Here it is, ladies, gentlemen, exuberant watch collectors, and machiavellian sea creatures alike, allow us to present to you the grand final of Fratellos Summer Splash tournament. The contestants? Mike, RJ, and Phil. They bring to battle their trusty Tudor Black Bay .925, the seasoned Omega Seamaster 300M, and the vivacious-yet-versatile Doxa Sub 300. Who will steal your heart and earn your vote? Lets find out.The vote will run until Sunday at 5 pm CET (September 26th). At that point, we will verify the legality of the voting for the final time and announce the winner, crowning the best summer watch available right now. Dive in one last timeMike Tudor Black Bay Fifty-Eight 925Well, well, w...
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If you google this watch, one of the first headlines youll see names it the The Vacheron Constantin Overseas 37mm (Without Diamonds). Clearly, this cool reference was earmarked for women only back in 2017. It was a time before most men allowed themselves sub-40mm watches, with will also work for men as the go-to phrase for a review. This particular headline read as if the reader might not even want to bother with a 37mm watch without diamonds.We are in 2022, things have changed, and small is the new big. Many of you know this by now, but I am happy to wear smaller watches without feeling emasculated, metrosexual, or effeminate. Sure, I'll still rock 40-44mm chronographs and diver's tools. Bu...
It is Speedy Tuesday and we have this Speedmaster Missions box for you Although Im at the SIHH in Geneva, following presentations and doing pictures for our instagram channel (follow fratellowatches on instagram), nobody can hold us down!!?Todays Speedmaster topic is the suit case with all the Speedmaster Missions models, a Speedmaster 1957 re-redition and a spare OMEGA caliber 1861 movement.There are 50 of these cases by OMEGA, introduced in batches of three. The first batch of the Speedmaster Missions collection?was 40 suit cases in 1997, and afterwards OMEGA produced / sold another 2 x 5 cases (1 in 1997, 1 in 1998).OMEGA Speedmaster MissionsAlthough I am not sure what the list price pri...
This week, in Pre-owned Picks, I am highlighting four watches with Ferrari co-branding spanning more than four decades.The news of Sebastian Vettel leaving the Scuderia Ferrari Formula One team this season, whatever is left of it, had me thinking about what Ferrari means to F1. The team from Maranello is the most successful in terms of driver's and constructor's championships. But they transcend any other team when it comes to prestige. F1 without Ferrari is not F1 to me.Credit: Edwin van Nes www.dacorsa.netClassic racing chronographsThe Formula One YouTube channel has been replaying classic races from previous seasons the past few months. The 2003 British Grand Prix was a particularly exc...
Just recently, Montblanc held a watch event in The Hague, The Netherlands. Just a week after the SIHH2011 exhibition in Geneva, Montblanc showed us some of their new models. As established as this company from Hamburg is with regards to writing instruments, their timepieces did not get much attention from collectors until Montblanc took over the Minerva factory. With Montblancs Villeret and Rieussec collection, they stole the hearts of many collectors of haute horlogerie timepieces. I examined their collection carefully, and picked a favorite that I could see myself wearing at some point in the future. The new Vintage Pulsographe.The Vintage Pulsographe with its black dial and rose gold case...
During my holiday in Italy, Ive missed the delivery of the new 39mm omega Explorer hitting the local authorized dealers. Ive kept my eyes open in Italy (see this link), but aside from the new Tudor Heritage Chrono, there wasnt much new to see in the displays. The new Submariner in black and green were already available before my holiday, and the green model surprised me in a positive manner I have to admit.Anyway, when I got back last weekend, I immediately noticed the availability of the new omega Explorer ref. 214270 on some of my sponsor websites. There was also this private seller on the Dutch omega Forum offering a BNIB omega Explorer 39mm for just above 4K euro.The picture above is a B...
In 2021, Omega updated the iconic Speedmaster Professional Moonwatch with the caliber 3861 movement. A very good reason to update our Speedmaster Buyers Guide as well!This guide dates all the way back to 2014, and since then, a lot happened. Not only did we have our own way with Omega and the two Speedmaster Speedy Tuesday watches (in 2017 and 2018), Omega also introduced a number of interesting Speedmaster watches to the collection. What about the Speedmaster Calibre 321 from 2020, or the new Moonwatch Master Chronometer models in gold? Time for us to update this Speedmaster Buyers Guide.In this Speedmaster Buyers Guide, we give you an overview of the most important references of the Speedm...
The omega Sea-Dweller 16600 was my first sports omega back in 2003. After owning it for over 10 years, I decided to trade it for something else. Only to come to the realization a few omega sports models later that the Sea-Dweller is, in fact, the one for me.When I started taking my first steps into the world of watch collecting in the late 1990s, I had to learn everything from scratch. Magazines like Uhren Magazine, Chronos (later WatchTime), and websites like TimeZone, taught me a lot of the things I know about many brands, including omega. Although the prices (and availability) were much more attractive at the time, being a student, purchasing a omega was quite simply out of the question.B...
Finally, my review on the Panerai PAM00113.Click here to read it!...
WASP 9.91 sees the guys go to two decimal places for the first time, much to the confusion of everyone else. Less confusing, however, is the duos shared love of a very special Omega Speedmaster created for the Olympics, but thats not the only Olympic watch to feature Far from itFor the first time ever, an on-air purchase occurs as Rob stumbles across his all-time favorite Swatch available on eBay for a stunning price (box and papers included). Additionally, Fridge and Freezer discuss Balazss recent purchases (lovers of vintage Angelus be sure to tune in) and Robs burgeoning collection of caps that had a sudden injection of volume thanks to the chance discovery of an old forgotten sports stor...
