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May 2010 usher in new additions to your growing watch collection.
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Swatch Automatic Chronograph
Source: Swatch
Swatch has been credited with saving the Swiss Watch Industry from the Japanese led quartz watch revolution when they introduced their range of trendy and affordable Swiss quartz watches in the early 1980’s.
Now the Swatch Group are again aiming to revolutionize the mechanical watch industry by introducing the most affordable automatic chronograph from a Swiss watch manufacturer. I may be wrong but at the current price point of less than 300Euros, the new automatic chronograph range may very well be the lowest priced mechanical chronograph ever from a major reputable brand, easily thumping the many manual winding chronograph watches powered by the variants of the venerable Russian Poljot 3133 manual winding chronograph calibre.
The new Swatch automatic chronograph range is powered by the automatic choronograph calibre C01.211 from ETA. According to knowledgable horological sources, the new C01.211 calibre is derived from the now discontinued, and much missed, Lemania 5100 chronograph movement. The C01.211 calibre contains 15 jewels, beats at 21600bph and has a power reserve of 46Hz. The same movement is also used in another range of affordable automatic chronographs from Tissot which are priced higher than the Swatch models.
Now that the Swatch Group has thrown down the gauntlet in the battle to offer the most cost effective automatic chronograph watches it remains to be seen whether the Japanese manufacturers such as Seiko and the Russian Poljot will rise to the challenge. Whatever the outcome, the consumer will be the main beneficiary as the automatic chronograph which used to be the domain of expensive luxury brands is now affordable to the man on the street.
For more information check out the cool review of the new Swatch Automatic Chronograph on aBlogtoRead.com.
Other resources:
ii) First look on the Escapement blog
Tag Calibre 1887 – A case of overzealous marketing?
On 2nd December 09 Tag Heuer announce the Calibre 1887 in conjunction with its 150th Anniversary celebration. The press release stated that the new Calibre 1887 was an “all-new, in-house chronograph”. The marketing department should have stopped at that. Instead it went on to claim that “The Calibre 1887 is the fifth movement designed 100% in-house by Tag Heuer.” Naturally many detailed pictures of the new calibre 1887 accompanied the press-release.
Very soon after the press release, knowledgeable watch afficionados were raising doubts about the claim by Tag that the new movement was designed 100% in-house by Tag Heuer. What gave the game away were the pics released by Tag which clearly showed that the Calibre 1887 bore remarkable similarities with the Seiko 6S37 which was first patented by SII in 1999. The controversy is not so much that Tag Heuer adopted the design of an existing chronograph platform from Seiko, as it is common practice in the Swiss watch industry to rely on another company’s intellectual property and out-sourcing is nothing new. The sticking point is that Tag made a claim which was not wholly true and they should not have taken credit for the chronograph design when it’s clearly not due to them. The case was soon taken up by the many watch blogs and watch forums (or watch fora) on the internet, so much so that Tag’s CEO had to personally intervene on a few of these blogs and forum discussions to clarify the matter.
There’s no doubt that Tag will survive this embarassing incident, as their massive marketing budget will certainly be more than enough for the work of damage control. What is not often discussed is what all this means to Seiko, the Japanese watch manufacturer behind the 6S37. Obviously Seiko has received much free publicity from the many online discussions, not to mention the solid endorsement from a major Swiss watch brand on their chronograph technology. To long term Seiko watch fans this is not surprising and many may even ask what took so long for the Swiss to take notice of Seiko’s technological prowess. Now that Tag has admitted to being possibly the first major Swiss brand to adopt Seiko’s technology, maybe the rest of the horological world will take more notice of Seiko’s claim as a true in-house watch manufacturer.
Resources:
Another review of the Orient 300m Professional Diver Watch
In one of my earlier posts I reviewed the Orient 300m Professional Diver watch. Recently I came across another review of the same watch, but the black dial variant, by Ariel Adams. Fans of Orient Diver Watches should definitely check out the review which comes with a cool video footage.
