Its the Holiday Season and most of us are gonna take a break from the routine,be it Camping/Hiking/ or just outdoor sports.
WatchBazar recommends a few of our all time favorite outdoor watches.
Suunto
Traverse Collection consists of five GPS watches Amber, Black, White, Graphite and Slate. These watches offer incredible performance in addition to attractive design. They are designed totally for outdoor enthusiasts therefore they are equipped with many advanced features such as compass, barometer, Bluetooth chip set, GPS tracking and GPS navigation.
The Traverse includes a barometer, and compounds barometric data with satellite altitude to deliver a more accurate “FusedAlti” elevation reading. The barometer also provides weather information, and alerts can be delivered via vibration.
Other Traverse features include a back light with bright “flashlight mode,” compass, sunrise/sunset times, and mobile phone notifications via the Movescount Android/iOS app. Suunto plans to add topographic maps to the Movescount app in time for the Traverse launch, improving route planning capabilities. The user will be able to look at the route on the topographic map before transferring the route, sans map, to the watch. Check out the Suunto
Nixon Supertide
If you are a beach bum …The Nixon Supertide is the watch for you Featuring a high-res digital display screen, The watch shows 48 hour future tide, heat timer, alarm, light, sunrise/sunset and tides for 270 beaches through 2023 ,plus it syncs you up with the motion of the waves so you know exactly when to catch the best ride.
100 meter/10ATM stainless steel with co-molded injection molded polyurethane and silicone casing
Avbl in red, blue, black, white, or green at Nixon
Tissot T-Race Touch
This timepiece shares the Tissot T-Race’s passion for fast motorsports, which further inspires their style. The amazing ability to provide wearers with 11 tactile functions at a tip of a fingertip, comes from its Tissot Racing-Touch side. The Tissot T-Race Touch combines the great qualities of two amazing pieces, while transpiring an essence of athletic youth and dynamism. The aluminium touch adds to the sporty look and style as it makes it easy to give it those colourful blue, green, orange and black cases. It also has a great advantage of being very light, making it perfect for a sports watch such as this one.
The T-Race is Tissot’s motorcycle racing-inspired non-Touch chronograph, offered both in quartz movement and mechanical versions.
Citizen Altichron Promaster
Originally debuting in 1989, the Citizen Altichron was the start of the ever popular Promaster series. Today, the Altichron has been taken to the next level, having incredible features that would truly be useful to the ultimate adventurer. This new solar powered multi-function tool, has an analog altimeter as well as compass that are capable of measuring as high as Mount Everest.The Altichron has a titanium case . Thanks to the titanium, it is also very light weight which contributes tremendously to the comfort factor. Citizen utilizes their proprietary Duratect coating, which is a clear plating applied to make the watch 3-4 times harder than it normally would be.
The strap is made up of liquid rubber, which is very soft and feels great on the wrist. The altimeter is activated by pushing the lower left button, which has a yellow ring to help match it to one if its altimeter hands. It is capable of reading as low as -300 meters and as high as 10,000 meters. To use the compass, you push the upper right button.
Watchbazar Wishes All of You A Very Happy Xmas……until new year..
…“Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air.”
Watchbazar was fortunate to review The Aviator
Sturmanskie enjoys the prestige of being the first watch in outer space. Russian cosmonaut Juri Gagarin wore a Sturmanskie when he become the first man in space on April 12, 1961.
STURMANSKIE NAVIGATOR PILOT GAGARIN SPACE WATCH
Sturmanskie watches are still manufactured and sold today, though they have been updated considerably for the current market. Sturmanskies are manufactured by VOLMAX .
Sturmanskie watches use a variety of mechanical movements including the following calibres: 2614, 2623, 26669, 3133 and 31681.
Volmax is a Moscow-based company that produces the Aviator, Buran and Sturmanskie watch brands. They also produced the Russian Watch Factory brand (RChZ).
Volmax was formed in 2000 by former Poljot employees.
In 2002, the company registered three of the most famed Russian watch brands, Aviator, Buran and Sturmanskie, with the latter holding the distinction of being the first watch in space.
The Aviator line is the official watch of the Russian military aerobatic flying team, the SWIFTS.
Most Volmax watches use Russian movements. Others use Swiss ETA movements.
Volmax says it sets itself apart from other Russian watch companies “with a direct link to the heritage of the First Moscow Watch Factory combined with young, aggressive watchmakers determined to revive the Russian watch industry to its previous glory.”
