The Rolex Oyster Perpetual GMT-Master II.
I’m also smiling because, and I’m not sure if it’s something we should reveal, though [famed watchmaker] Jean Frederic Dufour himself is a leftist; I’m sure it’s a watch he’ll enjoy wearing because he won’t have the crown cutting into his left wrist.
Michael Tay of the group The Hour Glass.
Although he is left-handed, he wears watches on his left hand because he has to test them on the wrist where most of his customers will wear them.
While it’s a perfect watch for these two gentlemen, I also love it because I think it shows Rolex breaking convention, something extremely new that we haven’t seen in the collection for decades.
Fascinating movement
At Watches & Wonders Geneva, I really liked the Cartier Masse Mysterieuse, one of my top picks from the show. What’s super fascinating is that it’s still a bit over the top for a Cartier, but I think the movement itself, the concept, is remarkable.
The Cartier Masse Mysterieuse skeletonized freewheel movement framed by a 43.5mm platinum case. $395,000 (limited to 30 pieces).
It harkens back to Cartier’s historic mystery watches and when I first saw it I was very pleasantly surprised and spent quite some time looking at it. I think they could have improved in some aspects.
I would have preferred the screws to be real screws holding the tips. And they could have embellished the finish a bit more than the standard Cartier skeleton finish.
For the price, I would have liked to have seen more chamfers, more contrast. But that said, it has all the basics of Cartier DNA and the joy of the brand in one super interesting watch.
Just weird
The Freak S dropped by Ulysse Nardin is exceptional. Again, it’s a Forestier year. [Ex-Cartier watchmaker Carole Forestier-Kasapi, now at Tag Heuer, was responsible for the Cartier Mysterieuse and worked with Ulysse Nardin’s late Ludwig Oechslin on the development of the Freak in the late 1990s.]
The Ulysse Nardin Freak S with its exclusive two-oscillator automatic mechanism in full display in a gold-trimmed 45mm case. $172,400 (limited to 75 pieces).
I still remember the release of the Freak, it was really amazing and very different. It is one of the watches that defines, or defines, this new millennium of watchmaking: Ulysse Nardin has been a key proponent of the use of silicon in the escapement, one of the first proponents of it.
Now, 21 years later, 22 years later with the release of the Freak S, it continues to take this idea of precision geometry a step further with silicon-based dual oscillators.
This dedication to using silicon to improve chronometry is commendable, while aesthetically pleasing as well; it has a very technical look and is unique. It looks like a watch from the future.
Advance Patek
Speaking of silicon, one of my favorite watches of all time is the Patek Reference 5550P. It was Patek Philippe’s fourth advanced research watch launched, a perpetual calendar, but curiously the first time Patek combined all the disparate components of the escapement group: the Gyromax, the balance and the escapement wheel , in a complete silicon group.
The Patek Philippe 5470P Monopusher features the brand’s first tenth-of-a-second chronograph movement in a 41mm platinum case. $575,000.
This is a complete breakthrough for Patek Philippe, historically a very important watch. Why am I talking about it? Because it informs the new Patek 5470P, which also uses the Oscillomax escapement group.
The great thing about this watch is that Patek has taken some time to work on a tenth of a second function, a very important and invaluable contribution to chronograph innovation. Patek has completely redesigned how a tenth-of-a-second chronograph should work.
I won’t go into too much technical detail, because it gets heavy and geeky, but indeed, Patek has been able to master and create a very robust tenth-second chronograph that is less sensitive to shock. and it works at a very high rate.
It is a 5 Hz movement that exceeds 36,000, which means that it consumes a lot of energy but at the same time it is extremely accurate. It’s a very, very cool watch.
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