Tag

titanium

Browsing
The Watches

Ulysse Nardin Adds Shark-Themed Great White Chronograph

Ulysse Nardin launches the Diver Chronograph 44mm Limited Edition Great White, a shark-themed version of its Diver Chronograph, and expands its fund-raising for shark conservation.

The Ulysse Nardin Diver Chronograph 44mm Limited Edition Great White.

The new watch is the latest of the Le Locle-based watchmaker’s extensive collection of shark-themed models. 

Ulysse Nardin launched its first such line in 2010 with the Diver Hammerhead and has added several shark-themed watches since that time, including the Diver Blue Shark (2019) and last year’s Diver Lemon Shark. Each debut included a fund-raising element for shark environmental health.

Ulysse Nardin pairs the debut of the new watch with several environmental initiatives. These include donating to One Percent For The Planet, which means Ulysse Nardin will donate one percent of annual sales of all “shark watches” to support non-profit organizations focused on sharks.

Mike Coots wears the new Ulysse Nardin Diver Chronograph 44mm Limited Edition Great White.

Ulysse Nardin will also partner with Sharktrust, a leading European shark conservation charity. In addition, the watchmaker adds shark expert and photographer Mike Coots to its ‘friends of the brand” list. 

The new watch is a 44mm titanium-cased chronograph with a white, unidirectional rotating rubberized bezel. The bezel frames a grey “shark skin” dial with blue and white accents and the words Great White just below the Ulysse Nardin logo.

Not surprisingly, you’ll find a shark silhouette on the watch’s white rubber strap. An image of a great white shark is stamped on the case back. As a serious dive watch, water resistance is a full 300 meters.

Inside Ulysse Nardin fits its excellent automatic Caliber UN-150 with silicon escapement wheel, anchor and balance spring.

Ulysse Nardin is making the Diver Chronograph 44mm Limited Edition Great White as a limited series of 300 pieces. Price: $13,300. 

by
Keep Reading
The Watches

Jacob & Co. to Auction a Tourbillon that Orbited Earth

Three months after a Jacob & Co. Astronomia Tourbillon Bucherer Blue triple-axis tourbillon returned to Earth after seventeen days on the International Space Station, the watch has started another tour, this time in New York City.

The Jacob & Co. Astronomia Tourbillon Bucherer Blue.

On July 26 at Sotheby’s the watchmaker is auctioning the watch to benefit the Davidson Institute of Science Education, an Israeli non-profit organization that serves as the educational arm of the Weizmann Institute of Science. Until then, the watch, a spectacular 50mm sapphire-cased tour-de-force, is available to see at the Bucherer 1888 TimeMachine (from July 11 to July 17), and will be on exhibit at the Sotheby’s New York galleries from July 21 to July 25.

Eytan Stibbe, wearing the Astronomia Tourbillon Bucherer Blue.

The Astronomia Tourbillon Bucherer Blue was worn on the wrist of philanthropist Eytan Stibbe during the Rakia mission, which returned April 25. Stibbe and the watch orbited Earth 273 times during that period, clocking more than 7 million miles.

The watch features four orbs that are in constant motion: the dial, tourbillon cage, a spherical diamond that reflects the moon, and a magnesium-lacquered globe that reflects the Earth. All are finished in the Bucherer Blue color, meant to reflect its place in the retailer’s collection of custom-made, similarly hued watches made in partnership with a wide range of Swiss watchmakers.

A back view of the Jacob & Co. Astronomia Bucherer Blue, showing moon orbit.

“The Astronomia tourbillon is a truly unique, groundbreaking timepiece that elevates the art of watchmaking above the Earth, above time,” says Jacob Arabov, Founder & Chairman of Jacob & Co. “So the very idea of sending this special Astronomia into space, as you can imagine, was very exciting. It’s only fitting that the Astronomia Bucherer Blue ends up revolving around the Earth. The watch had the same viewpoint on us as we usually have on it. This reversal is typical of the way I envision the creation of timepieces.”

The Astronomia Tourbillon Bucherer Blue (left) and the new EpicX Bucherer Blue.

