Archive for October, 2009
Tag Heuer Monaco V4: The Inside Story
Posted by Matthew in Watch Stories on October 29, 2009
What will it come out from the watch desiners if the word of “watch” become just a concept of “time indicator” without any concreate image or textbook constraints? Tag Heuer’s engineers and designers’ answer is: the Monaco V4.
A Complete Break With Tradition
Tag Heuer has been well-known for being the “Swiss Avant-Garde” since 1860. Over the past 150 years, Tag Heuer has set new benchmarks for luxury sports watches again and again. This year, the premiere of their stunning Monaco V4 has again pushed the luxury watchmaking beyond limits.
Monaco V4 is the world’s first belt-driven watch that has been put into commercial production. Its protoype, the Monaco V4 Concept watch, was unveiled in 2004 at BaselWorld.
Like a car engine, the fundamental mechanical factors in a watch are: transmission, friction and power.
Until the V4, the principal components of the modern watch system, regardless of their complications, were generally based on the mechnical movements that were developed during the 18th and 19th century. But Monaco V4 creates a completely different system with the existing principles of watchmaking, turning that heritage upside down and inside out.
Transmission
Traditionally, watch movement use gears for transmision. But in Monaco V4, these were replaced with a world patent: the belt-driven transmission system, which requires no extra gears to send motion from point to another, and is thus more efficient and easier to maintain.
Energy
Before Monaco V4, the oscillating mass of a watch is superimposed on the movement and moves in a rotational manner. Tag Heuer revolutionized this with another worldwide patent: the linear mass, which doesn’t move back and forth but up and down on a track and is mounted on the world’s smallest ball bearings.
The Origin of Monaco V4
Monaco V4 is designed to give homage to Tag Heuer’s 150th anniversary and its flagship series: Monaco. The original Monaco’s outsized, square face impacted the conventional watchmaking aesthetics of a whole generation. Thus Monaco V4 inherit its predecessors’ iconic square face to showcase TAG Heuer’s newest breakthrough in high-end luxury design.
The name V4 derives from the V-shaped platinum main plate on which the movement’s four spring barrels are mounted.
Back in 2004, the Monaco V4 was presented as a Concept Watch, which is he world’s first watch with belt drives, linear mass and ball bearings. That was the prototype of the present version. At that time, many industry insiders thought V4 would not be put into commercial production because of the complicated technology required to made the watch is still not mature.
To ensure the best quality and the greatest reliability, engineers and designers took almost 5 years to finally make the concep watch come ture as a commercial reality.It is not an easy task to entirely rethink the mechanical watch architecture and create a brand new thing.
Great improvements have been made on the prototype watch in terms of the reliability and quality control. Engineers have to develop special calculation, modeling and simulation tools. It is said, the techniques used in the design, prototyping and production of the V4 are comparable to those used to develop complex aerospace systems.
Availability
Such is Monaco V4. It belongs to watch enthusiasts and connoisseurs who enjoy strong and innovative designs as well as mechnical complication.
The exclusive luxury timepiece comes in a limited edition of only 150 pieces, retailing at about 100,000 CHF. The first 75 pieces of Monaco V4 will be available in November at the occasion of the Tag Heuer’s 150th anniversary and the other half is scheduled to be available in June 2010.
Tag Heuer Monaco Replica Watches available.
Richard Mille Diver Watches RM 028 and RM 025
Posted by Matthew in Watch News on October 28, 2009
Richard Mille Diver Watch RM 028
Richard Mille seems to pay more attention to develop its diving watch line this year. After the debut of its first diving watch RM 025 at the beginning of this year, Richard Mille recently add a new member, RM 028, to its diving watch array.
RM 028 is largely engineered based on its predecessor but looks more mature. Both watches are water proof to 300 meters and covered with a 3-layer unidirection bezel with an innovative screw system. The screw system is designed to fasten and adjust the bezel. While RM 025 has 24 screws in the bezel, RM 028 has only 22. Actually I found those torque srews look like bullet holes, so the less the better.
Richard Mille Diver Watch RM 025
Featuring complicated watch face and huge sizes, both of these diver watches look like some kind of heavy-duty gear. I guess men like this kind of design. While the RM 025 is unreasonably large (50.70 mm x 19.20 mm ), the RM 028 is more modest, its diameter 47.00 mm and thickest point 14.60 mm.
The case of RM 028 has a little improvement in appearance and look more stylish. Its titanium tripartite case design with a screwed crown construction ensures a long term waterproof closure.
Another major difference between RM 025 and RM 028 is that RM 025 is a Tourbillon chronograph while RM 028 is an automatic watch, and it allows the level of automatic winding to be adjusted to the user’s lifestyle.