This week we have two stories in store for you, contributed by Speedmaster enthusiasts. One is from Mario and the other from Patrick. Completely different stories, but they have the exact same watch in common.I dont know about you, but I cant get enough of peoples stories on their Speedmaster watches. It is very interesting to see what the Speedmaster means to some of you. For some, it is a watch to celebrate something special. Others share their stories of how a Speedmaster has helped them to get the job done. This week, we have one of each!Your Speedmaster StoriesWe are interested in reading your story, and we're happy and proud to share them with all the Speedmaster fans that come to this...
Last week Bert Buijsrogge and I visited the assembly line of the much talked-about Omega Caliber 9300 movement. This in-house developed movement was introduced during BaselWorld 2011 in the Omega Seamaster Planet Ocean Chronograph as well as in the Omega Speedmaster Co-Axial Caliber 9300.Ever since 2007, Omega is focusing on their in-house developed Co-Axial movements and started by equipping the De Ville and Seamaster models with their caliber 8500. Starting in 1999 already, Omega started using the Co-Axial escapement in movement as such, but (mainly) based on existing ETA movements.For?this in-house column wheel chronograph caliber 9300 movement with Co-Axial escapement, Omega?made huge in...
Last Friday we organized an event together with Seiko Nederland and Dutch print magazine Watching for fans of Grand Seiko watches. When we announced this Grand Seiko event?a number of weeks ago, our mailbox was flooded with messages from people who signed-up. However, we could only select 20 people as it was decided to keep it small and exclusive. In the end, it was stretched to 22 people that were invited to come to Amsterdam and join us for an afternoon packed with Grand Seiko.Grand Seiko EventGrand Seiko is something you still need to explain to people from time to time. The high quality is evident once you get to handle a Grand Seiko watch yourself, so we thought it would be a great idea...
As promised (to Martijn, see the comments of the GP post below), I hereby post a few pictures of a watch that I bought a few months ago, from a fellow Dutch collector. It is a Titus Geneve chronograph from the 1940s (ca.1946-1948) with a Landeron 48 handwound movement. It is a 38mm watch, which was quite big for those days, in a 18ct red gold case. The case is very light and has a metal ring inside, to make the thin 18kt red gold case a bit of solid. I was told that these watches were quite populair for US ex-soldiers from WWII to bring home, because these were one of the few gold watches allowed for them to import. I am not sure, but I think there were some kind of restrictions for the impo...
I admit that I don't spend a ton of time looking at IWC's latest offerings. No, I don't find IWC's unattractive, but they're often too large for me. Plus, they're expensive. But the real reason that my eye rarely finds itself glancing at the current collection is primarily due to the brand's activities during the late 90's that spanned until the early 2000's. This was when the brand was in the throes of its GST Gold, Steel, Titanium collection (as well as making some other gems like the Mark XII we reviewed) and that's where we'll center our attention today with the IWC Aquatimer 3536.Introduced in roughly 1997, the IWC Aquatimer 3536 was made in three distinct flavors. The -2 variant came...
TAG Heuer is on a roll at the moment. The Swiss brand's last two green-dialed beauties (a Carrera and a Monaco, both limited to 500pcs each) sold out super fast, and quite rightly too. TAG Heuer seems to come in for a lot of criticism in the watch collecting community; I'm not totally sure why or if it's warranted, really. Nevertheless, the brand has some fantastic models, a really cool history, and the propensity to release some excellent watches. What's not to like?The TAG Heuer Monaco Titan(ium)Today, we see TAG Heuer dropping another new watch, this time circling back round to the Monaco again. Will it be as much of a hit as the green-dialed one? Who knows, but I must say it's equally as...
Dutch Speedmaster GTGIts Speedy Tuesday As you probably know, the first steps on the Moon were set by NASA astronaut Neil Armstrong on July 21st at 2:56 (UTC time) in 1969. 44 years later, a perfect date to have a GTG with Speedmaster enthusiasts to have a lunch.Gerard Nijenbrinks of the in2watches.com watch blog and I invited some Speedmaster collectors and enthusiasts to meet in The Hague, The Netherlands. Some of the attendees just have one Speedmaster, others had dozens. The love for the Speedmaster was very much the same though. From vintage to new, all kinds of Speedmasters were brought to the table.To give an impression of the meeting (or GTG), we show you some pictures taken that day...
Another OysterQuartz fansite here. However, only for the people who can read German. However, if you click here, you can download some QuickTime movies on these watches and their movements....
Patek Philippe Nautilus Chronograph 5980 in goldPatek Philippe surprised us this year with an all gold Nautilus Chronograph reference 5980/1R and gold/steel combination of the watch as well (reference 5980/1AR). Although we feel that a Nautilus should be in stainless steel (unless you are Scott Disick), we actually could appreciate these gold versions of the iconic Genta timepiece.Technically speaking, nothing changed compared to the stainless steel Nautilus 5980/1A model. Both have the automatic winding PP caliber 28-520 C movement with chronograph function with the hour and minute recorder in one sub counter. The central seconds hand is the chronograph hand. Things like the level of water ...
While some people refuse to buy a watch with a comic character on the dial, others pay over 40,000 for one. We will try to explain the immense popularity of the white dial 2015 Omega Speedmaster.Before the introduction of the Omega Speedmaster Silver Snoopy Award 50th anniversary watch (we showed it to you here), the white dial 2015 Speedmaster Snoopy prices were already on the rise. The Omega Speedmaster Silver Snoopy Award (ref. 311.32.42.30.04.003), introduced at Baselworld 2015, originally had a price tag of 6,000. On the first day of the Baselworld 2015 exhibition, the Speedmaster Snoopy sold out.In this case, sold out means Omega sold all 1,970 of these watches to its authorized dealer...