The Breitling Watch Blog

I discovered this fantastic old school strapmaker from Denmark named Mr. TipTop. They are an old company, started in 1954, creating some wonderful hand crafted straps in their workshop. I reviewed three of their Double Croupon leather straps, and they are all very well crafted out of some of the finest leather I have seen used for straps. This is great stuff.

I had a couple made for my PAM288, and they look fantastic on it:

Check out the review on Paneraisource here:
http://www.paneraisource.com/aftermarket_straps_tiptop.shtml

Its interesting to see which watch brands spent how much on advertising. Breitling has always been near the top, only eclipsed by Rolex. This continues to be the case, but they just upped their spending last year, and are coming in really close now! Interesting article and read, check it out at watchtime. See below for the list of spends from last year in the US Market. See the discussion on the BreitlingSource forums here.

TOP WATCH ADVERTISERS
U.S. market, 2013
RANK BRAND AMOUNT ($million)
1. Rolex 61.48
2. Breitling 43.85
3. Cartier 24.58
4. Omega 22.96
5. TAG Heuer 22.00
6. Citizen 20.72
7. Movado 19.83
8. Chanel 17.87
9. Longines 16.02
10. Seiko 11.15
11. Breguet 9.58
12. Tudor 8.24
13. Patek Philippe 7.66
14. Hublot 7.59
15. Audemars Piguet 7.39
16. Bell & Ross 7.11
17. Dior 6.05
–. Swatch 6.05
19. Montblanc 5.64
20. Ball Watch 5.37
21. Armitron 5.35
22. Chopard 5.20
23. Rado 4.95
24. Baume & Mercier 4.92
25. Shinola 4.66
26. Parmigiani 4.62
27. Raymond Weil 4.51
28. Ulysse Nardin 4.50
29. IWC 4.02
30. Vacheron Constantin 4.01
–. Zenith 4.01
32. Harry Winston 3.80
33. Louis Vuitton 3.73
34. Casio 3.65
35. Luminox 3.62
36. Tissot 3.46
37. Oris 3.42
38. Timex 3.19
39. Bulova 2.97
40. David Yurman 2.91
41. Garmin 2.67
–. Fendi 2.67
43. Coach 2.65
44. Panerai 2.59
45. Glashütte Original 2.54
46. Victorinox 2.52
47. Girard-Perregaux 2.42
48. MTM 2.34
49. Fossil 2.30
50. Ralph Lauren 2.26
51. Piaget 2.15
52. Jaeger-LeCoultre 2.14
53. Anne Klein 2.12
54. Michele 2.05
–. Richard Mille 2.05
56. Bulgari 1.95
57. Blancpain 1.78
58. Carl F. Bucherer 1.67
59. Graff 1.59
60. Pulsar 1.38
61. Stauer 1.37
62. ALOR 1.34
63. Ebel 1.33
–. Emporio Armani 1.33
65. Gucci 1.25
66. Kenneth Cole 1.22
67. Frédérique Constant 1.08
68. Hamilton 1.01
69. Jorg Gray 1.00
(Source: Kantar Media)

Now this is a very cool watch that is coming out, from one of my favourite value-oriented Swiss Watch companies. It is the world’s first automatic mechanical altimeter watch, quite the feat for a company like Oris, considering there are so many other Swiss watch companies with roots in Aviation.

The altimeter is activated using the side-mounted Altimeter crown, and it can measure altitude up to 15,000 feet or 4,500 meters. The units will depend on which model you have, feet or meters. Such a cool feature that I probably won’t use much, but would love to own. Kind of like the Panerai Depth gauge. I usually identify Oris with their Dive watches, as their Pilot offerings in the past have not impressed me… this is different. There is a good chance I will be getting one of these!

Specs:
Case Diameter: 47mm
Movement: Oris caliber 733 (base Sellita SW200) with 26 jewels, 28,800 vph and a power reserve of 38 hours
Water Resistance: 100m
Patented Oris altimeter adjustment and venting crown

I’ve accumulated quite the collection of watch straps over the years, and many of the strapmakers out there also make accessories like wallets and other leather goods to compliment their straps. One of these makers is DaLuca. He actually makes some pretty nifty wallets and other leather goods. I picked up a couple of his wallets, and figured I would make a little post about them.

The first one here is the Shell Cordovan Horizontal Snap wallet in black. Its got that awesome Shell Cordovan smell, and built very ruggedly. Comes in the standard DaLuca mesh bag.

Inside is the raw Horween Shell Cordovan stamping, which is a very cool raw and authentic look. I lucked out with this one and got a nice visible stamping on the inside of the wallet.

On the back, is the DaLuca stamp. I’ve always love how this stamp looks on his wallets. Its very tastefully done, and the detail where its branded into the leather are perfect.

Second wallet I picked up is the Angle wallet in Natural Chromexcel. I really like the Horween Chromexcel leather, it has a wonderful color to it, and reveals lots of character when you bend it and use it. This one is a basic card wallet, and fits about 6 cards if you stuff it.

As you can see below, it also has the tasteful DaLuca logo branded onto the back, proudly announcing is USA Made pedigree.

Overall I think DaLuca has done a good job of these wallets, and they don’t seem like an afterthought. They’re simple, yet well designed minimalist wallets.

You can see these on DaLuca’s site here:
http://www.dalucastraps.com/categories/Accessories/Wallets/

Hope you guys all enjoy the Doxa 5000T Automatic Watch review I uploaded to Youtube yesterday. Sorry again about the Mic, I am trying to buffer it mechanically since my camera doesn’t have a way for me to edit it. Hopefully I can figure it out and get it more resolved over the next little while. For now, turn the volume down and try to enjoy! Thanks. The Doxa 5000T is an awesome limited edition diver from one of the world’s most popular boutique Swiss Dive Watch companies.