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SIHH 2015 has come and gone, and instead of immediately bringing you a “Top 5 Watches” or “Top 10 Watches”  — which we will surely do later on, nevertheless — we at FratelloWatches thought it might be interesting to pick a top new Breitling replica watches release from SIHH 2015 in five different categories.

The 2015 Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie included 16 watch brands, most of them part of the mighty Richemont Group. Once, there was only one event per year at which replica Breitling watches uk manufacturers showed their collections, namely during the much larger exhibition in Basel. At one point, some brands decided — for various reasons, but mainly to have a different and more luxurious atmosphere — to host their own exhibition at Geneva’s Palexpo building. This year, that exhibition, the SIHH, celebrated its 25th anniversary.

Since there is so much information coming your way already, in the shape of watch reviews, “Top 5/10/20″ lists, etc., I decided instead to highlight one Breitling fake watches in five categories that I created myself based mainly on the what I saw in Geneva. (One category that is not represented here is the diving watch category, but I will address that when I cover Panerai in another article.)

Ladies’ Watches

Although there were plenty of new Swiss replica watches for ladies, from various brands like Baume & Mercier, Cartier (with its new Clé de Cartier) and Audemars Piguet (with its nice lineup of ladies’ Millenary models), there was one watch that really stood out from the rest: the Richard Mille Tourbillon Fleur. Whether you like diamonds on a watch or not (many women certainly seem to), the mechanism inside this fake watches uk should interest anyone with a weak spot for mechanical watches. A beautifully painted magnolia flower opens and closes every five minutes (taking six seconds to do so) to demonstrate the flying tourbillon that is inside. When the magnolia opens, the tourbillon cage is lifted a bit outside the flower so it can be observed from various angles, and after five minutes the cage lowers into the movement again and the magnolia closes its five petals. This procedure can also be triggered manually, by pushing the button located at 9 o’clock. More about this fine timepiece can be found here.

Two-Tone Revival

In some parts of the world, the two-tone watch never really went away, and even remained very popular, but here in the Old World, two-tone Breitling replica watches uk were regarded for a long time as out of style. This doesn’t reflect my personal taste, by the way, as I have a weak spot for my Rolex Oyster Quartz in two-tone and wouldn’t mind owning a mint-condition Royal Oak 5402 in steel and gold. A few brands at the SIHH brought this fine combination of precious metal and stainless steel back into the picture, and Audemars Piguet had the most striking example, in my opinion. The Audemars Piguet Royal Oak 15400SR, a 41-mm, three-hand watch, will now be available in two-tone. It’s worth mentioning that this watch’s 36-mm predecessors from way back were also available in a steel-gold combination. The previously mentioned Royal Oak 5402 in two-tone is, of course, similar, but considered to be the “Jumbo” or “Extra-Thin” version. More about the new two-tone Audemars Piguet Royal Oak 15400SR can be found here.

Minute Repeaters are the New Tourbillons

I don’t make it a secret that the minute repeater complication is more interesting to me than a tourbillon. Although a tourbillon watch can often be very impressive, nothing beats the sound of a minute repeater. Although Audemars Piguet was able to produce the loudest and cleanest-sounding minute repeater with its Royal Oak Concept RD#1 watch, it was a prototype that won’t be in boutiques in the near future. So allow me to rule that one out. After that, the most impressive minute repeater of SIHH 2015, for me, was the A. Lange & Söhne Zeitwerk Minute Repeater. This minute repeater made in Glashütte, Germany is a “decimal” minute repeater, meaning that after activating the mechanism using the pusher at 10 o’clock, it strikes the hours, the 10 minutes (instead of the more common quarters), and the minutes. The Zeitwerk Minute Repeater also memorizes the actual time, so when you activate the minute repeater seven seconds (for example) before a new minute starts, it strikes the time as it was when you pushed the button. After the minute repeater finishes its job, the watch jumps to the correct time (and date). The replica Breitling watches for men is not limited by numbers, but purely by the capacity A. Lange & Söhne has to manufacture it.

