As if that wasn't enough, let's not forget the flying tourbillon. A signature of Blancpain's complicated watches, the brand introduced the world's first flying tourbillon for a wristwatch in 1989. In the Grande Double Sonnerie, Blancpain updates this core technology with a silicon balance spring. The tourbillon's spinning animation is surrounded by a host of polished surfaces that ensure ample light enters the cage, highlighting the complication. I was winding through the backroads of the Blue Ridge Mountains when the phone rang. My request to learn more about Marathon had gone up the chain of command and landed on the desk of vice president Mitchell Wein, the grandson of Morris Wein, the founder of Marathon Watches. Now he was on the line, ready to talk in detail about the mission of the company and the Arctic MSAR Automatic. Robert Kauffman of North Carolina drives his 1928 Bentley 4 1/2 Litre Vanden Plas Sports Tourer down Ocean Avenue in downtown Carmel. With a cut-away dial carrying the imprint of the lunar surface and a special version of Omega's hand-wound 1861 movement with black bridges, the Dark Side of the Moon Apollo 8 is a bold and rather literal expression of a Moonwatch. Interestingly, this is not a limited edition but rather an addition to the main collection. As I mentioned, I was rather surprised to see Lange depart from steel as a material for the Odysseus so early in the game. Certainly, however, tastes have changed since the early 2000s, and I think having a 41mm case for the Grande Seconde models makes a good deal of sense. At that diameter, you sacrifice little in terms of the surface area necessary for the dial composition, which offers an appealing amount of negative space – always a strong suit for Jaquet Droz.

Sometimes, you have to begin with the most obvious choice. If we're on the subject of small and dressy watches, Cartier is obviously the most obvious. It's a no brainer. There's been very little said so far about what the actual catalog is going to look like, how many watches will be included, what the star lots are going to be, etc. That's clearly intentional, and there's plenty of time for the details to come out before the sale takes place on May 12 in Geneva. Today Phillips has teased three lots though, offering our first taste of what might be coming in just a few months. Here are all the details we know right now. The brand is also expanding the ambassadors for the Promaster realms, with base jumper and paraglider Jeff Shapiro joining for Air and photographer and explorer Jody MacDonald joining for Sea (alongside the very talented photographer William Drumm). Of course, these were heavy, chrome units better suited for your Dad’s English three-speed than a racing bike. State of the art bike computers since the 1990s have been plastic digital units that tracked speed, first by a spoke-mounted magnet and sensor and more recently by GPS, and displayed speed, distance, elevation, power output, heart rate and other data, digitally. For him, the brand's most coherent positioning is not a retreat into horological orthodoxy, but a sustained alignment with contemporary art, a field that, like the Big Bang itself, operates through expression, material experimentation, and cultural immediacy. "The smartest thing Hublot can keep doing is leaning into that world," he told me.

The Dürstein Grand Complication pocket watch offers a great chance to get amazing watchmaking that isn't burdened by a big brand name and may therefore be had for a bit less than other examples. The same ébauche from Audemars Piguet appeared as a base in that brand's movements, as well as one A. Lange & Söhne watch (that sold last year at Phillips for over CHF 1. repliki breguet zegarków That said, with no direct cycling or Giro d'Italia branding (unlike the design of the Alinghi Red Bull Chrono), if you're willing to think outside the traditional confines of the Pelagos while also staying within the confines of Tudor's modern lineup (no Heritage Chrono, no Fastrider line at all), I think the decision to go with the FXD rather than the Black Bay Chronograph makes logical sense.