EpicX Blue launches

The EpicX Bucherer Blue Edition

Along with the Astronomia tourbillon auction, Jacob & Co. and Bucherer are also launching the EpicX Bucherer Blue Edition, a manual-wind skeleton watch inspired by the International Space Station mission.

This watch, a limited edition of eighteen, will be available exclusively in the U.S. at Bucherer (pricing coming soon). It features a titanium caseback with an engraving of an astronaut, clad in a spacesuit and helmet, eyeing the Earth from space.

by
Keep Reading
The Watches

Ulysse Nardin Expands Diver X Skeleton

Building on its hot blue-hued Diver X Skeleton collection, Ulysse Nardin adds a new version, the Diver X Skeleton Black, which blackens the titanium watch’s openwork design and swaps in bright yellow accents to replace the orange color of the earlier model.

The new Ulysse Nardin Diver X Skeleton Black.

With the new 44mm dive watch, Ulysse Nardin extends its X-themed design within its well-stocked dive watch collection. As the third X-series model thus far in the dive series, the watch underscores its avant-garde design with a sharp-looking concave black carbon bezel and barrel cover, a clear view into its movement and a series of yellow dial and case accents.

Ulysse Nardin protects the automatic UN-371 movement (visible through the front and back of the case) with a domed sapphire front crystal, a sapphire back crystal and a case water resistant to 200 meters. The movement, which Ulysse Nardin originally created for its Blast Skeleton collection, has been improved with the addition of an oscillating X-shaped weight. Ulysse Nardin also coats the hands and indexes with white or yellow tinted SuperLuminova.

Ulysse Nardin calls the X-Skeleton design “one of the most technical and complex developments ever undertaken by Ulysse Nardin.” To make the hour indexes appear as if they are floating over the movement, technicians covertly connected them to what passes for a dial on this skeletonized watch. In addition, Ulysse Nardin built the dominant X atop the dial using multiple layers, each finished differently to better reflect the light that naturally streams into an open-worked dial.

Ulysse Nardin will make the Diver X Skeleton Black as a limited edition of 175. It will come with both a yellow rubber strap and a black fabric R-strap made of up-cycled polyamide derived from fishing nets. Price: $28,500.

 

Specifications: Ulysse Nardin Diver X Skeleton Black

(Limited edition of 175 timepieces)  

Movement: Automatic UN-372 Manufacture Caliber, skeletonized and with extra-large silicon oscillator, silicon escape wheel, anchor and balance spring. 21,600 Vph with 72-hour power reserve.

Dial: Skeleton dial, X-shaped black PVD, black indexes and hands with SuperLuminova.

Case: 44mm titanium black DLC sandblasted and satin finished, concave black Carbonium unidirectional rotating bezel with a domed sapphire glass. Case back is black DLC titanium with sapphire crystal. Water resistance to 200 meters.

Strap: Black R-Strap with scratch closing, 100% recycled fishing nets, yellow rubber strap with Ulysse Nardin black ceramic element at 6 o’clock and black ceramic and titanium deployant buckle.

Price: $25,800

 

by
Keep Reading
The Watches

Bulgari Launches Aluminum GMT Tribute to Italian Ship

With its new Aluminum GMT Amerigo Vespucci, Bulgari pays tribute to the Vespucci, a three-mast Italian navy training ship. The new watch, a limited edition of 1,000, is Bulgari’s second recent Aluminum Collection debut, arriving just weeks after the Aluminum Chronograph Ducati Special Edition.

The new Bulgari Aluminum GMT Amerigo Vespucci Special Edition.

As Bulgari’s sportiest design, the Bvlgari Aluminum series has long been one of the Italian-Swiss watchmaker and jeweler’s most successful collections, with its lightweight case and bold Bvlgari Bvlgari-branded black or blue rubber bezel.

Bulgari originally fit its Aluminum series with a mechatronic-quartz movement but updated the collection in 2020 with mechanical calibers. Here, Bulgari fits the new watch with its Caliber BVL 192, a GMT movement powering a dual-time display indicated by a yellow-tipped luminescent arrow hand.