Volmax watches are not cheap. These are quality watches with a very good level of finish. An entry-level Aviator watch costs about $150. Many Volmax watches sell for between $500 and $1000. Some cost much more.
Many Volmax watches fit in the category of “limited edition” or “collectors” watches.
Volmax is officially distributed in more than 25 countries.
Watchbazar Takes You to some of the coolest timepieces in the same theme.
Lets start with the GOD first. Blanchpain ,they have created a series of unique pieces les Métiers d’Art watches with image of Lord Ganesha,these timepieces are created with Shakudō which is a Japanese term for a low gold content alloy used in certain types of jewelry and ornamentation. The somewhat esoteric technique has a long and colorful history, The traditional shakudō alloy contains only trace amounts of gold—typically 4%, but ranging from 2 all the way to 25%—with the rest being mostly copper ,what is special about the alloy is that it can be treated to achieve a black patina which in many ways looks like lacquer ,according to the variations in its composition and texture.
This black Patina is obtained by a process called passivation which involves the application of a solution.This solution, composed of copper acetate (green gray), has been traditionally fabricated in Japan where it is known as rokushō. According to the number of applications of the rokushō solution, the black becomes successively deeper and more intense.
les Métiers d’Art watch with image of Lord Ganesha
Shakudō was used historically among other things to create swords, decorative objects and jewellery. The artisans who practiced shakudō often added engravings and ornaments. Rarely seen in the world of watchmaking, Blancpain has created great designs with this traditional art. Blancpain Villeret Shakudo retails @ $160,600
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Now sit back and Imagine a watch dial which is shaped in the form of a skull (DEMON) and doesnt have hands to look up time ….spooky aint it.
HYT is not know for making the ‘traditional time piece’, they where the first manufacturer to introduce a watch that used fluid to indicate the time.
Mechanical hand-wound, exclusive HYT calibre, 35 jewels, 28,800 vib/h, hand-chamfered bridges with Côtes de Genève, rhodium-plated bellows, 65-hour power reserve.
Equipped with alive skull dial, the right eye becomes gradually darker as the 65 hours of power reserve go by. The left eye conceals a continually rotating seconds dial.
Fluid travels along a capillary in the form of a skull
Apart from the big skull there are no hands rotating around the dial and minutes are also not indicated basically you approximate the minutes by the fluid running through the skull.
Limitation: 50 pieces (green) and 25 pieces (red)
Price: 90,000 Swiss francs (green) and 100,000 Swiss francs (red)
look up their website for the coolest Skull Watches hytwatches.com
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When It comes to Diamonds ,there are lots and lots of watch companies who make unique watches.
Watchbazar likes these for their simplicity and classy design
The highly coveted Cat’s Eye Tourbillon with Gold Bridge is a perfect fusion of its expertise in both watchmaking and jewelry. This creation from renowned watchmaking firm Girard-Perregaux features more than 1,000 brilliant cut diamonds set in the white gold casing. The dial is handcrafted from delicate mother of pearl, showing the maker’s expertise in the creation of this watch. One rose-cut diamond is placed for the crown. Completing this luxurious watch is the strap made of premium grade alligator leather..
The Cat’s Eye Tourbillon with Gold Bridge is available on a deep black and red alligator with a gold folding buckle set with diamonds.priced $500,000
When is comes to wrist watches its all good ! Happy Reading ………
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Watchbazar has been asked often about the difference between chronograph and chronometer lets try to explain .
Chronograph
The term, Chronograph comes from the Greek word for time, “chronos”, combined with the Greek word for writing, “graph”. Early versions of the chronograph are the only ones that actually used any “writing”: marking the dial with a small pen attached to the index so that the length of the pen mark would indicate how much time has elapsed.
The first modern chronograph was invented by Louis Moinet in 1816,solely for working with astronomical equipment. It was Nicolas Mathieu Rieussec who developed the first marketed chronograph at the behest of King Louis XVIII in 1821. The King greatly enjoyed watching horse races, but wanted to know exactly how long each race lasted, so Rieussec was commissioned to invent a contraption that would do the job: as a result he developed the first ever commercialized chronograph.
In 1844 Adolphe Nicole’s updated version of the chronograph was the first to include a re-setting feature which now allowed successive measurements, unlike the constantly moving needle in the original chronograph
In the early part of the 20th Century many chronographs were sold with fixed bezels marked in order to function as a tachymeter . In 1958 the watch company Heuer introduced a model with a rotating bezel tachymeter for more complex calculations.
