Ulysse Nardin Imperial Blue Offers Westminster Chimes and Flying Tourbillon
Ulysse Nardin has a notable history in chiming watches, from its Gold Medal-winning minute-repeater chronograph at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair to modern timepieces such as last year’s Stranger. At Baselworld 2014, Ulysse Nardin introduced its latest haut-de-gamme chiming watch, the Imperial Blue.The Ulysse Nardin Imperial Blue boasts not only a Grand Sonnerie Westminster Carillon �� which rings out four notes (“Mi-Do-Re-Sol”) for each passing hour and chimes the hours, quarter hours and minutes on demand �� but also a flying tourbillon with an eye-catching, blue sapphire bridge.A Grand Sonnerie function, which dates back to around 1300, is a rarity in a modern wristwatch, with only about a half-dozen manufacturers producing them, including Ulysse Nardin. It differs from a minute repeater in that the latter only chimes the time when it is activated by the wearer, whereas the former will also sound the time each quarter hour on its own.Among the technical challeng

Mixed Candy From AP!!
Got to see some really fantastic creation from AP this week

Limited edition: better used with papers or grey bnib without?
Title says it all and I'd like your opinion: I've been on the hunt for a LE which does not frequently come up for sale, and located one in very nice condition. It is being sold by the second owner and was bought new from AD in 2011. This is a complete set, with all papers (although no remaining warranty, I believe).Simultaneously, there is a grey market website (for this exercise, assume the website is legit) which has one for sale BNIB, though it comes with boxes and manuals only. Any necessary warranty work would be covered by the grey dealer's warranty, not Breitling's. I would never use this outside warranty, probably sending the watch to BSC if I ever needed any work done. Furthermore, as the website states that the watch comes with boxes and manuals, I'm unsure if the LE certificate would be included, although I see no reason why it shouldn't, since they usually only remove the warranty card.The price difference between these watches would be $1350 (5150 bnib grey and 3800 used c

5131 Questions
Has anyone heard if they will stop making this reference due to the introduction of the 5230 and if they eventually come out with a platinum version do you guys think it will be a 5131P or 5231P? After reading about the 5230 it was brought to my attention that some of the city names have been changed on this piece and Moscow relocated which makes me wonder if PP would still continue to make the 5131 as is, modify the city ring, or discontinue. Below is from watchcollectinglifestyle (Mods, I hope it is OK that I referenced a website)Some time zones have meanwhile been assigned different city names, for instance Dubai instead of Riyadh or Brisbane instead of Noumea, to mention only two. Formerly, Moscow was located in the UTC+4 zone, but the Russian capital has now shifted one hour closer to Western Europe, relocating to UTC+3. From time to time, such changes make it necessary to modify the place names on the city scales of World Time watches. This is why Patek Philippe is discontinuin

Some new AD procedures
So... I went into an AD, knowing how they never have any Professional models available. And I bought a Sub Date (they had two in stock), because those are never in stock. 5% discount, European price w/o VAT (6400ish).Anyway, some TRF-confirmed facts.a) No more stickers. They now rip off stickers when receiving the pieces. Everything on display must be w/o stickers, same with pieces they hold.b) Professional models are registered with Rolex. Buyer name, address etc are registered at Rolex SA before selling the piece. Rolex sends a 6 digit confirmation code to confirm the warranty has been registered.Apparently your open papers watches aren't warrantied anymore (card must match name in Rolex database for first owner).c) Clearly they really are chasing down on the gray market stuff, it took me half an hour to get everything sorted (and don't forget, I've bought a few hundred new watches from AD's, I know how to play this game).So, something really is changing.