—————– The great marketplace Given the excitement, it is difficult to sum up the experience in a few pithy lines. In addition, such events often result in serendipitous encounters and conversations with individuals and journey through some of the scanning the booths and the wares in the display cases until something called for attention. To get a feel for the commerce side, Hall 1, the most logical place to begin. It is named “Pageant of Eternity” and is home to myriad booths, probably making up three quarters of the 700 or so exhibitors present. Many of those are companies manufacturing…

This year’s Geneva Watch Days was perhaps the hottest edition to date, both in actual daytime temperatures and in watches. With the thermometer hitting 30° Celius pretty much the entire week, we were impressed by the amount of genuinely innovative and creative watchmaking on display. From a skeletonized ultra-thin version of the Speake Marin Ripples to a slew of incredibly complex chiming watches by Bulgari, there was a lot to love. We even saw one of the oldest names in the industry, Favre Leuba (originally founded in 1737) stage a grand return! But what got the MONOCHROME Editorial Team the…

Watches can be a deeply impersonal affair. The rise of social media hype, luxury exhibitionism, and wristwatch “flexing” is very different from what watches once represented. It wasn’t all that long ago that they were simple time-telling tools with a little style thrown in (perhaps even some panache). This article is a celebration of watches as deeply personal objects, indeed, treasure houses of memories and emotions. My grandfather Fritz’s choice of time-telling tool is emblematic of the era in which he grew up. Born in Schaffhausen, Switzerland, Fritz Meister served as a member of the Swiss military as a sharpshooter…

Zurich-based watchmaker Ollech & Wajs continues to make some very compelling retro-style dive watches, relying on its considerable heritage of achievements in the sports and underwater watch field. This “Mark II” version of the 1964 Ollech & Wajs Caribbean 1000 watch is just that. The company of today re-imagined its seminal 1964-era 1000-meter diver’s watch in a new form resulting in the OW C-1000 MkII wristwatch model. Not to make things too confusing, but Ollech & Wajs is about (at the time of writing) to release another version of this watch that has a slightly different dial and bezel which…

Last week, we took an excursion to the land of Nouvelle Horlogerie. This week, we’re returning to our home territory of stainless steel dive watches. Seiko just presented us with two new references under the Marinemaster name. The SLA077 and SLA079 are modern interpretations of the famous 6159-7001 from 1968. As they’re in the more expensive realms of Seiko’s Prospex collection, we thought the Oris Aquis would be a good matchup price-wise. Being the stainless steel dive watches that they are, both the Seiko and the Oris offer water resistance to 300 meters. Also, at 42.6mm and 43.5mm, respectively, they’re…

The fall auction season kicks off with online auctions, before the primary live sales that take place in November. Phillips in Geneva just opened its online auction with a 70-lot offering of the familiar and mainstream (think Aquanaut, Royal Oak, and Nautilus), but also the esoteric and independent, ranging from an Alain Silberstein perpetual calendar made by Svend Andersen to a Seiko Izul “bullhead” chronograph.We round up a few highlights from the sale, which runs from September 5-12, 2024, with the catalogue and bidding available online.Lot 9 –  Alain Silberstein Marine Perpetual Calendar by Svend AndersenPart of Alain Silberstein’s Marine series…