Affordable Watches

A 440,000-euro minute repeater and a 1.3-million-Swiss franc tourbillon are botj beautiful to look at or listen to, but most of us are looking for a watch in a bit more modest price range. Although it seems that a lot of the Richemont Group brands are moving away from anything affordable these days, there are healthy exceptions from Montblanc and Baume & Mercier. Montblanc was the brand that surprised most of the visitors with its new and stunning affordable pieces. One of my personal favorite replica Montblanc watches of this year is this world-timer (or Spirit Orbis Terrarum as it is officially called, probably because it is so easy to remember and pronounce) from the Heritage collection. A beautiful and clever watch that will tell you the home time at a glance wherever you are in one of the 24 displayed time zones. It works with two sapphire blue (light and dark) discs to indicate day or night, and it’s priced just below 5,000 euros. Detailed information can be found here.

Chronographs

This is the second-most popular mechanical watch complication, if we include the date indication as being one, as well. In my book, it is also one of the most useful ones. SIHH 2015 showed us a lot of chronographs, from the ones added to divers’ watches by Panerai to the Royal Oak Offshore Tourbillon Chronograph. Piaget did something it is very good at, introducing a very thin chronograph — the Piaget Altiplano Chronograph in gold, which has a thickness of just 8.24 mm. Vacheron Constantin reached back to some of its historical pieces and introduced the beautiful Harmony Chronograph. However, my personal pick for the most beautiful chronograph this year is the A. Lange & Söhne Datograph Perpetual Calendar, combining the best of both worlds in a slightly updated version of this already existing 2015 cheap replica Breiitling watches. It was not what most would consider the highlight for A. Lange & Söhne this year — considering the Zeitwerk Minute Repeater and the revised iconic Lange 1 —but the new Datograph Perpetual Calendar is simply striking, even without the gong.

TAG Heuer is one of the world’s leading luxury Breitling replica watches brands, offering a strong history of innovation, deep connections with sports timing and automobile racing, and more recently, a series of groundbreaking developments in the field of ultra-fast mechanical chronographs. Here are ten things you should know about TAG Heuer.

Sporting Roots

Heuer Watch Company was founded in 1860 by Edouard Heuer. His first watchmaking workshop was located in St-Imier, in the Swiss Jura region. The company soon built a reputation for quality workmanship and precision timekeeping. That, coupled with a series of technical innovations dating to the 1880s, led the company to become a specialist in the field of timing sporting events. During the 1920s, Heuer watches were used at the Antwerp, Paris and Amsterdam Olympics. In 1933, the brand launched the Autavia, the first dashboard stopwatch for race cars. Other more famous developments receive individual attention below. The affinity with precision timekeeping in sports, and with automobile racing in particular, continues to this day.

In 1985, Heuer was acquired by TAG Group (Holdings) S.A. TAG is an abbreviation for Techniques d’Avant Garde. TAG Group combined the TAG and Heuer brands to create the TAG Heuer company we know today. LVMH purchased the TAG Heuer subsidiary in 1999.

Simplifying the Chronograph

Back in the days when good engineering trumped marketing concerns, movement designers sought to develop calibers with fewer moving parts, to make them more reliable and easier to service. In 1887, Edouard Heuer developed and patented the oscillating pinion, which simplified the chronograph. This construction is still used by major movement manufacturers today.

In a nutshell, the pinion couples and decouples the chronograph, or stopwatch, mechanism and the regular timekeeping gear train that powers it. The pinion replaced a more complex system, simplifying manufacturing, assembly, adjustment, and service, all while delivering excellent timekeeping and reliability. This development allowed more mechanical chronographs to be produced at a lower cost, which sounds like a win all the way around.

