Bruguet announced their latest addition to the Marine line, the Royale 2009. Based on an original design from 1815, the Royale is a tourbillon equipped chronograph.
What Russian economy collapse? Apparently, despite the fact the people in Russia are starving and with out heat during the winters, government officials still find the funds to buy the little things that make life easier. Like $240,000 Patek Phillipe wristwatches. Everyone snickered a little bit over the Jorg Gray worn by President Obama, but these Russians really know their time pieces.
If you’re lucky enough to live in Cali or NYC you can see the reborn Marie-Antoinette (Breguet’s no 1160) on October 14 (in Cali) and October 19 (in NYC). Here are some specifics.
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Before the Internet, when a gentleman wanted to polish the brass knobs of his dear mum’s armoire he would depend on his internal spank bank which, potentially, included nudes he had seen in postcards and museums as well as racy lines about breasts he may have read in the Bible. However, barring a visit to the local establishment of vice, there was little way to view two people giving it the old Charles and Diana, if you catch my meaning.
Thus they had to resort to horological erotic automata. These were watch movements featuring two or more figures giving each other a good, filling Hardee’s breakfast either on command or at a set time. These things appear in all sorts of watches including clocks, pocket-watches, and even modern wristwatches.
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I just found a mention of my book in QP magazine. The magazine also has a nice piece about the M-A by Thomas Byczkowski who I’m going to hit up in a minute about his research.
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I pulled the trigger, friends, and I think I found a nice match between form, function, and tradition. I bought the Jaeger LeCoultre Master Compressor Extreme World Chronograph – a review is forthcoming – and I think I found the right balance here. I was constantly going back to watches like Glashütte Original and even, dare I say it, Breguet but they just didn’t seem like watches I’d wear on a regular basis, unlike this monster. Even the Panerai I was eying would end up being relegated to the winder.
Well, it’s official. I’ve got my first book deal.
Tech journalist John Biggs, who edits the blog CrunchGear.com and has contributed to The New York Times, has signed a contract with Susan Kamil at the Dial Press to write a book called Marie Antoinette’s Watch.
The book will tell the story of an impossibly elaborate wristwatch that one of Marie Antoinette’s lovers commissioned around the time of the French Revolution from the master watchmaker Abraham Louis Breguet. The watch—the “iPhone of its day,” according to Mr. Weissman, because of its unprecedented range of features and functions—took 44 years to make, and Marie Antoinette was long dead by the time it was complete.
What’s my goal? To pull horology out of the fashion ghetto and show it for the scientific and engineering endeavor it really is. The M-A was the Revolutionary Moon Shot, something so amazing that we can barely understand it today.
All watchmakers and watch experts please contact me at john @ wristwatchreview dot com. Let’s talk and get the story of watchmaking right for the first time in a long time.
Nothing amazing… just a flyback chrono in Louis Vuitton brown, but it sure looks pretty.
And why am I so jealous that someone over at the BWF got one?
I must have tried on almost every imaginable brand in search of my next watch, some well known & others not…IWC, De Bethune, Breguet, JLC, UN, PP, FP Journe, RM, Chronoswiss, Vulcain, Pierre Kuntz, Heutlance, Omega,!!!!!!!!!!
Photos on all of the above will follow soon, as there were many highlights from my search.
My first watch acquisition for 2006 & I never even considered it before [BIG Watches Forum]
TimeZone has some great shots of the new 5960P Calendar with leap year indicator and all sorts of goodies. I hate the hands, though. Does anyone else feel the same way?
Full release after the jump.
NEW Patek chrono/calendar/auto caliber, ref. 5960P! [TimeZone]
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