The Breitling Watch Blog

Just posted a video review of the Daniel JeanRichard Chronograph watch. This is the TV Screen Chrono with the ETA 2824 with Chronograph Module movement. Its a pillow shaped 38mm watch, and looks great. Enjoy the review!

Curious as to how many fewer watches were imported from Switzerland to the USA in 2009? 37.9% less. That’s a lot of percent.

Now, most people would have thought that a lot of Swiss Watchmakers would have gone out of business because of this, but surprisingly, most of the bigger ones are still going strong. This either means that most of that drop was from smaller retailers, or these Watchmaking giants have HUGE mark-ups on their product!

At any rate, it is an enourmous blow to the Swiss Watch Industry and Watch Sales in the USA for sure. Makes me wonder how much retailers were lying to me when I walked into watch stores during the recession and when I asked “How’s Business?” every single one told me “Its Great! Like there is no recession! Amazing isn’t it?”. Kind of turns me off the salesmen there since they flat out lie to us.

Any way.. interesting states. Some countries, mainly ones in Europe, only had small decreases such as France, Italy and Germany, all hovering around 13-14%.

Hopefully 2010 will be a good year.

Well, even though last year was a hellish year for Swiss Watches, Ralph Lauren Watches picked that year to enter the market with their line of watches. Now with a year under their belt, they continue to expand their line of watches. They have three lines: Stirrup, Slim Classique and Sporting.

All of Ralph Lauren’s watches are Swiss Made, and feature some fairly unique movements such as the RL750 Chronograph movement designed by Jaeger LeCoultre for Ralph Lauren.

I was browing in my latest issue of Watch Time magazine, and noticed a new Zenith El Primero watch called the Striking 10th Chronograph, which has a new 1/10th second Chronograph timer. In addition to the remarkably accurate chronograph, the watch returns to Zenith’s roots as far as Style. While this is not new for companies such as Breitling and IWC as they have re-released vintage watch designs, this is a drastic change of direction for Zenith, who went the complete opposite direction by dropping their old style completely when they went with the Chronomaster and Defy watches.

See the video!

Panerai’s new Radiomir Regatta Split Seconds PAM343 is amazing! 47mm Titanium Radiomir case with Split Second OPXXI 40 Jewels movement. The watch features a exhibition back and curved sapphire crystal. The model is a limited edition 2010 model commemorating the Classic Yachts Challenge.

While not anything extremely different from any of Panerai’s offerings, its a very cool 47mm Radiomir with a Split Seconds Chronograph, something my collection would welcome with open arms.