Dear readers,

In these last few hours in 2009, I would like to thank you all for the tremendous number of visits you paid my blog in 2009. An absolute record since I started blogging on FratelloWatches in 2004. Besides FratelloWatches (which I use to reflect my personal view on horological stuff), I have been writing for a number of other watch media, like WorldTempus, WatchUseek Blog, WATCH magazine and MotoringExposure.

I also would like to thank my advertizers for their support and cooperation in 2009! Some of them have been my partners for years now!

Personally, 2009 was a great year with a lot of travelling (including BaselWorld 2009), my wedding, a honeymoon trip and some great watches like the Linde Werdelin 3-Timer with brown dial and my recently acquired Audemars Piguet Royal Oak ‘Jumbo’ 15202. I made some great new watch friends in 2009 (you know who you are!) and hope to continue to do so in 2010.

I wish all of you the best in 2010, and wear your watches in good health!

All the best,

Robert-Jan Broer

Related posts:

1. Linde Werdelin 3-Timer review: No 13 arrived!
2. Danish Watchblog!
3. Linde Werdelin’s blog: The Lab

2009 may not have been the best year for luxury watch sales, but if you’re on the lucky ones that bought or received one, let us know which brand you chose. And if you hope that 2010 brings you a new watch, vote from the below brands and choose which one you would most like.

Breitling is a favored brand among celebrities and due to their complexity; they come in as pretty high priced. Does this make you like them more or less?

As always, Cartier is a winner. Cartier has always created watches with a sense of timeless style and elegance. A definite trend this year was for women to wear men’s watches and Cartier watches are perfect for that.

Omega always gets publicity. Whether it was because of the Michael Phelps “incident” or the fact that the brand will continue to sponsor the Olympics (starting with the Winter Games in Canada), Omega watches come in a “can’t go wrong” choice.

Panerai watches are in a league of their own. Before oversized watches became so popular, Panerai was making them and due to the fact that they are not mass produced, they have become not only a status symbol but have inspired a cult-like following of watch enthusiasts from all over the world. You can’t go wrong with an Italian design, which makes any Panerai a winner in my mind.

Michele watches had a strong year… perhaps partly due to the slumping economy. They are fabulous looking watches with diamonds, bold colors and interchangeable straps, making them a “must have” for women, yet they don’t cost a fortune.

View Poll

Technorati Tags: Breitling, Cartier Watches, Luxury Watches, Michele Watches, Omega Watches, panerai

All luxury watch brands are gearing up for the 2010 Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie (SIHH) which takes place in January in Geneva.

Many brands are giving sneak peaks of what they’ll be presenting and Baume Mercier is no different. One of la crème de la crème combinations in the world of watchmaking is considered that of complete calendar with moon phase indication. Baume Mericer gives this to us with its Classima Executives XL Chronograph Complete Calendar. The watch also features a chronograph function and a 24-hour indicator.

A 42 mm case and fine details, such as the silvered dial with “grain d’orge” guilloche pattern, a satin silvered surface on the outer section, and subdials with concentric circle patterns at the chronograph counters, make this men’s watch an absolute classic.

The oxidized black finish on the hands add to the classism that Baume watches are known for and they look great set against a silver background. The date hand is “ a keen match for the gleaming golden countenance of the moon on its rotating disc in the window cutout at 6 o’clock. These elements both enhance the understated allure of the complete calendar function with its dual window indications for day of the week and month.”

This watch runs on the self-winding mechancial ETA-Valjoux 7751 caliber. With a power reserve of about 42 hours, the fine details mentioned above and the “aesthetic features the movement offers in this iteration includes Cotes de Geneve patterns on the bridges, a winding rotor with brand personalization, and blued screws; these elements will be clearly visible to the owner, thanks to a transparent sapphire exhibition window in the caseback.”

A leather alligator strap and polished stainless steel folding clasp with classic B&m signature top this handsome men’s watch off perfectly.

Look for this and many other great new timepieces at the SIHH.

