The Lady Gaga of Chronographs

Unless you were living in a cave for the past month you know one of the most popular "new" watches presented at Basel this year was the Tudor Heritage Chronograph.  It's as flashy and just about as popular as Lady Gaga the singer...maybe.

The Heritage chronograph is basically a revamped version of the 1970s Tudor chronograph collector's have dubbed the "Homeplate" due to the shape of the hour markers.

What I find really interesting, is that this is the first time Tudor (and/or its parent Rolex) have offered a fabric strap as OEM on a watch since the milsubs of the 1970s.  If I were to get one, I would choose the grey dial with the fabric strap.

 Photo copyright © 2010 Jocke

Street Legal Rally Car

If I was in the market for a new car and I had the money I would love to get the 2010 Subaru Impreza WRX STi SE.  And I would get it in the limited edition Alpine White color.

Basel 2010

Jocke and Tony made their annual pilgrimage to the Basel Watch Fair in Switzerland and brought back great photos of this year's offerings.  

One of the new novelties I really like is the new, larger 39 mm Explorer (ref. 214270) from Rolex.  The dial is matte black and the 3, 6, 9 quarter arabics are totally devoid of luminous making this model a new "Blackout" Explorer.

According to the specs the updated watch also uses a new movement; the cal. 3132 which is supposedly larger in diameter than the cal. 3130 used in the current Explorer.  The cal. 3132 also uses the Parachrom amagnetic balance spring and Paraflex shock protection, both of which are proprietary to Rolex.  The luminous on the dial and hands is Chromalight which Rolex is now using to replace Super Luminova.  Oddly, the hands used on the new Explorer appear to be the same hands used on the 36 mm ref. 114270.  That makes them a little too short to be used on this watch.  I hope Rolex makes the hands on the production models a little longer to better fit the increased dial size.

 Photo copyright © 2010 Jocke

You can view Jocke's and Tony's Basel trip here.

My Daily Wear

My current daily wear is my new MkII Quad10.  This is one of the last ten Quad10 watches Bill Yao made before discontinuing the model.  The legibility of the dial and hands can't be beat.  The size is also just right.  I hesitated ordering a Quad10 years ago because of some of the past reviews/comments that the lugs were too long or that the watch itself was too big.  On my wrist at least those fears have proven unfounded.

The MkII Vantage in the background isn't bad either :-)  That was my previous daily wear before the Quad10 was delivered.  If you haven't owned, seen or handled MkII watches in person before, think of them as watches with Omega quality at a Hamilton price-point.  I was going to use Seiko to illustrate the price disparity, but both Seiko and MkII prices have gone up over the years ;-)

Not Ready For Primetime Orange-hand Explorer II

It appears that Rolex shelved the release of the new and updated Explorer II at this year's Basel Watch Fair.  A marketing video was posted that showed the new stainless steel Submariner with the Cerachrom bezel insert; the new 31mm Lady Datejust with a chocolate dial; the new 39mm Explorer, and snuck inside the middle, the new Explorer II.

What we can make out from the video the updated Explorer II has a white maxi dial with maxi hour, minute, and seconds hand.  The 24-hour hand has been changed from the red shaft with arrowhead to an orange hand reminiscent of the one on the ref.1655 Explorer II.  However, this time the entire hand is orange.  It also appears that the Explorer II uses a supercase, but retains a Twinlock crown (I think it's the same larger Twinlock as found in the Milgauss).  The bracelet and clasp look like they've been updated as well.  Finally, the words "Explorer II" are written in orange on the dial to match the 24-hour hand.

I really like this watch and I'm somewhat disappointed that Rolex didn't release it this year.  Rumor has it that it will be released next year.  This makes sense if you consider that 2011 marks the 40th anniversary since the Explorer II was originally launched.  Well, that gives me more than a year to save up for one ;-)

I applaud Rolex for their current trend of updating almost their entire lineup.  Rather than just adding more diamonds to a dial or bezel as we've seen in the past, they are really making some substantial changes.  

1971

 
2011(?)

Blog Reboot

After an absence of more than 3 years I'm going to start-up this blog again.  First up is a name change from the original and elegant "Hesalite's Shatterproof Properties" to the more prosaic "Chronoarticle," along with the requisite update to the blog's url.