The Breitling Watch Blog

Urwerk continues to innovate their Rare Species Collection with the addition of the White Shark to their collection, which is produced in a limited edition of 24 pieces. The watch features the caliber UR 7.02 movement, which has their patented revolving satelite complication for telling the time. The hours are shown on the point that is within the minute scale, and points to the current minute. What looks like a Moon Phase indicator is actually a Day-Night indicator, much to my chagrin! Day-Night moonphase look-a-likes are a pet peeve of mine.

Nicolas G. Hayek (1928-2010), the Chairman of the Board of Directors of The Swatch Group Ltd., passed away today at work due to heart failure. Mr. Hayek was an icon in the world of Horology and one of the most enthusiastic characters and supporters of the mechanical watch movement. He will be missed, but his work will live on.

Zenton, a new watch brand dedicated to producing dive watches in limited numbers, has released a few watches with the launch of their new brand. The model is the M45, and it comes in a variety of different color combinations, all which can be customized from dial color and bezel color to left and right hand crown!

The M45 features 2000m water resistance, helium release valve, Swiss ETA 2824-2 movement adjusted to 5 positions, all in a stainless steel 45mm case. I’m curious where these are made, as the site has absolutely no mention of this. This makes me a bit suspicious and leads me to believe they are manufactured in China or somewhere that is less desirable. They are extremely affordable at $888.

Here is a list of the specs:
Bezel diameter 45mm / Lug to lug 53.5mm /
Band 24mm / Height 17mm
2000m water resistant
Automatic helium escape valve
Antimagnetic 80000 A/m
4.3 mm sapphire glass with inside ar coating
MOVEMENT: eta 2824-2 topgrade 5 positions adjusted

Address of Nicolas G. Hayek, Chairman of the Board of Directors of The Swatch Group Ltd. at the Assembly General 2010 of the Swatch Group Shareholders of May 12, 2010, in the Congress Center Basel (Switzerland).

Please find the attached 7 page PDF of Hayek addressing Swatch shareholders here!

Or alleged murderer. Interesting article about how a Breitling watch helps lead police to a man’s alleged murderer.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/manchester/8661079.stm

Swiss watchmaker Marc Jenni has launched his own brand of watches, with the first being the Prologue. The watch is available in 18K white and rose gold, and uses the Marc Jenni Caliber 2010 movement. The movement looks like a base movement of some sort, though I’m not sure.

There are some modifications to the mechanism as there is no crown. Instead, the black rubberized ring that encircles the entire watch can be gripped and rotated. Rotating the ring either winds the watch, sets the time, or sets the date – depending on the setting, which is determined by pushing the button at 4 o’clock. The mode is indicated on the dial.

Quite an interesting watch, with a unique difference.

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.