Chronographs were very popular with aviators as they allowed them to make rapid calculations and conduct precise timing. The demand for chronographs grew along with the aviation industry in the early part of the 20th century. As the US exploration of outer space initially involved only test pilots, by order of President Eisenhower, chronographs were on the wrists of many early astronauts.
A ‘Seiko automatic Chronograph’ Cal. 6139, the Pogue Seiko, the first automatic chronograph in space
Appella Chronograph equipped with a self-winding mechanical Valjoux 7750 movement. 30-minute and 12-hour counters
Chronometer
The term chronometer is a specific type of timepiece tested and certified to meet certain precision standards. In Switzerland, only timepieces certified by the Contrôle Officiel Suisse des Chronomètres (COSC) may use the word ‘Chronometer’ on them. Outside Switzerland, equivalent bodies (such as the Japan Chronometer Inspection Institute) have in the past certified timepieces to the same internationally recognised standards, although use of the term has not always been strictly controlled.
The term chronometer was coined by Jeremy of Beverly, England in 1714, referring to his invention of a clock ensconced in a vacuum chamber. The term chronometer is also used to describe chronometer used for celestial navigation and determination of longitude. The marine chronometer was invented by John Harrison in 1730. This was the first of a series of chronometers that enabled accurate marine navigation. From then on, an accurate chronometer was essential to deep sea marine or air navigation out of sight of land. Early in the Twentieth Century the advent of radiotelegraphy time signals supplemented the onboard marine chronometer for marine and air navigation, and various radio navigation systems were invented, developed, and implemented during and following the 2nd World War
More than 1,000,000 Officially Certified Chronometer certificates, mostly for mechanical wrist-chronometers with sprung balance oscillators, are being delivered each year, after passing the COSC’s most extreme tests and being singly identified by an officially recorded individual serial number. According to COSC, a chronometer is a high precision watch capable of displaying the seconds and housing a movement that has been tested over several days, in different positions, and at different temperatures, by an official, neutral body (COSC). Each movement is individually tested for several consecutive days, in five positions and at three temperatures. Each movement is individually measured. Any watch with the denomination “chronometer” contains a certified movement.
REMEMBER: Chronometer and Chronograph are separate terms, but a chronograph can be a chronometer if it passes the requisite tests.
Happy reading……………………
Many people do not take the small amount of time required for basic watch care, which can increase the wearing time of your watch . WatchBazar likes to share some basic tips.
Consider an appropriate watch for wearing at your specific type of employment. If you work construction or other labor intensive job sites then you will need a durable watch that can stand up to the wear and tear you will be putting it through.
Water is a huge hazard for most watch owners. If your watch is not water proof or at least water resistant you need to take care and avoid incurring water damage with your watch.Look for water resistances in your instruction manual and follow the manufacturer’s guidelines regarding water exposure.If water does get in your watch face, you may see condensation.Don’t just throw your water-damaged watch away. Have it checked by a professional watch repairman who may be able to save your watch.
water-damaged
Watches should be stored separately from one another to avoid wear caused by friction. Whether you have a collection of solid stainless steel timepieces or have a lineup of sports watches, watches have many delicate parts and should be stored accordingly
Automatic watches rely on the natural movements of your body to stay precise and correctly wound. Keeping automatic watches on a winder will ensure they are wound whenever you want to wear them.
If you own a few expensive watches consider buying a good Cigar Humidifier or a wodden case which serve as a discreet place to store your watches, especially if they are vintage. Vintage watches require some extra maintenance to ensure that they are protected from moist air and dust. Therefore, the constant temperature and humidity a humidor provides works especially well for watch collectors who live in extreme climates.
Don’t expose your watch to excessive heat, such as saunas or leaving it out in strong sunlight. This can dry up lubricants and cause premature aging of dials and cause dial lacquers to lift or bubble.
Wearing a wrist watch every day makes it susceptible to dirt and dust. Hence, you make an effort to clean your wrist watch at least once every four to six weeks.
Leather straps quality can easily deteriorate due to excessive perspiration. Thus, you should detach the watch’s strap and use a paper towel to clean it. Similarly, use a soft damp cloth and a mild soap to remove salt residue and soil from the strap. However, do not let soak the leather watch’s band in water, as it will cause discoloration.
Water, chemicals and electrical items can damage your watch. Electrical gadgets produce magnetic fields that are detrimental to watches. Similarly, direct contact with detergents, chemicals and perfumes can cause watches to malfunction.
Watches are prone to scratches. And the best way to avoid scratches is to get it polished by a jeweler
The most effective way to ensure maximum performance of an wrist watch is to get it serviced by a professional. Apart from cleaning and oiling the watch with precision. It is recommended to get your wrist watch serviced every five years.
