With SIHH behind us, and Basel around the corner, there are lots of beautiful, complicated, and intricate watches being introduced. But there is something really nice about a simple watch done well, and the Alpina Startimer Pilot Big Date Professional is a simple watch, done really, really well.
Welcome back to our regular feature, the Watch Video Rewind. In this series, we bring to light videos we feel are interesting and worth sharing out with our readers. Today, in honor of Valentines Day being yesterday, I am going to highlight a few videos that get into one of the reasons for my love of watches, namely beautifully crafted intricate machines, ‘watch porn’ if you will. Not that I can afford any of these timepieces.
Whytes Watches Mk1 02I enjoy a nice, slim, Bauhaus inspired, minimalist 3 hander as much as the next guy. I have more than one in my assortment of watches, but I see them too often to have them really pique my interest most days. What I do enjoy is seeing something different when it is well done, attractive and wearable. I see these qualities when I look at the Whytes Watches Mk 1 models, the Pioneer and Discoverer, currently seeking funding on Kickstarter.
I am a fan of Trintec, after finding one of their designs on Kickstarter, then reaching out to the brand for a review on the Zulu-03, the same watch we have up for our current monthly give-away. The brand built the first aviation instrument inspired clock, and now makes aviation and nautical inspired watches and clocks. Their latest watch, the Trintec Zulu-07 Professional, is currently on Kickstarter.
If you are not familiar with Magrette, you need to be. I was presented one as a most unexpected gift this last holiday season, and it has become my most worn watch of the year (yes, I am tracking what I wear on a daily basis). The brand is from New Zealand, so that alone gives it a different feel, but they produce really nice looming watches that generally feature cushion cases and very readable designs. A Panerai for the masses, but not an homage to the Italian watch maker. Right now, there is a sale of Magrette Watches on Touch of Modern, a members only sale site that I have used from time to time (join through this link if you are not a member).
Hoptroff is a British Watchmaker who is doing very interesting complications with electronic watches tied to your smart phone. Instead of trying to do everything, and losing the look of a conventional watch in the process, the watches specialize is a specific function, and use the hands and subdials of the watch to convey the information. The Hoptroff Hotblack line of watches is available with options to keep you up to date on football (soccer for those in the US) scores, stock prices, the direction and time of day for Muslim prayers, and important notifications.
Welcome back to our regular feature, the Watch Video Rewind. In this series, we bring to light videos we feel are interesting and worth sharing out with our readers. Today, we are going to look at a couple of videos associated with making and trimming watch straps.
Welcome to the final day of January, and our Saturday feature, Watching the Web. This is where we take the opportunity to highlight watch related articles on other sites that we find interesting, as well as point you back to some of our more popular posts from the last week or so. Starting with the other suites, A Blog To Watch highlights their Top 10 watches of SIHH and Hodinkey has a story that would be perfect for the Antiques Roadshow. On our own pages, the Christopher Ward Trident Update continues to be a popular post, but I will point you toward my recent crowdfunding write up and an older review of Patrick’s, one for the Shinola Runwell Contrast Chrono.
Touch of Modern (join here is you are not already a member), is a limited time, members only sales site that features lots of guy-centric goods. For our audience, it is the watches that really matter, and the site does feature a lot of watch sales. Right now, Davosa Swiss Automatics are on sale at Touch of Modern, plus one quartz chrono for the budget minded.
The concept of a skeleton watches intrigues me, but the execution (at least for affordable ones) usually leaves underwhelmed. I love the way that the mechanical movements are exposed, but they end up visually very busy, and they tend to be overly ornate. When Tissot offered to loan me the Tissot Chemin des Tourelles Squelette for a review, I jumped at the opportunity. Here was a watch that looked modern and readable, while still showing off the mechanical movement that makes a skeleton interesting. Unbeknownst to me, Patrick also decided to review this watch, albeit for A Blog To Watch. He didn’t get it hands on, but his impression was that the watch lacked some of the showmanship that you see on really high end skeleton watches, but still had a design that was readable while showing off the important parts.