Technorati Tags: Baume Mercier, Baume Mercier Watches, baume watches, Classima Executives XL Chronograph Complete Calendar, Mens Watches

Just before year-end, on the 24th of December to be exact, I traded my Audemars Piguet Royal Oak ref.15300 for a 15202ST (or 15202ST.OO.0944ST.02 in full). Although I was very happy with my white dialed Royal Oak 15300, the 15202 ‘Jumbo’ remains to be the original Royal Oak in my opinion. The original Gérald Genta creation of 1972 still lives in the current Royal Oak collection, bearing reference number 15202ST. The original Royal Oak ‘Jumbo’ is pictured below, with reference number 5402.

As you can see, the hour markers are a bit different than the current ‘Jumbo’ and the AP logo changed position. If you look even more closely, you will notice that the dial pattern is a bit different too. The squares are a bit smaller than on the current models of the Royal Oak series.

What didn’t change, is the size of the watch, the lack of a second hand, the movement caliber (2121) and the thin case. The thin case is only possible because AP still uses the caliber 2121 movement, which has a height of only 3.05mm thick, including the 21ct gold rotor. The screws in the octagonal bezel are still made out of white gold, as are the minute and hour hands. Below a picture of the movement, dis-assembled (without rotor) not even 3mm in height. Picture credits to Matthias S of the German R-L-X forum.

I think a lot has been written about this movement already, also used by Vacheron Constantin (caliber 1120 in their ‘222′) and the Patek Philippe Nautilus (caliber 28-255), all based on Jaeger-LeCoultre’s caliber 920. Story is that VC, PP and AP had some influence/input when JLC created this movement. Later on, only AP made this particular movement in license of JLC.

The main difference between the 15300 and 15202 are the thickness of the watch and bracelet and, ofcourse, the second hand. From an owners perspective, I have to say that I really had to get used to the 15202 ‘Jumbo’ the first few days, as the bracelet is really thin in comparison to the one of the 15300. It feels a bit like wearing a vintage watch, where the 1972 design kicks in again probably. However, it wears very comfortable on my wrist and the look of the watch’s face (there is almost no space between the dial and the sapphire crystal) is simply amazing.

Although I was a bit weary at first, that I would miss the new and updated bracelet, and the white face with long(er) hour markers, the Jumbo is here to stay and I consider it the master piece of my very modest collection of time pieces. The name ‘Jumbo’ is a bit out dated as well, since 39mm isn’t that Jumbo and the 15300 is even a bit larger in size. However, it could be considered authentic to keep calling this particular model ‘Jumbo’.

Enough talk, here are some of the photographs that I took today!

And here is a lousy shot of the transparent case back, showing the wonderful caliber 2121 movement. You can clearly see the superb finished rotor, with the 21ct gold mass attached to it.

I will write a more in-depth review in some time from now, I first have to enjoy wearing it! Although I don’t feel the urge purchasing another time piece in the (near) future, I can imagine it will take a lot of time to buy something next to this one.

Lastly, I recently found this vintage (probably 1970s) advertizement of the Royal Oak that I love to share with you.

Related posts:

1. AP Royal Oak: 15300 more interesting than the 15202 (a.k.a Jumbo)?
2. Michael’s Royal Oak 15300
3. The latest addition to my collection: AP RO 15300ST

Alon Ben-Joseph of AceJewelers.com – friend of the show – did a very nice video review on last year’s introduced Omega Speedmaster Professional 40th Anniversary Limited Edition.

I love this version of the Omega Speedmaster Professional. The logo on the dial and special case back make it worth buying over most other limited edition Speedmaster Professional models. I have seriously considered buying this watch after it was presented during Baselworld 2009, but since I have had a few of these Speedies and cherishing my Speedmaster Professional pre-Moon caliber 321 the most anyway, I went for something completely different

Enjoy the video and don’t forget to give some feedback on it!

Related posts:

1. BaselWorld 2009: Omega Speedmaster Professional 40th Anniversary 02:56 GMT
2. 40th Anniversary of the Moon Landing
3. Omega Speedmaster Professional 3570.40

According to the company’s newsletter, Hublot is one of the very few luxury watch brands that have not suffered in sales during this year’s economic slump. It states that in fact, since September, “we have registered historic sales figures. October was the fifth best month of all time and November was the fourth best month of all time.”

