensational watches, the real hero of the evening was the Breguet Marine Collection, which has a number of new additions to the family this year. In this collection, the thoughtful use of materials is immediately obvious. The titanium cases and bracelets of the Marine Alarme Musicale 5547 and of the time-only Marine 5517 give a sensation of weightless effortlessness, while still offering a tactile robustness in their build quality. On the more feminine side of the collection, the Breguet Marine Dame 9518 reference presents a range of dial, bezel and strap options, including a stunning mother-of-pearl dial that has been guillochéd by the hands of a master craftsman. Another option within the Marine Dame 9518 reference is a dial that is as blue and liquid as the ocean itself, and delivers a depth of texture that is rarely seen. While these four watches show the depth and breadth of the Breguet Marine Collection,…
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Editor’s note: Blancpain have been looking into their rich trove of dive watch archives to great success recently, reviving a number of classics that we have covered here, and here, as well as producing a stunning unique piece for Only Watch 2019 that James took a closer look at. But for those who might be slightly newer to the brand, exactly what makes a Blancpain dive watch so good? Well, a little while ago, Cameron Wong did some digging into exactly that question, and showed how Blancpain helped everyone from military spies to Hollywood actors with their dive watch needs. Enjoy the history lesson! They say legends aren’t born, they’re made. And the immortal story of the archetypal diver’s watch, Blancpain’s Fifty Fathoms, is as legendary as they come. Beginning with tales of clandestine underwater missions and Oscar-winning performances. Following a long and ultimately unsuccessful search for a watch that would suit all their aquatic espionage needs, in 1952, Captain Robert “Bob” Maloubier and Lieutenant Claude Riffaud – two commanding officers from the then recently established French combat diving corps – sat down with a drawing pad and pencil, and set out to design a watch that would not only…
Later this year, Phillips, in association with Bacs & Russo, are hosting the Game Changers auction, which will be offering some of the most important watches to ever meet the public market, including watches owned by golfer Jack Nicklaus, and actors Marlon Brando and Robert Downey Jr, as well as incredibly rare vintage examples of Patek Philippe, Rolex and LeCoultre. While the full catalogue for the Phillips Game Changers auction has not yet been made public, let’s take a closer look at some of the highlights that are likely to get paddles in the air. The Jack Nicklaus’ Rolex Day-Date Ref. 1803 Jack Nicklaus is considered by many to be one of, if not the greatest golfer of all time, having won 18 major championships over his career. He wore his Rolex Day-Date for the majority of his career, after he received it in 1966 through his relationship with Rolex as a golf tournament sponsor. The Marlon Brando ‘Apocalypse Now’ Rolex GMT-Master, Ref. 1675 The sale of this bezel-less Rolex GMT-Master was announced in July this year, and immediately turned heads, as the intoxicating blend of Rolex, Hollywood provenance, and first time to market (which saw the Paul Newman “Paul…
This year we were lucky enough to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the TAG Heuer Monaco. It was in the last year of the 1960s that the brand (just Heuer at the time) released their iconic watch that was one of the first ever automatic chronographs, and was cemented as a legend when it was seen on the wrist of Steve McQueen in the cinema classic Le Mans. To celebrate this very special watch, in 2019 they have released a series of five TAG Heuer Monaco limited edition watches (of 169 pieces per watch), with each part of the series representing a decade in the life of the Monaco. The fifth and final watch was released last week, so we wanted to take a look at the full picture, now the last piece of the puzzle had been placed. TAG Heuer Monaco 1969-1979 Limited Edition The first cab off the rank was the Monaco 1969-1979, with a deep green dial and, unusually, Côtes de Genève finishing on the dial, a technique that is most commonly used to decorate movements. With a brown leather rally strap, and the red and yellow dial highlights, it oozes with the cool of the ’70s. Read…
Omega’s eponymous collection of Seamaster timepieces are as varied as they are capable, and no matter the occasion, chances are Omega makes a water-ready timepiece that’s right for you. Genuinely, the Swiss marque’s famed dive watches are available in so many different iterations that one could conceivably own several different variants from the same family of watches. With that in mind, we thought we’d take a look at three versions of the Omega Seamaster that will look great on your wrist, no matter the occasion. Omega Planet Ocean 600M Co‑Axial Master Chronometer 39.5mm For a daily timepiece, the Omega Seamaster Planet Ocean 600M presents as a pretty compelling proposition. For a start, the stainless steel sports watch’s 39.5mm case size lands it smack bang in the middle of the “Goldilocks zone”, ensuring that you can wear it with just about anything. Furthermore, the Planet Ocean’s uniformly black dial backs up the versatility of the case size, and gives the PO a great amount of bandwidth. And when you take into account that the Planet Ocean hosts Omega’s Calibre 8800 movement, which is not only self-winding but also master chronometer certified, magnetic resistant to 15,000 gauss and offers up 55 hours…
