While this check out first turned out, some Replica TAG Heuer Super Mario also portrayed doubts. Montblanc's 1858 set, named after the season of the institution of meinaihua, is mostly motivated by the typical works of meinaihua. It would appear that the athletics watch inside series includes a good climbing theme. How do it use the snorkeling watch? Actually , Montblanc has turned diving pieces a long time ago, yet after the generation was ceased, Montblanc dive watches faded. Montblanc undoubtedly doesn't would like to keep the most favored sports looks after in the market bare, so I be aware that it would like to enrich the brand name through the fresh watches. Additionally, the new diving watches fit in with the 1858 classic string. Montblanc at the same time introduced the general design of the watches, Inspired from the highest maximum of the Alps, Mont Blanc, which is represented by the manufacturer and business logo, the unique field of its polar environment sea and also glacier during the north associated with Mont Blafard mountains is integrated into the table design and style. At present, the newest watch is merely made of great steel, using a case size of 41mm and also a modern mens watch regarding gold sizing, with a fullness of 10. 9. The key body of the truth is satin brushed along with polished on the edges in addition to corners. Often the crown on the reverse side of the sit back and watch is finished and printed with Montblanc hexagonal light star symbol. This logo is also based on the shape involving Mont Blême from the point of view of missing. As a specialist diving hour or so meter, the watch has passed the actual ISO 6425 standard qualification, and the water-proof performance can be 300 feets. Montblanc in addition has reinforced the particular parts of this timepiece. A black color ceramic one way rotating watch ring is actually mounted on the shell. Through the 15 second diving moment, Montblanc moreover made a new two-color result. The charcoal one is ebony gray, along with the blue plus green watches are staggered in depth. The 3 colors on this new product also come from the glacier. Take the dark colored theme launched today for example. The black glacier is a color that may appear as soon as the glacier the rocks without any pollutants and bubbles absorbs adequate light. The exact polar locations will also have got volcanic soft wood deposition, bringing about the creation of dark glaciers. So that you can add the first texture with the glacier for the table, Montblanc came up with the concept of using the old craft "gratt é Boqueteau é" to help specially enhance the watch dial. The dial surface has to be made by means of meticulous handbook processes, which includes printing, piece of art and buffing. After each and every process will be completed, typically the dial has to be left to be dried overnight just before continuing. These kinds of repeated functions finally show the depth and even gloss of your glacier, By means of our close up focus contact lens, we can see the effect is in fact like a cote dot that will draw your glacier structure. The texture of each and every table is definitely the same, as well as largest area point is usually below the 6o'clock glacier routine. At 3o'clock on the section, there is a white colored date show window over a black record.

Replica Piaget Altiplano Ultimate used to pride – and finance – itself on its long-term achievements in crafting remarkably thin watches. All was well as long as they could rule in this game, sometimes by greater and sometimes rather minuscule margins. In recent years, however, we have witnessed Piaget lose focus not just of the luxury watch market in general, but also of its true self. The Polo S saw mixed reception at best, the 60th anniversary, totally run-of-the-mill Altiplanos displayed a depressing lack of creativity, with the only pieces in recent memory keeping the faintest positive idea of the brand having been the record-thin automatic Altiplano and these two marquetry stone-dialed tourbillon beauties (hands-on here). Another sparkle of hope for the brand comes in the ultra-delicate shape of the Piaget Altiplano Ultimate Concept watch.How does this Ultimate Concept fit into the world of Piaget? What difference will it actually make for them or the luxury watch market? Will we ever see something like this in production? These were my questions after seeing this new, one of a kind exercise in thin watchmaking.Fit into Piaget it does, of course, because it’s a thin watch produced by a brand whose modern image was largely built on thin watches. It’s also fitting as Bulgari has been taking all the limelight lately when it comes to breaking thin watch records – they have totally blindsided Piaget and took over in just a few years, years that slip by really fast when it comes to products that take so long to develop.Whether or not it will make a difference in the luxury watch market is a difficult question. It makes a difference in the sense that it gives a brief – and hence passing – proof that Piaget is alive, even if not well. Halo products (or “ultimate concepts”) can make a difference, but I think it is a rather moot exercise when the larger selection of actually available and relatively competitively priced products is lackluster at best. Sure, Piaget is still a strong brand to turn to if you want some super niche, neatly made, rare piece – but as far as main collections are concerned, there’s a lot of work to be done.To achieve and maintain the Altiplano Ultimate Concept’s remarkable thinness, Piaget had to use a number of clever and tricky engineering solutions. This includes a base-plate/caseback design that merges the two pieces into one, with the wheels and other components being fitted directly to the caseback. This ingenious solution is not new, in fact, it made its debut in ETA’s Delirium Tremens record-thin watch in the late 1970s (I think Delirium Tremens IV but I could be wrong), and has been used by Swatch ever since, along with a few other brands and watches, including Piaget’s famed 900P caliber.Piaget took things to the next level and removed as much of the top plate as possible. The barrel and many other parts