Based on these assurances Hublot keeps making high-end watches that few can afford but which seem to sell. One of these, called the Hublot Big Bang One Million $ Black Caviar Bang (pictured), won the 2009 Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Geneve prize for Jewelry watch of the Year. The watch took 2,000 hours to create and costs a million dollars due to the fact that it’s made from white gold and rare baguette cut black diamonds. Almost 550 diamonds, totaling 34.5 carats, cover the watch.

Perhaps sales of the one million dollar Black Caviar Big Bang are what is allowing Hublot to do the following: partner with Depeche Mode to create twelve special Big Bang watches that feature album covers from this band on the dial.

These limited edition timepieces will be auctioned exclusively at Hublot.ch starting February, 1, 2010. All proceeds from these sales will benefit the Teenage Cancer Trust. A charity concept will take place as well on February 17 at London’s famed Royal Albert Hall.

Commenting on the cooperation with Hublot, Martin Gore from Depeche Mode claimed: “Being fans of Hublot watches, we are glad to work together with the company especially when the purpose is so important and noble. We were really honored to create these 12 timepieces together with Hublot and we appreciate very much the fact that money will go to the charity foundation for the young people suffering from cancer”.

Hublot CEO Jean-Claude Biver said the “brand felt proud and privileged to create twelve timepieces that reflect the fusion between the spirit and sound of the music of Depeche Mode and the vibrations of 450 years of Swiss watchmaking art.”

Technorati Tags: big bang, depeche mode big bang, hublot, Hublot watches, limited edition watches, Luxury Watches, one million dollar black caviar big bang, Watches

As an avid reader of the FratelloWatches blog you probably know that I write for some other websites and magazines as well. MotoringExposure.com is one of them, every wednesday they publish the ‘Wednesday Watch’-article. Today, the Wednesday Watch is about the Grönefeld GMT-06 Tourbillon Minute Repeater. I have written this article with a bit of pride, since the Grönefeld brothers are Dutch AND are located in the same area as where I am originally from.

Above you see Bart Grönefeld (right) and myself during the opening of the Grönefeld Exclusive Timepieces Boutique in Oldenzaal. Besides creating their own time pieces, they now have a boutique for other independent watchmakers (McGonigle, Sarpaneva, Kees Engelbarts, Cornelius & Cie) as well.

However, to me, the most special time piece of their boutique is their own GMT06 Tourbillon Minute Repeater. As you can see above, I was even allowed to try it on under heavy supervision. The platinum version (limited to 10 pieces only) has a price tag of 385.000 Euro. Below, you’ll see a close-up of the GMT06 in platinum.

Anyway, for the full article on the Grönefeld GMT06 Tourbillon Minute repeater, click http://www.motoringexposure.com/761/grnefeld-gmt06-wednesday-watch. An article on the opening of their boutique will follow soon.

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1. Cars and Watches
2. Haute Horlogerie and Haute Motoring
3. Porsche Design Rattrapante P’6920

During the last few days, we encountered some heavy snowfall here in The Netherlands. As you can see below, ‘my street’ became all white last sunday.

Therefore, Bernhard of the 100% Rolex blog posted some incredible nice photographs of Rolex sports watches with so called tropical dials. According to Bernhard, these 1960s dials have probably been painted with a mixture of colours to get a deep black dial. The mixture probably included some brown that comes to the surface after the other colours faded away through UV (or perhaps a bit of moisture, who knows).

In his most recent post, Bernhard shows a few Rolex models (among them is the Cosmograph pictured below) with a tropical dial. Although the vintage Cosmographs (and Daytonas) are a bit too small for my wrist (as they are 36mm), I really love them a lot.

Brown dials are hot and I must admit that I always liked the brown dialed Rolex chronograph models, including the later Rolex Cosmograph Daytona ref.16520 ‘compax marrone’ or ‘Patrizzi’ with its brown subdial rings.