Overall, I prefer the Richard Mille RM 028 to RM 025.
Rolex Air King, An Old Warrior
Posted by Matthew in Watch Stories on October 21, 2009
Rolex Air King is probably the plainest timepiece in the Rolex watch family. No complicated chronograph subdials, no fancy tachymeter bezel, and there is even no day and date window on the watch. Why would such an ordinary watch exist in the Rolex wath lines?
There is no standard answers to this question. But I guess because there is a few people in this world would be the Rolex Air King fans for its simplicity and heroic history so Rolex keep the Air King collection so far.
Rolex Air King watch is an really an old warrior in the watch world because it has witnessed the second world war.
By the beginning of World War II, Rolex watches had already acquired enough prestige that British Royal Air Force pilot officers bought them to replace their inferior standard-issue watches. Impressed by this phenomenon, Hans Wilsdorf, founder of Rolex, decided to honor these flyers with a new line of highly precise and functional manual-wind Oysters that could be safely used in the sky.
The new range of watches were given the names of “Air Tiger”, “Air Lion”, “Air Giant” and “Air King”; they all used the legendary 10.5 hunter manual wind movement with 15 jewels and no shock protection on the balance staff. These new models were much larger than the previous manual wind watches, in order to fit in with the new look. Actually these watches were 32 to 33mm diameters, which is quite small from today’s point of view.
Unfortunately these watches were not popular so they were dropped from the catalogs in the early 1950s. Only the Air King remained and that gained an automatic movement. Since then the Air King has kept its place in the Rolex catalogue till now.
Back to the late 1960s, Rolex Air King was available in low carat gold, steel & gold and in a gold filled top steel back configuration. But now it is only available in stainless steel. It is this understated design that make the watch more like a battle-tested veteran, an old warrior. It is a watch that has inner beauty rather than flashy appearance, no wonder the former Republican president candidate John McCain would wear the Rolex Air King watch. It really fits his image.
Today, Rolex Air King is one of the longest continuously produced models in the whole Rolex watch line. Although Air-king is far from low priced but it is presently the lowest priced Rolex watch in the whole Rolex watch line. It lies inconspicuously in the Rolex catalog, waiting the visionary watch connoisseurs.
We have a comprehensive collection of old and modern Rolex Air King replica watches for both men and women, they are perfect gifts for those with low-keyed character.
An Overview of Rolex watch Collection
Posted by Matthew in Watch Stories on October 20, 2009
In the last two posts, we made a brief introduction to the Rolex history, probably now you will be more interested in the Rolex watches. But which Rolex collection will you buy? Do you want to know more about every collection of the Rolex watches to pick the one most fit you? Here we’ll list a comprehensive collection of all the present Rolex watch lines to give you a general understanding.
One of the rules for Rolex’s success lies in its simple and consistent watch lines. Instead of releasing brand new models, Rolex keeps refining the existing designs. For example, the Rolex Oyster Perpetual was first produced in 1931 it is still one of the most popular models in the Rolex product line.
The special in Rolex watch line is that Rolex keeps making improvements on their watches based on the feedback and wearing experiences of the Rolex watches owners. The updated version will usually inherit the name of the original version. For example, the Rolex Submariner was actually a model that was first introduced in 1953 but still keeps its name.
It is said Rolex offered three watch lines: Oyster Perpetual, Professional and Cellini. But now as we can see from the Rolex official website, there is only two watch lines: The Oyster Perpetual Collection and The Cellini Collection. It seems the Professional watch line, such as the Submariner, GMT-Master, ExplorerII and so on, has been merged into the Perpetual watch line.
The Oyster Perpetual Collection include:
* Air-King
* Date
* DateJust (introduced In 1945)
* DateJust 31 Mm
* Day-Date (introduced In 1956)
* Day-Date II
* Daytona
* Deepsea
* Explorer (introduced In 1954)
* Explorer II (introduced In 1971)
* GMT-Master II
* Lady-Datejust
* Lady-Perpetual
* Milgauss
* Pearlmaster
* Perpetual
* Royal Black
* Special Edition
* Submariner (introduced In 1953)
* Turn-O-Graph
* Yacht-Master (introduced In 1992)
* Yacht-Master II
The Cellini line is Rolex’s line of “dressy” watches. With many beautiful gold and sapphire crystal decorated on the watches, Cellini watches look more formal than the Oyster Perpetual line.
The Cellini models include:
* Cellinium
* Cellissima
* Cestello
* Danaos
* Orchid
* Quartz
* Prince
Rolex Innovations – The Rolex History (2)
Posted by Matthew in Watch Stories on October 19, 2009
A good name may be half done, but the rest of the foundation that make Rolex gained huge success was its innovations.
