pre-Baselworld 2015 hype

Eoin

Any new releases caught your eye?

Omega seem to have gone a bit mental, with this "white side of the moon":



Tudor now have an in-house movement, and COSC certified too. Mixed reactions about this model, but I really like it. Reminds me of a Milgauss/Ingenieur type thing. Not too dressy, but really versatile.



Kairos still pushing their smart / mechanical watch hybrid, but I'll continue to be sceptical it'll actually be available any time soon



And I'm guessing Rolex will be releasing a slightly different colour combo on their sub which people will go nuts for.

Speaking of which, a new colour combo for this Junghans - not sure about this actually, think it works better with the black face. The pushers look different too, but I might be wrong.



I'm hoping to see some mental stuff from MB&F etc.

893bet

I like the Tudor but think it would be nicer without the power reserve. Love the braclet!

Wibbs

IMH Omega have gone full marketing mental and little else. I mean Apollo was near 50 years ago lads, get with the times and stop being lazy. You've enough very cool 70s stuff to be inspired by(steal). Patek have been at the cheap vino. The Pilots's is all very well and good, but you just know it's destined for vacuous Eurotrash in first class. Rolex introduced a rubber strap. :eek: OHMIGAWD they just invented the rubber strap!!. Not. I'm liking the simple Zenith dress watch. That Junghans is appealing to me too I have to say. The Longines diver chrono is cool too(but check out the bargain I'm not buying thread for an ongoing auction for the original albeit Wittnauer version…).

Umbongo uk

Its the new Snoopy speedy that disappoints me the most with its excessive lume and rather tacky slogans - completely losing the charm of the original.
Omega are milking the cash cow so hard nowadays that its integrity is starting to suffer.
As the owner of a couple of Omegas, Ive always been quite defensive of the brand in the past but recently, in its obsessive quest to pursue rolex, it seems to be losing its originality and identity.
In the recent past Omega have always been on the receiving end of a gentle ribbing for their many "limited edition" runs (of only 6,000,000,000 pieces), but some of their recent models look like oversized toys...
...harsh wording perhaps, but such a great brand, with such a great heritage, letting itself down so badly...

Umbongo uk

Just to balance out my previous post a little - that junghans looks rather nice - but, as with other models in the range, would need that strap changing out straight away. The right strap on that would take it a level up immediately.

Wibbs

Umbongo uk wrote: »

...harsh wording perhaps, but such a great brand, with such a great heritage, letting itself down so badly...

Nailed it U IMHO.

As you say they have a great heritage and a lot of back catalogue to dig into, yet Speedmaster and to a much lesser extent Seamaster is it. And when one considers the huge range and style of watches to have the name Seamaster on their dial the current range really does seem to be playing safe. They could certainly afford to "Do a Longines" and look to specific points in their past and take influence from them(as they have with the speedy at times). The Longines Legend diver has been selling like hotcakes. A few years back on forums Longines rarely got a look in the new watches end, since then there are even whole multipage threads devoted just to the LLD. In the Asian market Longines have been catching up and are now the third biggest selling brand in that neck of the woods(thought be fair historically they always had a strong cultural presence). The Seamaster range could easily provide a multitude of options there.

And that's before we get to dress watches which in your humble gobshítes opinion is a trend long overdue to return. Again they could look to Longines on this score. Their Conquest Heritage is selling strongly and it's smaller than trend and a near 100% copy of the original(try and get an original. Though I would say that… ).

One area that Omega could really make hay on, but it would take a serious amount of imagination and testicular fortitude and would likely be smothered at birth by the Swatch group, is high precision quartz. Yes I said it. I will now ban myself. Omega were in on the ground floor with that tech in the early 70's. They made a goodly chunk of the first Swiss production quartz the Beta 21. Then after a couple of years of a hiatus they really got the bit between their teeth with the MegaQuartz range. The ultimate of which was the Omega Marine Chronometer. It was the first watch that equaled the Harrison marine chronometers for accuracy(12 seconds per year IIRC). To this day, it's still about the most accurate personal timepiece you can wear that isn't tethered to a satellite or radio signal and is nigh on 40 years old(chews batteries like a bastid mind you...). Oh and as a lovely beefy bonus it was worn by Jaques Cousteau among others, names and faces that look great in ad campaigns.

As Bulova have shown this kind of high accuracy stuff sells and in a global market. It's making them a fair few quid, yet Omega, the company who nailed this in the 1970's are still peddling the Speedy as their Great White Hope and as Eoin has shown above, quite literally. We'll throw a veil of incredulous silence over the "Snoopy". Eh... W. T. F. as they say as Gaeilge.

Now the original Marine Chronometer ain't gonna get many takers today. It couldn't be anymore 1970's if it tried and not in a good way(I love it, but as ye all well know I'm quite mad). Imagine Nana Mouskouri did the wild thing with a fridge. In velour loon pants. However they could 21st century up the design. Run the quartz at a mad rate higher than in the past, say 5 megahertz and with Lithium batteries that takes care of the power consumption. Plus these days that sort of IT tech is a lot simpler to ready up and get to marker than in the past. Though I do reckon they'd have to make the seconds a sweep rather than a tick.

Now I have admitted I'm mad, but I reckon, just a bit, that I might be onto something.

My 3cents anyway.

PS yea I'm digging the Junghans myself, though feeling ditto on the strap.

Eoin

And on that note, here's a new model inspired by a different vintage model!



Edit:

ugh, and then another tacky 007 edition. Yes, that a 007 logo, with the 7 doubling up as a gun.

Menas

I was in Basel last week. The main exhibition centre is beside the hotel I was staying in. Very expensive town and country.
But in the main shopping area there are so many watch shops. Absolute heaven. Prices are similar to here, but apparently you can get tax back.
Sadly I was not in a position to be buying.
I was meeting a client over there. Had a good goo at the watches they were wearing. Two wore Glycines, 1 a Portuguese and 2 had Siekos.

893bet

People keep saying that omega are desperately pursuing rolex. I can't see it personally. The only way they are is through price increasess otherwise they are worlds apart IMO.

I agree that their line up is gone a little stale though. As someone said. Too many watches with sea master on the face that look nothing like eachother. But I guess that's a self fulfilling prophecy they created themselves through marketing that they can't get away from. The interest in their other models must be close to zero. I am an omega fan boy and wouldn't even consider a constellation or de ville as firstly I rarely like the design and secondly the residual value is horrendous.

Mredsnapper

I think the speedmaster and 007 marketing stuff is a real turn off and i don't get the ploprof at all. However I think the Globemaster with its Pie pan dial looks quite nice although expensive.

Umbongo uk

Mredsnapper wrote: »

I think the speedmaster and 007 marketing stuff is a real turn off and i don't get the ploprof at all. However I think the Globemaster with its Pie pan dial looks quite nice although expensive.

Agreed - I bought a PO a few years back, not because it was a "Bond watch", but the fact that it was certainly didnt hurt. Unfortunately, to these eyes, PO's with Bond logos on them are immediately relegated to the same league as, for instance, a "Transformers" watch.
Its one thing to wear a watch that was worn in a film and quite another to wear one with a film logo on it.

The return of the pie pan dial would have been quite a welcome one as far as Im concerned -were it not for that bezel which (and, yes I know Omega did fluted bezels years ago) makes it look like its trying very hard to look like a signature model of a certain other very successful watch brand...