The new watch’s dial displays both the Italian colors and the yellow hue found on the namesake ship. As the GMT hand rotates once in twenty-four hours, it indicates the hour within a chosen second time zone. Bulgari simplifies the timekeeping by marking the two twelve-hour zones in contrasting black and yellow to distinguish between day and night.

The Amerigo Vespucci, an Italian Navy training ship.

This 40mm aluminum watch is water-resistant to 100 meters and features a titanium caseback that is engraved with “Nave Scuola Amerigo Vespucci” and the motto: “Non chi cominicia ma quel che persevere” (Not he who begins, but he who perseveres).

As with all Bulgari aluminum watches, this latest model is fit with an articulated rubber strap. Price: $3,950, limited to 1000 pieces.

Specifications: Bulgari Aluminum GMT Amerigo Vespucci Special Edition

Movement: Automatic BVL Caliber 192 with GMT function (second time-zone indication) and 50-hour power reserve, 28,800 vph (4 Hz) frequency.

Case: 40mm aluminum, black DLC-coated titanium back, black rubber bezel, DLC-coated titanium crown,

Dial: Black bearing inscription, rhodium-plated hour-markers and hours and minutes hands filled with SuperLuminova, yellow rhodium-plated seconds hand, black and yellow 24- hour outer dial with an arrow-shaped GMT hand filled with SuperLuminova, date window at 3 o’clock. Water-resistant to 100 meters.

Strap: Rubber with aluminum links, aluminum pin buckle.

Price: $3,950 (1,000-piece limited edition)

 

by
Keep Reading
The Watches

Hublot and Samuel Ross Mesh For Titanium Tourbillon

Multi-disciplinary artist Samuel Ross teams with Hublot to create the Big Bang Tourbillon Samuel Ross, a stylized, hexagonal 44mm watch with titanium honeycomb mesh featured on its sapphire dial, case, case back and strap.

The new Hublot Big Bang Tourbillon Samuel Ross.

The debut is the Hublot ambassador’s first wristwatch built with the Swiss watchmaker, which has teamed with artists for more than a decade under its “Hublot Loves Art” initiative.

Hublot has worked with Ross previously, though not for a watch, when the watchmaker awarded Ross its Hublot Design Prize in 2019 as the artist unveiled a multi-material ‘fused’ sculpture designed to celebrate Hublot’s fortieth anniversary.

On the Big Bang Tourbillon Samuel Ross, the 30-year-old artist combines his signature use of color and geometry to make this lightweight, sporty tourbillon-regulated time-only watch. The watch’s multi-level sapphire and titanium dial is both eye-catching and technically impressive; its honeycomb caseback (below) delightfully mixes geometry and gearing.

Hublot explains that Ross opted for an orange color scheme to represent “energy and optimism” and has directed the color for the strap and accents on the crown and tourbillon bridge and lateral bumpers that protect the case. The bright color frames a grey, satin-finished case and bezel.

Inside Hublot sets its manufacture HUB6035 caliber (see specifications below) that offers an impressive seventy-two hours of power reserve. Hublot will make fifty Big Bang Tourbillon Samuel Ross watches.

Hublot is celebrating the debut by enveloping its Fifth Avenue boutique in New York City in orange. The ‘takeover’ will then be repeated in Hublot stores globally as the watch reaches showcases.

Price: $116,000.

Hublot Ambassador Samuel Ross, wearing the Big Bang Tourbillon Samuel Ross.

Specifications: Hublot Big Bang Tourbillon Samuel Ross

(Ref. 428.NX.0100.RX.SRA22)

Case: 44mm by 13.75mm satin-polished titanium with satin-finished case back and bezel. Water resistant to 30 meters.

Movement: Caliber HUB6035 with self-winding micro-rotor, skeleton tourbillon, frequency of 3 Hz (21,600 vph) and 72-hour power reserve.

Dial: Skeletonized with honeycomb pattern titanium, three sapphire bridges.

Strap: Orange rubber with titanium deployant buckle.

Price: $116,000.

 

by
Keep Reading