Disclosure (click for Disclosure statement): no money, services or payment in kind was received in return for writing this completely unbidden ‘blog post. The Ocean 2000, designed by Ferdinand Porsche and released by IWC in 1982, is one of a dozen or so truly iconic dive watches*. With its offset crown and pebble-like titanium case, there’s a…
Disclosure: there is no financial relationship between the #watchnerd and MB&F. I paid for my own travel and accommodation during my visit to SIHH in January 2017, having been provided with a two-day Visitor pass by the Richemont Group. In the latter part of the 19th century, as museums became more popular, their…
SalonQP was launched in 2009. Since moving to the Saatchi Gallery from Number One Marylebone, the annual event has continued to gather momentum and reputation, helped, no doubt, by its new owners, the Telegraph Media Group. This year, over 90 watch and watch-related brands were represented, ranging from well-established manufacture to independents,…
OnlyWatch is a biennial charity auction of specially-designed, one-off pieces from some of the best watchmakers and manufacture in the world in aid of research into Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. The auction is organised by Association Monégasque contre les Myopathies, the Monaco Yacht Show and Phillips in association with Bacs & Russo. It’s a…
In 2001, Patek Philippe SA, under Thierry Stern, opened a museum in Geneva; looking back, I suppose the only surprise is that it had taken them so long. The firm started by Antoine Norbert de Patek and Jean-Adrien Philippe in 1839 took over a building belonging to Les Ateliers Reunis, a casemaker they…
The International Geophysical Year – or, to be exact, the International Geophysical Year and a Half (it ran from 1 July 1957 to 31 December 1958) – was an international collaboration that encompassed 67 countries and included such moments as the launch of Sputnik 1, and long-lasting impacts such as the drafting of the Antarctic Treaty.
The Bronze Age marks a significant stage in the development of modern humans; not only was some of the most interesting early sculpture flourishing within civilisations (the Shang Dynasty, the New Kingdom of Egypt and the Akkadian Empire spring to mind) but it was also the start of a material change to manufacturing.
Giles Ellis is surrounded by people, which is no surprise, he is, after all, here at SalonQP to launch a new watch, the Beater. What is, perhaps, more surprising, is the number of these people who seem happy to remove the Schofields from their own wrists and to pass them around the crowd. It’s as if the Red Bar Crew had landed in Sloane Sq, but with fewer drinks. It’s all very friendly, and for Ellis, very pleasing: “they were doing my job for me, they had become de-facto Schofield ambassadors.“
Evolution can be defined as the change in the inherited characteristics of a population over successive generations, and might well be used describe the approach that Bremont Chronometers has taken with this, the next iteration of their MB series of watches.
First shown in 2009, the MBI was a dual crown three-hander, designed and tested in collaboration with Martin-Baker, the Bucks-based ejection seat manufacturer. Martin-Baker’s change in focus from producing aircraft to saving the lives of pilots through the development of ejection seat technology was, rather poignantly, due to a similarly-named ‘plane, the MB3: Captain Valentine Baker lost his life whilst executing a difficult forced landing, crashing in a field in 1942.
While industry standard tests simulate dropping a watch from one metre onto a hardwood floor (a shock of 5,000G according to the literature), Martin-Baker’s tests are limited by the forces that a human pilot can withstand. An ejection can take place at up to 18,000ft at Mach 2, producing 25-30G on exit (it’s interesting to note that any watch on the wrist of an ISS astronaut is subject to a mere 3G as the main engines ignite). Martin-Baker challenged Bremont to produce a watch that could withstand the same tests and simulations to which they subject their seats, including salt fog and humidity, altitude, extreme temperature, vibration and (finally) ejection.
There’s a quote, possibly apocryphal, attributed to the great J. B. S. Haldane in response to questions about what could be learned of the Creator from the study of nature; Haldane responded only that he could deduce that He must have had an “inordinate fondness for beetles.” I’ve previously used this quote to describe my enjoyment of cephalopod mollusc-related watches, but it might more accurately be misappropriated to cover my fondness for dive watches.