Ariel Adams reviews the Orient Pocket Watch
It’s not common to find good reviews of Orient watches on the internet due to the relatively low profile of the Japanese brand outside of Asia. Hence I was pleasantly surprised when I came across a very recent and well written review of the Orient Pocket watch by Ariel Adams.
The review describes in detail the new manual wind movement 48C40 from Orient which has a stop second feature, beats at 21600bph and has a nice power reserve indicator. Hopefully we’ll get to see wrist watches from Orient featuring this new manual wind movement in the near future.
More information on the Orient Pocket Watch CDD00001W below:
ii) Yeoman’s Blog
Junkers 6660-1 Iron Annie JU52 (featuring ETA Valgranges A07.161) – A WATCH review
Background
Junkers (pronounced Yoonkers) is one of three watch brands owned by Pointtec Electronic GmBH, a German company founded in 1987. The other two brands offered by Pointtec are Zeppelin and Maximilian Munchen.
Pointtec began by designing and producing private label promotional watches for German multi national corporations such as Borsch, Siemens and VW. In 1997 Pointtec licensed the rights to the Junkers name from the estate of Hugo Junkers, the famous German aeronautical engineer who created the first all metal airplane, making use of corrugated metal sheets. Thus the Junkers brand was born. The typical Junkers watch combine historical aviation features with modern mechanical and electronic watch technology.
Description of watch
The Junkers Iron Annie JU52 is an automatic watch with power reserve feature. From the name it is obvious that the watch is inspired by aviation history, in particular the famous German airplane Junkers JU52. The JU52 was designed in 1930, and it incorporated corrugated metal skin to strengthen the plane structurally. The Iron Annie, as the JU52 was also known, was produced by Junkers from 1932 to 1945, and it saw both civillian and military service during that period.
Schaumburg Auf/Ab Gnomonik – A review of a unique single hand watch
Background
Since the dawn of civilization people have been trying to find practical means of measuring the passage of time. The ancients invented the sundial which indicated time using the shadow cast by the “Gnomon” or pointer at different times of the day. “Gnomon” is an ancient Greek term meaning “indicator” or “that which reveals”.
With the advancement of civilization, the necessary technology was developed to create mechanical devices to aid the measurement of time. The first clocks and pocket watches worked in the same manner as the sundial by employing a single hour hand to measure time. As the pace of life grew increasingly hectic with the advent of the industrial era, time became a scarce commodity and the minute and second hands were added to clocks and watches to further slice time into tinier precious bits.
In the post industrial era, despite the infiltration of high tech quartz watches and the ubiquitous mobile phone into our daily lives, the mechanical wrist watch has made an impressive comeback in recapturing its place in society as the preferred personal timekeeping device. Amongst the mechanical wrist watch types, the single hand mechanical watch is reappearing as a viable choice, one which provides a link back to the roots of mechanical timekeeping. Its stark simplicity reminds us of the bygone pre-industrial era when timekeeping proceeded at a more leisurely pace without the hustle and bustle of the modern age.
On a more personal note the single hand watch has always fascinated me and I was more than intrigued when I discovered the “Schaumburg Auf/Ab Gnomonik”. The Gnomonik is a timepiece which uses the “gnomon” or single hour hand to indicate time and hence its name.
Graf Zeppelin LZ-127 hand wind chronograph watch: a review
Background – I discovered this watch at the Malaysian outlet of Red Army Watches, which newly opened in December last month at the Tropicana City shopping mall. It caught my attention with its unusual lineage. The Zeppelin brand is of German origin. While the watch is labeled as “Made in Germany”, the P3133 movement is Russian made with a long history traceable to the venerable Swiss Valjoux 7734. This watch certainly piqued my curiosity concerning German made watches with Russian calibers.
Orient 300m professional diver watch – a brief review
Orient is a Japanese watch company with a history dating back to 1901. Orient offer excellent quality watches at very reasonable price points. In September 2008 Seiko Epson announced its intention to take full ownership control of Orient. Prior to that it had a 52% equity stake in Orient.
The Orient 300m Professional diver watch is one of the larger watches in my collection. It is a real saturation diver rated to a depth of 300m. It differs from the usual Swiss design for saturation dive watches in that the Helium escape valve is omitted.