Faster and Faster

Another major technical achievement came in 1916, when Charles-Auguste Heuer launched the original Mikrograph. It was the first mechanical stopwatch able to measure 1/100th of a second. To accomplish this, the movement’s rate was 360,000 vph – ten times faster than the 36,000 vph chronographs that we usually think of as “fast.” The original Mikrograph revolutionized sports timekeeping and served as the official stopwatch for the 1920 Olympics.

First Swiss Watch in Space

When you think of mechanical watches in space, you think of, well, not TAG Heuer. But you should, because as it turns out, Heuer was the first Swiss replica watches in space.

In May, 1961, President John F. Kennedy announced his goal of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth by the end of the decade. The first step toward that goal was to put a man into orbit. That man was John Glenn, flying the Mercury “Friendship 7” mission on February 20, 1962. Glenn orbited the Earth three times wearing a Heuer 2915A stopwatch on his wrist, on top of his spacesuit, held in place by a custom-made elastic strap. The watch served as the mission back-up timer, and it was used in space. Today, the watch is kept at the National Air & Space Museum in Washington, D.C.

The Carrera

TAG Heuer’s most iconic models are associated with automobile racing, and one of the most famous is the Carrera. Jack Heuer suggested the name shortly after taking control of the company from his uncle (more on this below). The name comes from the Carrera Panamericana, a dangerous race run on public roads in Mexico from 1950 to 1954.

Jack Heuer wanted to create a watch for race car drivers. It had to be perfectly legible and tough enough to withstand the vibrations drivers experience during a race. The result is a best Cartier replica watches that has achieved cult status.

The Chronograph Race

When automatic winding wristwatches reached the market, they sold like hotcakes, leaving manual winders languishing on retailers’ shelves. Recognizing the need for an auto-wind chronograph, three companies and consortiums undertook to develop such a movement, none apparently aware of the others’ efforts. This set up a competition to see which company would reach the market first.

One of the competitors was Seiko, another was Zenith, and the third was a collaboration involving Heuer, Breitling and Buren. The collaboration developed a movement, and planned to announce it at the Basel watch show in March, 1969. By that time, they would have enough working prototypes to demonstrate serial-production capability. Then in January, 1969, Zenith announced its El Primero. Heuer and its partners held to their schedule, making their announcement at Basel in March. As planned, they backed up their claim by presenting hundreds of working top Swiss replica watches, demonstrating serial production, or industrial, capability. At the show, Zenith had only a few prototypes (though, to be fair, the Zenith El Primero caliber was more sophisticated).

Heuer launched the movement as the Caliber 11 and staked its claim to history as a developer of the first automatic winding chronograph caliber.

Let’s Go Racing

Several timepieces are closely associated with automobile racing, perhaps none more closely than the Heuer Monaco. Steve McQueen made the watch famous when he wore it in the 1971 film Le Mans. To play the role of driver Michael Delaney, McQueen sought advice from his friend and racing driver, Jo Siffert. In the film, McQueen wore Siffert’s driving suit, which carried the “Chronograph Heuer” logo. When it came time to chose his replica Breitling watches uk for the role, McQueen went with the Monaco, and the rest is history. Today, the model 1133 carries the collector nickname “McQueen Monaco.”

Jack Comes Back

After taking control of the company that bears his name in 1962, Jack Heuer led it until the acquisition by TAG Group in 1985, after which when he left to join the electronic industry. Jack’s stewardship encompassed the years that put the brand on the map. Among other things, he oversaw the Carrera development and launch and the Calibre 11 development program. He was there when Steve McQueen donned the Monaco for the film Le Mans. He presided over Heuer between 1971 to 1979, when the company served as the official timer for Formula 1 racing. (N.B. The Heuer logo is seen often in the recent feature film Rush, which chronicles the epic 1976 battle between drivers James Hunt and Niki Lauda.)

In 2001, Jack Heuer returned to the company bearing his family‘s name as Honorary Chairman, and following his return, TAG Heuer again reached new heights. We’ll discuss a few of the notable achievements below.

