Swatch Group & Comco: 10 Key Moments
As we reported in October, Switzerland's Competition Commission (Comco) has announced a decision to allow the Swatch Group, Switzerland’s dominant producer of mechanical watch movements, to gradually halt sales of those movements to companies outside the group in 2020. Here is a timeline of 10 key moments in the ongoing legal soap opera between Swatch Group and Comco.August 2002: ETA SA, the Swatch Group's movement-making subsidiary, announces that it will stop supplying kits of loose movement components for mechanical watches, called ��bauches, to third parties. It plans to reduce quantities gradually over three years and halt sales as of January 1, 2006. ETA says that the ��bauches business represents less than two percent of Swatch Group total sales and the logistics are much too expensive and complex to maintain such supply. October, 2002: Switzerland's Competition Commission (Comco) announces a preliminary investigation into whether ETA is abusing its dominant position in the

Is Slowing Demand For Watches In Asia Finally Causing Job Cuts At Swiss Manufactures?
While the?luxury watch fair Watches & Wonders is running at full throttle in Hong Kong, one needs to take a step back to understand how markets in China and other places around the world are affecting the watch market and causing it to adapt and evolve. Even in Hong Kong, strong?pro-democracy protests have been under way, in what some refer to as "the worst unrest since the territory's 1997 handover from Britain," according to Reuters. At the same time, news released from TAG?Heuer (the largest watch company in the LVMH luxury conglomerate) announced earlier this week it is cutting jobs in its watch manufacturing facilities. We believe that this news is strongly linked to the?slowing demand from?the "Asian watch capital," and China overall.According to official Swiss statistics, Hong Kong alone accounted for?nearly 20% of all Swiss watch exports in value, more than the USA and Germany combined �C and with that in mind, it is easy to see why this has been urging TAG Heuer to undertak

New 2014 Offshore Safari owners please help?
No worries.The watch is awesome.Just thinking if anyone here tried mounting the Safari on anything other than the brown hornback it comes with?Coming from a hot and humid country, I sure wish there's something nice I can change it to.I know many will say that the brown hornback + safari combo is the best.But just wondering what it will look like with other options.Thanks in advance.

I was never really into leather...
...'till I discovered Panerai......and now I only buy stuff that goes with my Panerai straps... Speaking of leather, I never thought I'd buy OEM; not that OP doesn't have some very nice straps on offer, but there are many excellent custom strap makers out there to keep me more than satisfied. However, when I saw the black calf vintage for the first time (I think it was the 508), I had to have it (or something very close to it). I inquired by my favorite strap makers and one even sourced this type of cracked texture, but the third-party leather had more cracks than leather (I'd call it super-distressed). It also happened to be my birthday and so I gave my GF a hint... click-the-pics for hi-res goodness

Deepsea has it's lug changed??
Deepsea has changed from short lugs to longer lugs. Now Rolex no longer make shorter lugs for their steel watches. The previous one was sea dweller ceramic 116600 which is also discontinued last year.