News: Jaeger-LeCoultre, Piaget and more

The top news stories from all the best watchmakers in the world, including Jaeger-LeCoultre, Piaget and Roger Dubuis, plus all the latest releases from Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie and Baselworld.

A big congratulations to Neil Riley, pictured here collecting his TWM competition prize from Watchfinder & Co. London boutique manager Michael Hagon. His prize, a pre-owned TAG Heuer Monaco from Watchfinder & Co. worth £2,500, is just one of the many prizes we’ve given away over the years.

Watchfinder & Co. is on the little screen! As sponsors of The Classic Car Show—on every Thursday at 7pm on Channel 5, and hosted by Quentin Willson and Jodie Kidd—we get to pair the best of watchmaking with the best of automotive design.

Inside the Rolex Submariner, one of a series of watchmaking videos created by Watchfinder & Co. to inform and educate watch fans about the inner workings of all our favourite pieces, has gone viral. With over 2 million views, the video is the most-watched Rolex watchmaking video on YouTube.

This May bank holiday weekend at the Watchfinder & Co. Bluewater boutique is going to be a blast, with three days of watchmaking insight like you’ve never seen before. Join us from the 2nd to the 4th of May at the Bluewater shopping centre for our exclusive watchmaking masterclasses, held twice daily at 12pm and 4pm, for an unprecedented insight into the mysteries of watchmaking. There’s also exclusive discounts storewide for the May bank holiday weekend.

A selection of Watchfinder & Co. special guests enjoyed an evening of cigars and cognac with Davidoff and Rémy Martin in the cigar rooms of the Bulgari Hotel, London on March 24th. The exclusive event was one of a selection reserved for Watchfinder’s top customers, and was enjoyed by all.

All the best from this year’s Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie

The latest offering from Jaeger LeCoultre is anything but down to earth, making use of the rarest of materials: meteorite. The Master Calendar Meteorite utilises this space age choice for its dials, complimenting its appliqué indices and dauphine-style hands. This unusual piece also uses the Jaeger-LeCoultre in-house caliber 866, has a 48-hour power reserve and is available on a black or brown alligator strap.

The latest addition to the Altiplano collection from Piaget is truly a record breaker. Two years in development, the super slim Altiplano Chronograph makes use of 25 ultra-thin movements which hold 14 world records for their thinness. Created in La Côte-aux-Fées, the Swiss movement is the Piaget in-house caliber 883P, the world’s thinnest hand-wound chronograph at only 4.65mm.

The exuberantly named Roger Dubuis Excaliber Spider Skeleton Flying Tourbillon lives up to its impressive title with an openworked 45mm titanium case and tourbillon carriage shaped like a celtic cross. Inside, the manual-wind movement used is the Roger Dubuis in-house caliber RD505JQ, and the power reserve of the model is 60 hours. For those who love the mechanics of watchmaking, the intricate design of this Roger Dubuis offering will be well worth the complicated name.

The first from the brand to feature a decimal minute repeater combined with a jumping numeral display, the Zeitwerk from A. Lange & Söhne is a chiming wristwatch with a difference. The Zeitwerk is the first A. Lange & Söhne model with a striking mechanism to sound hours, using low tones, ten-minute intervals with a double tone and minutes in a high-pitched tone. Even the display is alternative, dispensing with hands to show the time using an hour ring and two minute discs. With the Zeitwerk, A. Lange & Söhne have produced a watch that we can really chime with.

Created to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Portuguese (now dubbed, ‘Portugieser’), the IWC Portugieser Hand-Wound Eight Days captures the purest design elements of the original and pays homages to the origins of the collection. Produced as a Limited Edition of 175 pieces in 18kt gold, and 750 in stainless steel, the revived Portugieser boasts an eight day power reserve, and utilises IWC’s in-house 59215 caliber.

Limited to only 150 pieces, this Officine Panerai Mare Nostrum is a reimagining of the original deck watch penned by the company when it supplied the Italian Navy. If the elegant pairing of a brown dial with gold hands isn’t enough to tempt, the 52mm titanium case houses Panerai’s in-house manual-wind caliber OP XXV. This is sure to be a collectors’ favourite.

The hottest new releases from the 2015 Baselworld watch fair

The Patek Philippe Calatrava Pilot Travel Time is the watchmaker’s first pilots’ watch since the 1930s, and a leap into the more casual side of the market. It features the calibre 324 S C FUS, found in other Patek Philippe travellers’ watches, and has a useful day/night indicator for both home and local times. Not neglecting the aesthetics, Calatrava Pilot Travel Time has a blue varnished dial with luminescent hands and numerals, using an open work hand for home time display.

Forget everything you know about watches, as the HYT H3 attempts to redefine the future of watchmaking. Positioning themselves as the hydro mechanical horologists, HYT brings us 25 limited edition pieces of the next watch in its hydromechanical adventure. Dispensing with a traditional dial, the hands are replaced with two bellows injecting a capillary with fluid which moves against a rotating barrel of numbers to display the time.

Launching the Angelus Urban collection, the release of the U10 Tourbillion Lumiere marks the return of a brand which formally ceased trading in the 1970s, due to overwhelming competition from the rise of quartz watches. Reviving the company known for acclaimed travel clocks and achievements such as the first automatic repeater wristwatch, the Angelus looks to evoke the industrial styles of the 1960s and 70s while moving the model forward in a clean and modernist direction. Available as a limited edition of only 25, the U10 features a radically deconstructed movement and 90-hour linear power reserve.

As a start-up company founded in 2010, Ressence is keen to prove itself in the watchmaking arena. With the Type 3, the innovation comes in the form of filling the upper half with 35.2ml of oil, creating illusion of no crystal. The expansion and contraction of the oil is compensated with the inclusion of seven bellows, and to increase optimum conditions further, a mechanical thermal gauge informs precisely when the watch is performing at its best.

On April 17th, 1970, Commander Jim Lovell and the crew of the Apollo 13 command module found themselves aborting their moon mission and re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere to land in the Pacific ocean. To celebrate the forty-five–year anniversary of their safe return comes the Omega Speedmaster Apollo 13 Silver Snoopy Award. The Peanuts favourite appears on both the dial and the caseback, the cartoon character being a NASA mascot, and serving as a reminder of the Silver Snoopy Award presented to Omega in recognition of its contribution to the Apollo programme as the on-board back-up timing device.

The latest COSC-certified chronometer from Rolex, the Oyster Perpetual Yacht-Master is designed to make a real style statement. With an 18kt Everose gold case and hands, matte black dial with rose gold and Chromalight appliqués and ceramic Cerachrom insert, the new Yacht-Master is a very modern step forward for the watchmaker. The most unusual (for Rolex) design feature comes in the form of the Oysterflex bracelet, comprising of flexible metal blades overmoulded with high-performance elastomer.