Richemont Specialist Watchmaker Sales Up 34%
At its Annual General Meeting held today in Geneva, Richemont announced that its overall sales for the five months ended August 31 increased by 29% at actual exchange rates. At constant exchange rates, sales increased by 35%. The Specialist Watchmakers saw an increase of 34% at constant exchange rates, and 28% at actual exchange rates. On a region-by-region basis, Asia-Pacific lead the way with increases of 59% at constant rates and 46% at actual rates. The Americas did well with a constant rate increase of 41% and 26% at actual rates.Retail sales enjoyed a higher momentum than wholesale sales thanks to a good performance in the Maisons' (brands’) boutiques, the expansion of their retail networks, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region, and strong growth at NET-A-PORTER.Richemont said that it expects its sales and operating profit for the first six months of this year to be significantly higher than the comparative period.Based on the strengthening of the Swiss Franc between Mar

From Rolex to AP
Just looking for opinions from the TRF family....How many here have gone from owning Rolexes to AP.If so do your Rolexes ever get wrist time? Whats the split?Has anyone just completely stopped with Rolex?I am taking the plunge and am wondering what I am getting myself into!

New Navitimer 46mm or Navitimer 01 Ltd Edition
I have been contemplating buying an 01 Limited Edition for a while-main reasons being I have always loved the Navitimer, but more because of the see through case back.Now with a new 46mm Navitimer coming out, I am drawn to the new model because of its larger size ( I have largish hands/wrists) and it has a see through case back as well.Given the 2 options- what would people most prefer? Does the limited edition version command a premium and have a better collectibility factor, or has that just been squashed because of the new 46mm version?

Review and Details of New PO and SMP Prototypes at Omega Boutique L.A.
Today I went to the Omega Boutique in Los Angeles to check out the new Planet Ocean Ceramic and Seamaster Pro Ceramic. Before I post the details, I would like to thank the employees of Omega Boutique Los Angeles who brought out the watches for me to inspect personally and answered all my questions and were very, very helpful and patient. I was very impressed by their level of service.I was informed that the Omega Boutique Los Angeles is the only boutique in the United States to have these watches. They have most of the BaselWorld 2011 watches, but not all of them. The watches are stamped not for resale on the inside of the clasp and are in fact prototypes and have no serial numbers on the lugs. These prototypes are supposed to tour the boutiques in the U.S. I did not take my digital camera because I thought I would not be allowed to take pics.....I was right :)Now on to the details, I'll start with my favorite........Omega Seamaster Professional (Blue dial) 41mmRef. No. 212.3041.20.03

Looking to get a white dial PAM
I've always wanted to get a white dial watch, and never thought about Panerai until I sat next to a guy on a plane wearing one. It was a good looking watch!I'm looking at the PAM 655 and the PAM 1523. I see there are some small differences between the radioMir and Luminor, but why such the big price difference?The RadioMir is $10000 MSRP and the Luminor is $7400 MSRP. There only seem to be a few minor differences between the P4000 and P9010 movement.Can anyone tell me what I'm missing here?