The modern Rolex is almost the prototype of all modern watches. Many useful watch functions we are familiar with, actually origins from Rolex: the waterproof case, the self winding movement, the date and day window in the dial, the GMT two time zone watch and the diving watch…
The Development of Wristwatch
Rolex’s first major success came from the sales of wristwatches.
Back in the age of the founding of Rolex, most of the watches were still pocket watches as most watch makers still had difficulty to produce accurate and reliable movements in small size that can fit in a wristwatch.
Being a perfectionist, Wilsdorf strived to improved the standards for smaller and more accurate movements. Finally he found a small Swiss company Aegler to supply movements small enough to be worn on the wrist.
In 1910, Rolex sent their first movement to the School of Horology in Switzerland. It was awarded the world’s first wrist watch chronometer rating. Later in 1914, Kew Observatory of the United Kingdom issued a certificate of precision to Wilsdorf and Davis (certification which only had been allotted to military stop watches of the British navy). The Rolex watches (called Wilsdorf and Davis by then) soon become known for their precision.
The First Waterproof Watch
Although accuracy was improved, there is other adverse factors that hinder the popularity of wristwatches. Being exposed to the environment, a wristwatch was more vulnerable than a pocket watch as dust and moisture would enter in the watch case through the winder (crown) and through the case itself.
Wilsdorf solved the problem by the invention of the “Screw Crown” that improves the sealing of the wrist watches. Recalling the difficulty in opening an oyster at a dinner party, Wilsdorf gave his creation an interesting name: Rolex Oyster.
Wilsdorf is not only an ingenious watchmaker, but also a brilliant marketer. To make his new Rolex Oyster model known to the world, Wilsdorf struck an agreement for an English Channel swimmer by the name of Mercedes Gleitze to wear one of the Rolex Oyster watches during her swim. He even sent a photographer to chronicle Gleitze’s endeavor. When Gleitze emerged triumphantly from the sea with her Rolex Oyster unscathed, the name of Rolex Oyster became the synonym of high-quality water-proof wristwatches. Rolex then soon opened a big market for wristwatches.
Ever since the production of the world’s first water-proof wristwatches, Rolex have made many other great inventions that shaped the modern watches. This is probably the most important reason why Rolex watches are so deeply loved by people all around the world.
You are also a Rolex fan? Then you can’t miss our splendid collection of Rolex replica watches. Become a member now and get the coupon code for a $20 discount!
Origin of Rolex – The Rolex History(1)
Posted by Matthew in Watch Stories on October 8, 2009
If one is asked to tell three brand names of high-end watches, Rolex may probably be the first name that one can immediately tell. Indeed, Rolex has built the impressive image as being a luxury watch brand worldwide.
So here my first post begins with Rolex. After reading the post, the name Rolex may not just mean a mere “luxury watch” to you. You may know more about the giant watchmaker, why it is so famed and have more ideas of why you should buy or wear a Rolex watch, or just a Rolex replica.
How a giant watchmaker was born
The history of Rolex is quite different from the other century-old watch makers who produced their own watches from the very beginning. Rolex began their business from assembling watches.
In 1905, Rolex founders, German watchmaker Hans Wilsdorf and his brother-in-law Alfred Davis found the company “Wilsdorf and Davis” in London. Their business was very simple: they just imported movements from Switzerland and installed them in watch cases made by another company, then sold to jewelers, who then put their own names on the dial. They only stamped “W&D” inside the caseback for their earliest watches.
The changes in name and base
W&D gained their first success for its leading wrist watch. In 1915 the company decided to use a more resounding name Rolex to replace the name “W&D”.
In 1919 Wilsdorf moved the company to Geneva, Switzerland because taxes and export duties on the silver and gold used for the watch cases in UK were too high.
In Geneva, the new company was called the Rolex Watch Company. Its name was later changed to Montres Rolex, SA and finally Rolex, SA.
The name Rolex
The name “Rolex” was just made up because it was easy to spell, easy to pronounce and short enough to fit on the face of a watch. Pretty surprised huh? You may think there is some meaning in the name Rolex, but actually there wasn’t any.
In fact, if you review some of the greatest brand names in the world, such as Benz, Kodak, Nike, and the hottest Google, you will find that they don’t indicate what their products are, but they finally become the synonym of the real product. Whenever the name Benz is referred, you will think of the auto.
I think the easy-to-remember name of Rolex definitely has played an important part in making the watch brand so polular in the world. For example, you may know that Patek Philippe and Vacheron Constantin are even more precious watches than Rolex, but you may not know how to pronounce it, and thus less people will know this information from you because they may less likely to remember what you say if you mumble the name.