WatchBazar Has added basic wiki how tips which is worth a read
Basic Watch Protection tips (WIKI)
(Image Courtesy Respective owners )
Happy Reading……………….
A gadget that promises to turn almost any regular watch into a smartwatch is being developed in the US.
The Chronos pad can light up and vibrate when your smartphone receives new messages or calls.
It is expected to cost $99 (£66) when it goes on sale in 2016, making it less expensive than an integrated smartwatch.
However the device does not have a screen or voice control as found on most fully-featured devices.
The company’s co-founder Mark Nichol said that he had focused on including the most ‘critical’ functionality for a smart watch
Chronos measures under 3mm thin and 33mm in diameter to fit on over 80% of watches sold today.
Every Chronos is equipped with:
- Stainless steel casing
- Bluetooth 4.0 Low Energy integration
- Water-resistant construction
- 36 hour battery life
- Wireless charging* via conductive housing
- Accelerometer
- Haptic vibration and LED notifications
- Non-residue micro-suction adhesive backing.
Sticking the Chronos to your watch won’t require any special adhesive as they company says they’ve used some sort of “micro-suction” technology
Check out Chronos website and pre order your disk
Happy Reading ……………….
Watchbazar doesn’t dispute or challenge the fact that Swiss make the best time pieces but the world is catching up fast and there are many watch makers who are making some incredible watches lets take you to some of Watchbazar Favorites.
Christaaan Van Der Klaauw
In 1974, Dutch watch maker Van Der Klaauw started his own atelier and presented his first clock with astronomical complications. That was the beginning of a career that led him to become one of the greatest clock makers in the world. In 1989 he received the honorary membership of the Academy Horlogère des Createurs Independants (AHCI)and in 1992, at the Baselworld watch fair, he received the award for the most innovative watch design for his ‘Pendule Variable ‘
Pendule Variable
The CVDK Real Moon series, known for the Real Moon Joure and the Real Moon 1980, is extended with a new unique masterpiece, the CVDK Real Moon Tides. Next to a rotating miniature moon it carries a complication showing you the sea level tides in a way that has never been seen in a mechanical watch before.
Tides are the rise and fall of sea levels caused by the combined effects of gravitational forces exerted by the Moon, Sun, and rotation of the Earth. There are multiple types of sea tides. In most locations you will find the ‘principal lunar semi-diurnal’ sea tide. Its period for one rise and fall of the sea level is about 12 hours, 25 minutes and 14 seconds. Waves move up and down in a special window to make this beautiful phenomenon visible.
Image courtesy CVDK website. Christiaan van der Klaauw
Valerii Danevych
This ones our favourite imagine a watch made from only wood. Valerii Danevych is a wood-crafting master from the Ukraine, has dedicated his life to making functional wrist-watches entirely out of wood, with the sole exception of a metal spring needed to propel the movement. In 2005, without having any training as a watchmaker, he began working on functional wooden wristwatches. It took a while for Valerii to determine which type of woods were most suitable for the tiny parts needed, and for him to learn the basics of watchmaking, but by 2008, he had completed his first functional wooden pocket watch.His talent and perseverance motivated him to produce among many artworks the only functioning wooden wristwatches worldwide, also with flying tourbillon.
All watches are constructed from wood taken from plum, walnut , apple, birch and Crimea. There is even some bamboo and african bubinga wood used. The small intricate parts make one wonder when you consider that they were all made by hand.
NOMOS Glashütte
NOMOS Glashütte is a German watchmaking company based in Glashütte, Saxony, which specializes in manual-winding and automatic mechanical watches. It was founded in January 1990, two months after the fall of the Berlin Wall, by Roland Schwertner and has gone a long way in making some great watches.This brand – the largest producer of mechanical watches in Germany – is known for its classic Bauhaus style and fair pricing structure.
These ultra-svelte, fashionable, and eye-catching timepieces range in price from $3,360 to $3,800 and can be ordered online at Nomos Glashütte’s e-shop.
The main difference between an independent brand and one that isn’t is autonomy in making financial and creative decisions.While the Swiss watch industry’s luxury empires are focusing on massive marketing budget, growing annual output and central-controlled business strategies, independent watchmakers are establishing a path of their own.
Watch this space for more Indie Watch Brands………
While many people buy watches solely for their exterior, anyone with a real eye for design will know it’s what’s on the inside that counts.
