VIDEO: 4 of the hottest new Seiko releases
One of the brands we’re always excited to see at Baselworld is Seiko. Not just because they’ve always got a few surprises up their sleeve, but also, if we’re honest, because the price point is a lot less painful than some of their Swiss counterparts. This year we were particularly impressed with two models that represent different ends of the Seiko style spectrum. First up is the excellent reissue of the 62MAS, Seiko’s first ever dive watch. And then there’s the flashy, dressy Cocktail Time collection, which is now part of the ever-growing Presage family. No matter what your tastes, it looks like Seiko has your wrist covered in 2017.
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There’s something gloriously, incredibly and fabulously over the top about a solid gold dive watch. It’s the ultimate juxtaposition of functional object and precious ornament, all bundled up in a neat, wrist-optimised package. It’s this contrast that lies at the heart of the PAM 684’s appeal. And make no mistake, this is an incredibly lust-worthy watch. At first glance it looks like a slimmed-down version of the Submersible we know and love – that crown, the matt black ceramic bezel insert, the hardy rubber strap – so far it’s very much what you’d expect from Panerai. But then your brain processes the fact that the case is, in fact, heavy red gold, and everything changes. Much like the case has transmogrified from a base metal into a precious one, so too all the utilitarian elements have taken on a luxurious tone – this is one supremely confident watch. Sure, it has workmanlike origins, but the chances are slim to none that this watch is getting its hands dirty. Not that this Panerai couldn’t handle it. Functionally it’s all there: P.9010 movement, good for three days of power thanks to its twin barrels; ultra legible dial with small seconds at nine; and…
Buying vintage watches on Ebay can be a risky business. There’s a lot of sharks and gussied up pieces in those murky waters. But, every so often those incredible barn finds do happen. Like this reference 7923 Tudor Submariner, which at the time of writing has a high bid of $99,999 USD, with 2d 16h to go. Yes you read that number right, a buck below one hundred grand. And to think that the seller originally listed it with a starting price of $3500, and the following sparse (almost poetic) description; The model number is 7923. This is one of the few manual winding watches. There is no band. The watch does NOT function. There is a ding in the crystal @ 5:27 with scratches front and back. It seems that on March 20th the San Francisco seller realised what they had on their hands, possibly due to the presumed deluge of interest in Tudor’s first ever dive watch, as they updated the description to let us know the watch was now in a safe deposit box and to provide geiger counter readings and other information expected of a watch of this rarity. Of course we can’t know for sure if…
According to the CEO of Omega, Raynald Aeschlimann, the Planet Ocean ‘Big Blue’ Co-Axial Master Chronometer is “one of the most interesting” watches to be launched by Omega at Baselworld 2017. It represents, he says, a “continuation of Omega’s technological advances, a full ceramic blue Seamaster Planet Ocean, which is coming as a very nice surprise, following the Deep Black and following the whole evolution in ceramic that Omega has been doing for three years.” We should warn you though, this is more of a dip than a deep dive as we’re scheduled to meet the wider Omega school of 2017, including this blue ceramic diver, later today. It will be interesting to shoot this blue ceramic model under normal lighting conditions to compare and contrast with the brand video here and previous Swatch Group blue ceramic models, most notably the Blancpain Ocean Commitment Fifty Fathoms models.