function similarly to how a flying tourbillon works – they are only supported and fixed from underneath, but not from above. This of course wouldn’t be possible with just one jewel underneath and nothing but the hopes of engineers above, so many of these parts use ball bearings underneath. As such, overall jewel count dropped to just 13.Add to all this the fact that everything was made as slim as possible: many of the wheels are now just 0.12mm thick, coming in at about 60% of their usual selves. The mainspring also lost its drum and cover, so one can now easily see how wound the Piaget Altiplano Ultimate Concept is – power reserve, by the way, is an impressive 44 hours.With the Piaget Altiplano Ultimate Concept having a case that is just 2mm thick (that’s the full case, not just the movement), the case was to be designed as rigid as it could possibly be. Craft it from ordinary materials and you could feasibly bend the case and do so just enough to also bend the wheels while doing so, damaging them and the movement. Using a soft metal like gold and strapping the watch onto your wrist tightly enough just once could break the watch for good. To avoid this from happening Piaget found the elegant solution of not removing the strap but rather using a cobalt based alloy for the case and base-plate, hence rendering the whole thing allegedly rigid enough. I say allegedly, because no one was allowed to put this thing on.On a side note, the watch was to be handled by a watchmaker only – although I did get the chance to move the watch around a bit in a padded tray for photography, a gesture I did appreciate. I just roll my eyes when “ordinary” watches that are showpieces at a show are being way too excessively protected by the brands as we try and get some hands-on footage. For a watch that’s only 2mm thick or if something is a numbered piece that will be sold during the show, I totally understand. But when it’s all for show and to make our lives that much harder, I do just roll my eyes – and carry on. Okay, side note rant over.Because the case is so flat, an ordinary crown could not have been fitted and so a flat, rectangular one is integrated into the case at its usual position, at 3 o’clock. It reminds me of Richemont sister brand’s Cartier Clé. The keyless works – i.e. the components linked to the crown – have also been re-engineered to reduce its size and component count as much as possible. It goes without saying that there’s no date or other functionality, so the crown’s duties are limited to setting the hours and minutes, and winding up the hand-wound caliber. What’s better still is that Piaget has designed a special winding tool for the crown, for it’s so small (and I presume fragile), that they deemed it more ideal and easier to use a tool that would hold onto the case and allow one to wind the watch with it. See it in action above!For horological geeks perhaps the most impressive development behind this remarkable thinness is the patented construction of the balance wheel. It comes with an inverted layout with the balance sitting above the hairspring, without a cock or bridge to secure it from above. The same method that we mentioned above is used here: the balance staff turns on ball bearings integrated within the base of the staff; its rate can be adjusted with a mobile stud underneath, exposed via an arched cut-out of the plate.

The hands have also been reduced and recessed: they turn in recessed areas to ensure that they don’t get pressed against the 0.2mm thick (!) sapphire crystal front, should that deform even the slightest. Still, legibility is pretty good, even if the hands are far from being the correct length, I can certainly admire the effort that this ultra-thin movement is going through to drive them accurately and with ample torque.Funnily enough, the end result is a watch that weighs the same and looks about as thick as a stack of 5 pieces of A4 paper, coming in just under 22 grams. Attached to this featherweight case is a super slim alligator strap – most straps would look ridiculous on this filigree case. The strap, Piaget say, even has some Kevlar sewn into its center to keep it from tearing or wearing too easily – probably in a parallel universe where it would actually be worn and not sitting in a case.In conclusion, Piaget has solved many issues linked to a watch this thin being worn out in the real world. Since many of the brand’s creations are in the money-no-object league anyway, perhaps we’ll see a few pieces (perhaps a bit thicker but still record-thin) make it into collectors’ hands. The question, as with any other concept product, is how much of this work will be transferred into “mass produced” products. The Kevlar-reinforced strap is a neat idea and so are the “flying mainsprings” and other parts.The Replica Piaget Altiplano Ultimate Concept (should it have been called the Ultiplano?) is Piaget doing its homework well – extremely well, in fact. One gets the idea that it was done to convince its judges – at the end of the road, the brand’s customers – that the company still has what it takes. I am absolutely eager to see at least some of this Ultimate Concept – not just its technicalities, but its daring, off-limits creativity – find its way into Piaget’s attainable watches. Hear, hear! Until that happens though, this watch will just remain what it says on the tin: the “Ultimate Concept.” As such, it doesn’t even have a price

It was just a bit earlier today that we debuted the A. Lange & Söhne 1815 Tourbillon Handwerkskunst here, but as we have been spending the last few days in Dresden with A. Lange & Söhne to celebrate the 200th anniversary of company founder Ferdinand Adolph Lange’s birth, we were quick to go hands-on with this stunning new release.
The A. Lange & Söhne 1815 Tourbillon Handwerkskunst is just the fifth Handwerkskunst – I just love the chime of that word – watch ever released by Lange. That word is for “artisanship” in German, and while no other Lange watch that lacks this special designation in its name is short of such an attribute, the Glashütte-based manufacture uses this term to differentiate its highly limited edition watches that showcase the absolute pinnacle in craftsmanship.