The (handwound) chronograph movements that Rolex used in those days were far before they started using their own movements, or even the Zenith movements ofcourse. In the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, Rolex used the Valjoux 72 movement as a base caliber for their own Rolex caliber 727 movements. Below you see a close up of the Rolex Cosmograph movement, used for an interesting article on the WatchProSite. The photograph has been taken by A.Shear.

This Valjoux 72 handwound chronograph caliber with a column wheel mechanism was used by numerous other brands, such as Heuer, Girard-Perregaux, Wakman, Wittnauer etc. However, and maybe I am falsely informed, but my guess is that most vintage Rolex collectors (same goes for Panerai for example) are not very interested in the mechanics inside their wrist watches, but it’s more about aesthetics. But please, if you are on the look out for a beautiful vintage Rolex, make sure the movement inside is in good running condition. Do not focus on optical problems only.

Please visit Bernhard’s 100% Rolex blog for more interesting information on these vintage beauties.

Related posts:

1. Black turning Brown
2. A new dial
3. For the Italians..

Since over a year, Gerard and I decided to do something similar as Cars And Coffee, but for watch aficionados. It is more or less a ‘local’ thing and at best we are with 12 persons every first sunday of the month, enjoying a cappuccino or espresso in the first half of the day. However, since November and December are pretty busy months, one of the guys decided that we at least should have a nice End of Year meeting. So we did, last Thursday.

One of the attendees was Fred Dingemans, of Dingemans Mechanische Horloges, he was handing over a dmh time piece to Victor. dmh is a Dutch brand, operated by one guy – Fred Dingemans – who is creating a maximum of 12 time pieces a year. Fred Dingemans uses his own machinery and tools to create a mechanical automatic time piece using his own design and being able to offer them for a fair price. Anyway, Victor got his custom made watch from Fred last Thursday, and as you can see in the pictures below, he was totally happy with it. Frank (of Monochrome), who is also a monthly attendee, organized the special guest-surprise for Victor, who still thought his watch wasn’t finished yet.

Other attendees were wearing: dmh watches (2x and 3x if you include Victor’s new watch), 2x AP Royal Oak 15300 (white & black dial), 2x Linde Werdelin (One and 3-Timer), Rolex OysterQuartz Date-Just 17000, Omega Speedmaster Professional pre-Moon of 1967, Glashütte Original Senator Moonphase and a few Favre-Leuba’s (new models). Only few watches made it on the pictures..

Above you see Fred and Victor and Gerard’s elbow. Victor just received his dmh time piece out of the creator’s hands, Fred. Below you see (from clockwise): John, Fred, Victor, Gerard and Hessel. I took the picture

Although the pictures were taken with bad lightning and camera settings, they should give you an idea on the dmh time pieces.

Above you’ll see the transparent case back of the watch. The watch itself is made out of 316L stainless steel, is water resistant to 30 meters and always uses a mechanical movement (as the company name implies). Most used movement is a TD movement, however, it is perfectly possible that Fred is going to use other movements in the future as well.

Below you see the customized dmh watch of Victor, with white dial.

To prevent this diner from becoming a total dmh party, I captured John’s and my own Audemars Piguet Royal Oak 15300ST. Except the number of links in the bracelet and dial colour, exactly the same watches.

Two days later, I attended the opening of the Grönefeld boutique in Oldenzaal. Grönefeld became – besides being a watch manufacturer – a boutique for a few other independent watchmakers, such as Sarpaneva, McGonigle, Peter Speake-Marin, Kees Engelbarts and Cornelius & Cie. More about this happening later on this week.

Related posts:

1. Top 5 of < 1000 USD watches
2. Michael’s Royal Oak 15300
3. A diner filled with new and vintage watches

Every wednesday, I post an article on Motoring Exposure, a website / blog dedicated to high-end cars. Today, an article on the discontinued IWC Ingenieur AMG version and last week, I posted an article on the Chronoswiss Tachoscope Audi Centennial Edition.

Arash F10

Have a go and read some of my articles over there, it is also possible to leave a comment on them. Click here to visit the Wednesday Watch topics.

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1. Watches and cars
2. Chronoswiss, what are you doing?
3. Chronoswiss Digiteur