Based in Bologna, Italy, North Eagle Military Watches sells Italian armed forces-themed watches. They offer the possibility of using custom dials and their automatic range starts with a Miyota automatic at EUR 220 up to a Dubois-Dépraz modular chronograph for EUR 850.
Watches can be ordered directly from their Website at www.northeagles.com.
Ril Concept is the brainchild of Roger Gilbert and Nathan Halfon, two finance professional buddies who shared a passion for watch collecting. Gilbert works between Chicago and London, Halfon works between Genva and London and together the jet-setters decided to create a company that would deliver lifestyle solution for timepieces, clothes, homeware, food and events.
Their first release is a timepiece, which as watch conoisseurs they have chose to model after the legendary Rolex Submariner worn by actor Sean Connery in the 1962 James Bond movie Dr. No.
image hotlinked from IAlreadyHaveAWatch.com
There are many Bond Submariner inspired projects, but Gilbert and Halfon are amongst the very few who tried to get the case design right.
credit www.fabricegueroux.com
Latter and more recent versions of the Rolex Submariner feature shoulders that protect the crown, but the original design was based on a shoulder-less Oyster case. Ril got it right, but on the other hand, the dial design seems to lack the same attention for detail: the Scuba features applied galvanic indexes while the vintage Rolex featured painted-only indexes.
My guess is that the founders choose to give a more qualitative feel to the dial. Sold for USD 999.00 and housing a Japanese movement (probably by Miyota), this watch is not what one could call “agressively” priced. It is set to play agains competitors who use Swiss movements. The Ril Scuba uses a flat scratch-proof sapphire crystal, which unfortunately goes away from the vintage look of the Rolex Submariner. Also, water-resitance of 30 meters (3 BAR) could be deemed insufficient, considering the nautical looks of the timepiece.
For every watch sold, Ril Concept will donate USD 6.00 to the housing and homeless charity Shelter. Those USD 6.00 barely represent 1% of the total retail price, wich leaves room for philantropic improvement…
I’ve had them on my To Do list for quite some time, but their Web site looks and navigation could sure benefit from a little nip and tuck and some Web 2.0 Mojo.
Based in Asia (I am going to assume Japan), Koony Sun has been developing and selling watches and accessories inspired by aviation. Their early collections, the First Aviator Museum Watch and the Heroic Pilot both seem to have met success.
Selling for USD 1,498.00, the First Aviator Museum Watch pays tribute to “Glider King” Otto Lilienthal. Featuring a 925 silver case, it is powered by a 21 jewels automatic movement (I am assuming Miyota 8205). The quartz Heroic Pilot, on the other hand, is designed with pilots in mind and features a gradient bezel that allows to use the 24h hand as a solar compass.
The company has been working on new designs with black PVD-coated stainless steel cases and luminous dials and hands, which I do find particularly colourful. The following watches are quartz-powered and retail between USD 2,000 < 2,500:
The Spirit of St-Louis Museum Pilot Watch pays tribute to Charles Lindbergh.
The Concorde Museum Pilot Watch pays tribute to the defunct turbojet-powered supersonic passenger airliner manufactured through a joint venture between the Aérospatiale and the British Aircraft Corporation.
The Airline Captain Museum Pilot Watch features a luminous dial with BIG numerals and 24h time reading.
Brendon Nunes, President of TrinTec Industries, kindly answered to my mail to confirm that they will be introducing new models later this year.
“…the ZULU-03 series will be driven by Miyota 8215 movements” wrote Mr. Nunes. “I now have physical samples of the ZULU-05 series in hand and the watches look fantastic.”
At the moment, Watchprojects.com can only show this picture, unveiled by aforementioned forumer Ricky Lee McBroom:
Spotted on OceanicTime, the Web’s reference blog for forum diving watches, here comes a new diving watch company called Artego. Inspired by the 1970 timepieces, their flagship collection Artego Diver comes with a rugged and reliable automatic Miyota 8215. The case is 45 mm in width for 15.5 mm in thickness and features a sapphire crystal with anti-reflection coating on the inside.
The case is available in stainless steel with full steel bezel or bezel with aluminium insert. The dial is available in black, orange or an unusual turqoise blue. Each model is available with brushed or blasted surface finish. The aluminium bezel insert is also available on a black PDV version. All watches come with the Artego stainless steel bracelet with diving buckle.
OceanicTime, the prominent blog specialized in diving watches, has exclusive information about the upcoming brand Helson watch company.
Judging by the picture available on the Helson Web site plash page, models, which will start shipping in November, will be available on brushed stainless steel or PVD-coated stainless steel. The dial, hands and bezel are available in a range of luminous coatings. As specified in the Super-Luminova table (pictured right), options seem to include the C3, dark yellow and dark orange references. You will find exclusive pictures of the different dial colours on OceanicTime.
We’ve already introduced Boschett on this blog, but dive watch resource OceanicTime now informs that the company has started taking orders for their Cave Dweller, which will start shipping in November.
Boschett has been busy upgrading their Cave Dweller which features the ubiquitous Miyota 8215, an automatic movement that we see more and more in independent watch projects, partly due to the shortage of ETA 28XX.
Deep Blue is releasing the Sea Diver 1K, a 46 mm stainless steel saturation diving watch housing a Japanese 8205 Miyota caliber. The black and orange dial versions are already sold out.
Watch business veteran George J. Fox set up to create his own brand of watches. Besides 4 collections featuring quartz movements, NFW has been working on a new rugged collection called the ViperFish. The sandwich case comes with a quartz chronograph and (of more interest to this blog) an automatic watch. OceanicTime has been posting pictures of the prototypes.
I think efforts to come up with original designs should always be saluted.
A new player called Môntrèk offers saturation diving, square and world time watches equipped with the Miyota 8215 automatic caliber. The watches are all rated to 1000 meters and use what seem to be stock designs.
I haven’t been able to locate an official website yet. Here is their Website.
image: detail of installation by Bronwyn Lace