This post is served with an almighty fist pump, because just like our crystal ball ‘predicted’, Longines has announced a 90th Anniversary version of the Lindbergh Hour Angle, a few months ahead of the anniversary celebration. Longines has still managed to pull out a major surprise though. The steel and titanium watch will be limited to just 90 pieces. The hour referenced in the name of the model will be about as long as it takes for the model to sell out. The original ‘hour angle’ watch was designed in a partnership between Charles Lindbergh and Longines following his 33-hour flight from Roosevelt Airport to Le Bourghet, outside Paris. The historic feat was timed by Longines, who were official timekeeper for the World Air Sports Federation. Lindbergh had some ideas about how to determine longitude during long-distance flights using a rotating bezel to allow for the correction of the equation of time and a rotating centre dial that allows for synchronization to the second. The resulting watch, which has had several reissues over the years, indicates the hour angle in degrees and in minutes of arc in addition to indicating hours, minutes and seconds. Pilots and navigators have used the hour…
If Rolex as a brand has mastered any single art – apart from watchmaking in practically all of its forms – it is to both meet and exceed expectations at every single Baselworld watch fair. Granted, this can be a baby step, like last year, when they singlehandedly turned Baselworld into Bezelworld. Or it can be a complete break from tradition, like the bizarre, possibly brilliant Air-King from the same year. Today we have learned once again that the Big Crown delights in the devilishly unpredictable. While the leadup saw speculation reach a fever pitch on the topic of Sea-Dweller anniversaries and ceramic bezelled GMTs, the unveiling we experienced today revealed surprise after surprise, including a Sky-Dweller that suddenly became a lot more attainable…
The new Tudor Black Bay Chrono has just dropped and there have been a lot of feels expressed in the nine hours since it was released. The hashtag is simple, just little old #bbchrono – which almost sounds like one of the greatest blues guitar players ever – but the response has been quite the opposite. It’s stirred up a lot of emotion. People are ecstatic. People are upset. People are confused. Could the BB Chrono be the 2016 Air-King, the most divisive watch of Basel? In this time of controversy we wanted to help you make up your mind where you stand, for now at least. Here are five photos that show off different aspects, with a little bit of help from the comments section to set the mood. #bbchrono 1 – The everyday guy, what’s the big deal? Here’s the simplest one first, shot on leather by @watchcollectinglifestyle, the guy we happened to be standing with when the watch dropped. Pretty straightforward, not too hectic? Screw down pushers, big crown, tachymeter bezel, date at 6. Everyone feeling ok? @pbandwatches says: “Best photo of the new BBC I’ve seen so far. ” @fatfaso wishes for a tri-compax layout, but you can’t have everything. #bbchrono…
February was meant to give us some recovery time from the madness of SIHH, before talk of Baselworld began. But it didn’t really happen like that. The month flew by in a blur of scheduling (well done Elise, queen of ‘hell Tetris’ and spotting. In fact, I’m currently writing this dispatch from the airport lounge, en route to London first – where I have a couple of big marks to hit for some A-Grade watch hunting – and then to Basel, when I’ll meet up with the guys and get my key to the T+T frat palace around the corner from Baselworld. It’s going to be my first Basel. The excitement levels are atomic. Obviously the next Spotted! will be big. But before then, let’s get February sorted… Early on in the month, Sydney-based watch-collecting-couple Hal (@WatchULove) and Nilly (@Nilly_A) came south to the far superior city that we call Melbourne. Hal was sporting the seldom seen F. P. Journe Chronomètre Bleu, which was a pretty important and highly anticipated purchase, while his wife and fellow watch lover Nilly just happened to be wearing a green Submariner to match my own. Unfortunately, I was too caught up with the FPJ to…
If you’ve ever looked down at your smart watch and thought, ‘If only I could change that case out for a real mechanical watch by a recognisable Swiss luxury watch brand,’ boy are you in luck because that’s exactly what TAG Heuer’s new Connected Modular 45 allows you to do. Going one step further than just a strap hack, the watch also has a tiny masterstroke in that you can change the lugs too, which can have the effect of changing the whole appearance of the watch. All in all, it does the equivalent of unleashing the Swiss hounds on Silicon Valley, by introducing something new to the smart watch suite that the tech community will never be able to. TAG Heuer’s first Connected was the luxury watch industry’s only serious foray into smart watches and the stakes were high. “This will either be my greatest success or biggest failure,” said TAG Heuer CEO Jean-Claude Biver at the time. It turned out to be neither, because while the sell-through was apparently very good (Biver would have you believe it was unprecedented and the most sold TH model since it was released), it has just been superseded with a new version that is not, unfortunately for…