While always mechanically complex, Lange’s Handwerkskunst watches do not differ that much – or at all – from their siblings in the high complication pieces from the brand’s main collections. As such, the 1815 Tourbillon that was released last year (hands-on here) has the same L102.1 in-house movement inside as this A. Lange & Söhne 1815 Tourbillon Handwerkskunst piece. Because it is a remarkable piece of engineering, let us first discuss the movement and then move onto the “kunst” part of it all, the dial.
Lange claims to be treating all components in all of its watches equally in the sense that the quality of finishing for parts in its entry-level collection will be as good as it is on their ultra high-end pieces. Now, having had the privilege to handle watches from both ends of the Lange food chain, we can say that claim holds perfectly true – and gives us yet one more good reason to take a closer look at this manufacture caliber. What sets the L102.1 movement inside the A. Lange & Söhne 1815 Tourbillon Handwerkskunst apart from the googolplex of other tourbillons is the addition of two neat, albeit arguably “niche” features.

With the A lange sohne 1815 tourbillon replica last year, Lange debuted the first tourbillon movement that allowed for not only the stopping (or “hacking,” as it is also often called) of the tourbillon when the crown is pulled out, but also for the simultaneous resetting of the seconds hand to the zero position. Both functions were developed in an effort to create a tourbillon movement that allowed for a more convenient setting to a reference time, which in turn, allows for checking just how impressive the chronometric performance of the 1815 Tourbillon actually is.
On a side note, while the last decade or so has seen most all luxury watch brands debut their own tourbillon watches – often advertising them as the next step in mechanical timekeeping accuracy – most all have failed to actually create a tourbillon movement that could be accurately set to a reference time source. And while, yes, we are talking about pushing the boundaries of what can and should be realistically done in a mechanical movement, Lange’s mechanical solutions have always been as elegant and refined as the deceivingly simple and solid aesthetics of their watches.
In 1997, Lange developed the zero-reset function for the running seconds and, in 2008, the stop-seconds device for the tourbillon. Interestingly, the former sounds considerably more complicated to develop, and yet, it was the latter that came, well, some 11 years later. The way it works is that when the crown is pulled out into the time-setting position, a fine, curved piece of metal touches the balance wheel, “hacking it,” and stopping it from moving. This essentially stops the movement, while a reset hammer interferes with a heart-shaped cam on the seconds hand, resetting it in the same way as the indications are reset on just about every normal mechanical chronograph watch.
In 2014, Lange paired these two functions in the 1815 Tourbillon, and again, a feature lifted from normal hacking mechanical movements and a reset function lifted from chronographs find their way into one of the most detailed and exquisitely crafted pieces A. Lange & Söhne has ever produced.
Because, again, according to Lange, all movement components display the same level of refinement and quality, what sets the Handwerkskunst apart from other pieces is the unique finishing on some other components, such as the dials. For the A. Lange & Söhne 1815 Tourbillon Handwerkskunst, the main difference between it and the 2014 version of the 1815 Tourbillon is the dial. Made of black rhodium-plated pink gold, this highly legible dial plays in shades of grey, thanks to a decoration technique called “tremblage engraving.” The engraver uses a lining burin to crate a uniform, fine granular structure – a texture visually comparable to frost finishing, only more defined and displaying larger holes and dents in the dial.
The pink gold and grey dial of the A. Lange & Söhne 1815 Tourbillon Handwerkskunst is so unique because it is uniform and irregular at the same time. Uniform in the sense that the texture of it looks dense and rich, and irregular because there are certain “zones” in the dial that your eyes can visually separate, giving away the fact that it was crafted by a human and not by super-accurate machines.
The raised and high polished elements of the dial, as well as the large, beautifully legible hands (all in pink gold) contrast sharply against the elegant grey of the dial. Once the tremblage engraving is complete, the indices, the individual letters of the brand name, as well as the semi-circular arc are polished and then given what appears to be a subtle, albeit visible brushed finishing. The result is a dial that offers a smart and indeed stunningly beautiful play on proportions, textures and colors.
A large cut-out between 4 and 8 o’clock on the dial reveals the 1-minute tourbillon and its polished upper bridge. Interestingly, the key components of the zero-reset and hacking mechanisms are visible – though the latter only shows up when it is in use. Given that both of these features were developed to allow for a more accurate setting and reading of the time, it is good to see that a second track runs around the periphery of this aperture, with an accurately sized and legible sub-seconds hand in blued steel indicating the running seconds.
Ready to be released early next year as part of a 30-piece limited run in a 39.5-millimeter-wide pink gold case, the fifth ever Handwerkskunst piece from A. Lange & Söhne is a terrific continuation to what hopefully will be an expansive series of exquisitely crafted watches. Price for one of the 30 A. Lange & Söhne 1815 Tourbillon