Boutique British watchmaker Farer have just released what many in the horological community are calling their best watch to date – the Farer Roché World Timer. Hewn from 316L stainless steel, the svelte 39mm case of the Roché World Timer is a mere 11mm thick, ensuring that the timepiece offers a great amount of bandwidth when it comes to wearability, while simultaneously landing it firmly in what many consider to be the “Goldilocks zone” of watch sizes. Housed inside the polished steel case is ETA’s venerable 2893-1 “Top Grade” movement, a self-winding job that offers a great many features, including 48 hours of power reserve, world time complication, date complication, 21 jewels and 28,800 (4Hz) vibrations per hour. Navigating and setting the various features of the Farer Roché World Timer has also been made easy thanks to two separate crowns. The first, which is located at the traditional three o’clock position, allows wearers to adjust the time, date and universal 24-hour disk. While the second crown, which can be found on the opposite side of the case at 10 o’clock, controls the inner bezel of the 24 different time zones.In addition, owners can fully admire this workhorse of a movement…
Editor’s note: With the hype around AP’s perennially popular Royal Oak seemingly drowning out the noise from almost any other watch in the horological industry, it’s easy to forget that Audemars Piguet themselves make a fair few other excellent timepieces. And I’m not even talking about the doyens of the Le Brassus’s most recent timepiece, Code 11.59. No, Audemars Piguet’s Millenary collection is so often overlooked, and it shouldn’t be, because it’s a great watch that well and truly has earned its place in AP’s collection. A couple of years ago, Felix Scholz was fortunate enough to go hands-on with a great example of the Millenary, the Audemars Piguet Millenary Quadriennium, and these were his initial thoughts. The story in a second: Audemars Piguet have developed a cool new calendar complication, but the watch it’s showcased in fails to deliver as a complete package. I had two questions when I was first handed the new Audemars Piguet Millenary Quadriennium. Firstly, what is a Millenary Quadriennium? And secondly, does it have anything to do with the Millennium Falcon? The Millenary collection isn’t what immediately comes to mind when you think of Audemars Piguet. In fact, the unusual oval case shape looks like…
Earlier this year, we were invited by CNN to help out with a miniseries concept called ‘Timeless’ that would explore the most iconic watches of all time. Oh, and each episode had to wrap in under 60 seconds. The challenge was set, Jack Forster and I – in our respective HQs – raced against the clock to get out as many interesting and memorable facts as we could about models such as the Submariner, the Navitimer and the Royal Oak. It was hardly a lazy fireside chat, more of a caffeine-fuelled game show. Here’s the first episode, starring the Rolex Submariner, which is currently airing on CNN. You can check out the Breitling and Audemars Piguet episodes on our YouTube channel. 
Today is a big moment in the short history of Time+Tide. It’s the day we bid farewell to Felix, who is stepping down from his role as Editor. We know that this will be sad news for many readers and viewers who have enjoyed all of the stories, videos and sass, delivered just about all day, every day, for more than five years. If it feels like you’ve read literally thousands of Felix’s articles over the years, that’s because you probably have – a quick search shows he’s written 1643 posts. Which might go some way to explaining today’s announcement. That’s a lot of words. Incredible and intense is how I would characterise the wild ride that is being on the inside of Time+Tide. I’m pretty confident Felix would say something similar. Felix’s journey with T+T started back in 2014. They say startups live and die by their first hire. In that sense, we were lucky, because Mr Scholz was ours. What began as occasional contributions quickly scaled into daily posts and then a full-time position. Posts upped to twice daily and then, this year, four times daily, but increasingly with a little help from his friends, namely Sandra Lane,…
It’s fair to say that Seiko has dropped quite a few limited edition anniversary timepieces in 2019, and you definitely could’ve been mistaken for thinking that surely the Japanese watchmaker had nothing left in their product arsenal … and then they released this – the Seiko 1969 Quartz Astron 50th Anniversary Limited Edition. As the name suggests, the new Seiko 1969 Quartz Astron has been made to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the original Seiko Astron, which was first unveiled on Christmas Day 1969. Arguably one of the most important timepieces of the 20th century, the Seiko Astron was the genesis for the quartz wristwatch, and it also started a technological revolution in the horological industry that dramatically and permanently changed the way that watchmakers went about their business. The tonneau-shaped case of the new Astron is fashioned from solid 18k yellow gold, and the distinctive markings found on the case are completely hand-engraved, giving each watch — of which there will be 50 in total — an inimitable quality. Housed inside the famed case, which measures a relatively svelte 40.9mm, is Seiko’s Caliber 3X22 GPS solar-powered movement, which offers customers a GPS-controlled time and time zone adjustment, perpetual calendar accurate to…