Jack Heuer retired from TAG Heuer on November 18, 2013, the day before his 81st birthday. Asked why he chose that date, he replied that he’d promised himself that he would not work beyond the age of 80. Jack is a gentleman, loved by all, and a legend in the industry he helped build.

Monaco V4

The Monaco was famous enough, but in 2004, TAG Heuer took it to a new level with the launch of the Monaco V4 concept watch at Baselworld. CEO Jean-Christophe Babin intended to make a statement with the V4. The statement was that TAG Heuer will climb to new heights, developing cutting edge, avante-garde mechanical movements.

The V4’s birth was not an easy one. It took a few years to perfect the design, but perfect it they did, and the first Monaco V4 sold at the 2009 Only Watch charity auction, appropriately held in Monaco. Since that sale, several limited-edition series have sold out.

The Monaco V4 proved such a challenge because its movement represented a major break from traditional Brietling replica watchmaking. Rather than the usual gear train and wheels with teeth, the V4’s movement is belt-driven, and the design is inspired by an automobile engine. Many people thought it would never work. That TAG Heuer solved the problems is a testament to the brand’s newly developed capabilities, much of which is thanks to a man named Guy Sémon.

Ultrafast

It used to be that a 36,000 vph movement, capable of measuring tenths of a second, was considered fast. Then an engineer-pilot-physicist named Guy Sémon joined TAG Heuer, and the world changed. After solving the V4’s challenges, his skunkworks inside TAG Heuer has released, in rapid succession, the Mikrograph (360,000 vph measuring 1/1ooth of a second), the Mikrotimer (3,600,000 vph, measuring 1/1000th of a second), and the Mikrogirder (7,200,000 vph measuring 1/ 2,000th of a second).

Sémon accomplished these ultrafast rates by designing what he calls “dual architecture” movements. Each movement has two separate mainspring barrels powering separate gear trains regulated by separate escapements, each with a different frequency. The slow one handles regular timekeeping, and the fast one controls the chronograph. The Mikrogirder goes a step further, replacing the traditional escapement with a series of three tiny, ever-faster oscillating blades to measure time at rates that would have sounded comical a few years ago. To get an idea of how fast it is, consider that the Mikrogirder’s central chronograph seconds hand spins around the dial 20 times per second, rendering it invisible while in motion. Sémon has ushered in a new era in mechanical chronograph development.

It’s not that anyone would need another reason to visit Vienna, but should you find yourself in Austria’s capital, and you are a timepiece aficionado, make sure you pay a visit to the Vienna Clock Museum.

The museum is located in an enchanting Viennese house (the “Palais Obizzi”) in the historical city. There are about 1,000 clocks and replica Breitling watches UK on display (only a few wristwatches, though, unfortunately) that “document the measurement of time and the technology of horology from the fifteenth century until the present day.” A visit should take about one hour, and if you are there at the top of the hour, you might even be treated to an acoustic spectacle, since many of the timepieces are running.

Some of the highlights include an astronomical clock made by David Ruetschmann (later known as Frater David a Sancto Cajetano) between 1762 and 1769 (which also displays the orbital phases of the planets; photos below), some “Laterndl” (lantern) Rolex replica watches sale, and a tiny “Zappler” (with pendulum) that fits under a thimble. The largest — and heaviest — piece in the collection is the clock from St Stephen’s Cathedral, dating to 1699.

The Museum itself was founded in 1917 and mainly consists of two private collections: that of intermediate-school teacher and first director of the museum Rudolf Kaftan, and nearly all the collection of the writer Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach, who has been quoted as saying, “My dear  cheap Breiitling replica watches,they make it hard for me to die.”

The museum is open from 10 am to 6 pm, admission is 6 Euros – and taking pictures is allowed. Go to pages 2 and 3 for more photos from the museum.