The Breitling Watch Blog

Being that I am also a custom handmade knife enthusiast, seeing Damascus used in a production watch was very interesting for me. I’ve seen Allen Elishewitz use Damascus on some of his custom watches, but I haven’t see it used on a production watch.

Angular Momentum is using it for the entire dial of their “Digital” watch. Don’t worry, it’s still an automatic mechanical movement. It just has a digital display, so to speak. You can see it here:

Now I’m a big fan of Damascus for knife blades, because it is a beatiful material, and the grain patterns that come from repeatedly hammering and folding over the different types of steel upon itself are stunning. However, I think this watch isn’t executed very well. The way the Damascus looks on the dial is kind of cheap.

There are many different types of damascus steel, and the one they chose for this application was not the prettiest, and I think they could have done better. However, it is an interesting start, and perhaps we will see more damascus and possibly mokume on watches in the future.

Diameter: 42mm
Water Resistant: 100m
Movement: Swiss Automatic 25 Jewel

I don’t know about you guys, but when Christmas rolls around, my watch fund is usually depleted due to presents for the Fiance and my parents. My parents like nice things, and so does my fiance, so that usually means the budget for a nice watch or two is gone once I purchase their gifts.

This year is no different. 🙂

What do I do when Christmas comes and I have an itch to buy a watch? Well, last year I didn’t buy anything, but this year, I have decided to cut my budget down to sub $1000 watches. The ones I picked up recently are a Marathon TSAR and a Hamilton X-Wind. I have also picked up a couple of very affordable watches hand assembled by a fellow in the USA. I have been noticing an increase of this kind of maker in recent years. Small boutique in-house watch assembly, perhaps self-taught, but not swiss-trained. The watches are affordable and the movements are not usually Swiss, which is fine since they are usually sub-$300 watches and have their unique charm.

This year of course with the international economic crisis and credit crunch people are being doubly frugal during the holiday season. Wal-mart is the supposed store of choice for Christmas shopping this year. What else can we do to aleviate the need to fulfil the watch craving? Try magazines, or old clocks… Aircraft clocks are in abundance on ebay and can be easily had for under $100. They also have 8 day mechanical movements which make them quite appealing to mechanical watch collectors. Also do not forget Howard Miller mantel and desk clocks. The good ones have 8 Day German made movements, and retail well over $500US, and can be had on ebay for under $200. The quartz variety are much cheaper.

Another watch brand I picked up one of is a Ticino, which is a slightly higher quality Asian manufactured watch than the typical peices from Alpha and Trias, etc. I did also purchase an Alpha for under $50 as well, which I will be reviewing as soon as it comes in. Seeing as I have just gone back to school and am out of a job at the moment, I figured I should not buy any more expensive watches until I start my new job after the new year some time.

So here are some more affordable solutions from the Breitling Source to alleviate those Holiday Watch Spending blues (if you even have them!).

Very cool short clip on watches, showing 5 “gadget” watches. I would not consider the GP a gadget watch, and I think there are some cooler watches when you step up to that kind of price range, but it is an interesting little clip none-the-less. Posted by one of the forum members, and I just had to repost here because of the Breitling Emergency nod 🙂

1 – Girard-Perregaux Tourbillon Gold 3 Bridges
2 – Breitling Emergency – Woohoo!
3 – Bell & Ross Hydromax
4 – Tissot T-Touch
5 – Casio G-Shock

Video can be found here:
http://fwd.five.tv/videos/top-5-watches

It seems like these days unless you spend upwards of $20,000 on a watch, you are bound to see someone else wearing the exact same one at some point. My recent cruise to the Mediterranean revealed to me that watches in the sub-0$10,000 range, and to a lesser extend the sub-$20,000 are commonly seen. It is getting harder and harder to have a watch that is truly unique, at least in some small way. On this cruise I saw a fellow with a Breitling Motors T in black, exactly the same as mine, and also saw a fellow with a Breitling Chronomat Evolution, same as mine. I haven’t even started to count the number of Rolexes that I saw!

However, what if your favourite watch company started offering the ability to customize your watches in a way that would make your watch a lot more personal to you? Would that be something that you spend your money on?

Vacheron Constantin Quai de l’Ile

Vacheron Constantin thinks it is. They have released a new watch called the Quai de l’Ile, a totally customizable watch offering a total of nearly 400 combinations of metals and dials. It also has high-security features designed by Roger Pfund to make fakes a lot harder to make.

The custom watch takes approximately 3 months to make.

Not a New Idea
The custom watch is not a new idea, but Vacheron Constantin has definitely taken this to the next level. There have been many manufactures offering custom watches such as the Breitling for Bentley Mulliner Tourbillon, and a few other minor watch manufacturers that concentrate on the custom aspect. Then there are guys like Bill Yao that specialize in customizing existing Seiko watches, with dial and hand replacements costing a couple hundred sometimes. Quite the sum when you consider the initial cost of the watch.

I believe the trend of customized timepieces will increase over the years as it is a relatively untouched market with most of the players being very small shops with very little marketing. Getting a few major Swiss players into this market with an affordable sub-$10,000 product will really cause a stir I think.

One of the custom watchmakers of watches I know of is Allen Elishewitz, who is a custom knifemaker by trade, and then branched out to make custom pens and watches as well. See Allen’s stuff here: http://www.elishewitzknives.com/Watches.asp

In many areas of the world, the new 2009 Chronologs are out! Just a reminder to head over to your local AD and pick a copy up, or have your local Breitling distributor send one to you. Last I checked here in Canada they aren’t in yet, but here’s hoping that they will be in the next couple weeks.

There are lots of new models out for this year’s Chronolog, which most of you have already seen since they were released at Baselworld and before. Chrono-matic 49, Breitling for Bentley GMT are a couple that spring to mind.