Watchbazar explains ……
What is a movement? It is the engine inside the watch that drives the hands around and powers any additional complications, such as a stopwatch, date or chronograph .
Mechanical / Manual
A manual movement, frequently called a hand-wound movement, is the oldest type of watch movement made, dating back to the 16th century. It requires daily winding in order to work. Manual movements are the most traditional movements and are usually found in very conservative, expensive, and collect able watches.Daily winding is required.When winding a manual watch, it should be wound until there is a feeling of tension or tightness on the crown.The first self winding movement was invented for pocket watches in 1770 by Swiss horologist Abraham Louis Perrelet.
A simple but ingenious mechanism, this movement consists of a coiled spring that, when wound by turning the crown, stores energy that is then released in a regulated manner, through a series of gears, to keep time. Hand-wound movements, while the oldest form, are still some of the most loved due to their beauty and versatility. All of the most respected brands still produce hand-wound movements, whose decorated splendor is often displayed through a clear open case back.
Hand-wound movement
The first self winding movement was invented for pocket watches in 1770 by Swiss horologist Abraham Louis Perrelet. An automatic, or self winding, movement is a mechanical movement first marketed in the beginning decades of the 20th century. It winds itself while worn on the wrist, eliminating the need for daily hand winding. However, if not worn for some time, the watch will stop and require a manual winding. This does not include taking the watch off before bed.
Automatic
As its name suggests it winds itself automatically through the motion of your wrist. An oscillating weight the rotor in the movement is connected to a gear train that keeps the mainspring wound as long as you wear the watch regularly. Take off your watch for a couple of days, and you’ll either need to wind it up by hand to get it started or give it a few shakes.
The Front and underside view of a Appella automatic watch with a transparent case back, showing its ETA 2824-2 movement.
While the rotor typically hides half of the movement from view at any given time, it is often engraved and decorated and can be a joy to watch spin freely around on watches with a display case back. Automatics are the most common type of mechanical watch due to their set-and-forget nature.
Quartz
And lastly we have the Quartz movement which uses a battery for its power source and does not need winding like a mechanical watch. It is the most accurate type of movement currently being produced. Electricity is carried from the battery to the quartz crystal via the integrated circuit.
Quartz Movement
The electricity makes the quartz crystal vibrate at a rate of 32,768 per second.These vibrations are counted by the circuit and converted into a single pulse every second this pulse results in the consistent movement of the watch hands.Quartz watches are lower maintenance because they contain less moving parts and use a battery as their main power source.
Happy ….Tick…Tick…Tick
We all own a few watches which have Japanese Movements and the others are Swiss Movements.
Movement refers to the interior mechanism of a watch that drives the timekeeping functions. In other words, the movement is the watch’s engine. This internal mechanism powers not only the hands, but also any complications such as the chronograph or sub dials.
Both Switzerland and Japan have a long legacy in the watch-making industry. Today most watch movements are still designed and manufactured in Switzerland or Japan.
There is always a battle between the two types of watch movements and, it seems, Swiss movement always emerges on top. Over the years technology has made strides towards improvement, but no matter what Japanese watch makers do, the quality benchmark associated with Swiss watches remains unparalleled, and also the fact that there is a long history behind Swiss movement, which can be traced back hundreds of years to the 15th Century. Japanese movement only came into being in the 20th Century.
The difference between the two watch movements is that Swiss movement is usually found in watches that are luxurious and expensive. Japanese movement is found in watches that are more practical and cost effective.Accuracy is also a major reason that high end watches use Swiss Movements .Swiss movement are more precise because of the manufacturing standards that Swiss watchmakers set a long time ago. And they have only been improved further, with the passage of time.
With regards to mechanism and movement, Swiss watches utilize the Swiss ETA Movement while Japanese watches are powered by the Miyota movement or the Seiko Movement . The Swiss ETA movement is regarded to be more precise than the Japanese movement and also the fact that Japanese movements are robotic-ally assembled. The Swiss still use hand assembly, and Swiss labor is pretty expensive.
With Swatch limiting the supply of ETA movements in 2019 to non Swatch partners, Watchbazar thinks the micro-brands and other corporate watch companies will rely on these alternatives when the time comes .They will be able to continue to improve…enhance….fine-tune the Miyota/Sellita movements as much as the ETAs.
It all depends on personal taste and being able to afford to purchase one good watch they’re all great watches Either Swiss Or Japanese but a watch with a name will go a lot father than a watch without one. Tradition, legends, and reputation go a long way to turning a regular watch into an extraordinary timepiece.
Happy Reading….