The Jaquet Droz Bird Repeater Openwork: 5 Things to Know
The Jaquet Droz Bird Repeater Openwork combines expertise in several arts to create an amazingly detailed and realistic automaton with minute repeater. This new model also features a clear sapphire dial that reveals the complex mechanism behind the moving parts. Here are five things you need to know about this new timepiece.The namesake of the Jaquet Droz watch brand, Pierre Jaquet-Droz, was an 18th century Swiss watchmaker who was known for creating outstanding examples of what some today might call very early robots. Known as automata, these figures took various forms, including human and animal, and they came in various sizes, from tiny miniatures to life-size. Exceptionally complex machinery caused the figures to perform a variety of tasks, including playing musical instruments, writing, and drawing. Jaquet-Droz was a master of this art, and he often included animatronic birds in famous table clocks, pocketwatches, and music boxes. The Bird Repeater Openwork is a remarkable tribute

Nixon Star Wars Collection Updated With Imperial Pilot, Stormtrooper Watches
Back on Star Wars Day (or May the 4th, for any traditionalists out there), we brought you the joyous news that?Nixon?would be making a new range of official Star Wars watches. To tease the release, Nixon showed us some pictures of the upcoming Darth Vader watch, which will be one of a preliminary range of four Nixon Star Wars watches.The first wave of Nixon Star Wars watches will honour the dark side of the Force with timepieces inspired by everyone's favourite heavy-breathing bad boy, the Imperial Pilot, the Stormtrooper, and the awesome Boba Fett.Today, we're able to bring you some cool?new images?of the Imperial Pilot and the Stormtrooper models. They are available from Nixon's online store between?July?8-12 (that's this week!), or can be purchased at the San Diego Comic Con that runs?over July?9-12. There will be a limited number of Nixon Star Wars watches for sale, and once they're gone, they're?gone! Until, that is, the watches go on general release at an as-yet-unannounced time.

U-Boat U-1942 Limited Edition Watch: Giant Retro Italian Diver
Apparently based on a never actually made design from 1942, the limited edition U-Boat U-1942 watch is an Italian blast from the past. The story goes that the Italian Navy commissioned a special watch to be made, but it never made production. This U-1942 watch is based directly on that design - and it is really sharp looking. The oddest part of the watch is of course the crown. It extends out.. maybe too far.? It is kind of silly and phallic to be honest. I mean it works, and looks cool, but you know.Lets just say that it looks like a periscope...yea that's it. The crown is meant to have a functional use though. The idea is that it is meant to be easy to use with gloves. Easy to use meaning winding it and adjusting it. Not sure how easy it will be to release the crown while in the locked position with gloves though, but probably pretty simple. Further, I believe that the crown can be adjusted and wound underwaterwhich should be nice.The watch is big! Really big with a grade 5 titanium

The Value Proposition: The Amazing, Incredible, And Semi-Affordable, Atmos Clock From Jaeger-LeCoultre
As the current new guy at HODINKEE, it gives me no small pleasure to introduce – I should say, re-introduce – an old reader favorite: The Value Proposition. It’s been on hiatus for some time but you’ve asked us repeatedly to bring it back, and we listened.In Value Proposition we bring you a look at some of horology’s biggest and best bang-for-the-buck – timepieces that, in a world where price increases have for over a decade shut more and more out of enjoying mechanical horology, really over deliver in the value department. In general this means things in the under $10,000 category but at the same time, you might see us occasionally cover something like, say, a $15,000 minute repeater that sounds as nice as a $300,000 chiming complication, which seems unlikely, but hey, if it exists, you’ll read about it here first.Today, let’s talk about the Atmos clock, from Jaeger-LeCoultre. The Atmos is nothing more nor less than one of the absolute c

Incoming...impulse buy.
Didn't see this coming but was at my AD's today and picked this up. Maybe not everyone's cup of tea, but these bi-metals are growing on me.Maybe I've hit that age group( no offence to anyone).Could be the bi-metal GMT II next.Don't think there will be anymore incomings for me this year. Who knows what next year will bring.Cheers!Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk