How To Follow HODINKEE During Baselworld 2017
Well, the time is upon us. It’s almost Baselworld 2017. It feels like just yesterday we were showing you the Rolex Daytona in steel with Cerachrome bezel and the Patek Philippe ref. 5930G. The show starts Wednesday and we have eight (yes, eight) editors, writers, and producers on the ground in Switzerland to bring you the best live coverage you’ll find anywhere. Here’s how to follow along every step of the way – we promise you’re not going to want to miss a single post.
BASEL BUILDUP: We’re about to enter the single most-hyped week of the watch calendar. Every brand is bringing the full weight of their marketing arsenal to bear. Ambassadors, VVIPs, glitz and glamour – Baselworld has it all. But not every brand plays this game. Take Patek and the technical virtuosity that is the 5930G for example, a watch that arrived with virtually no fanfare aside from the ringing in the ears we experienced when we first saw it… Last year Patek Philippe’s showstopper Basel release was the Calatrava Pilot Travel Time. Perhaps the most notable feature of Patek’s foray into the world of aviation watches was just how polarising it was. While diehard PP fans quickly dug into the archives to prove the wildly off-brand model actually had a forebear, most of the watch world issued a pretty heavy shrug – yeah, it was a pilot, sure to draw a younger crowd, but it was also in white gold and not at a price point that was going to unlock younger wallets. In other words, it created conversation. It was genuinely divisive. Fast-forward to Basel 2016 and Patek’s headline release, the reference 5930G World Time Chronograph is about as far removed…
And here we go for Part 2, in which we share our infinite wisdom (and more often our wild guesses) about what might be coming in the next week of watch releases. What, you missed Part 1? Here you go.
It’s very easy to say, on day two of Baselworld, “oh yes, I saw that one coming”. It’s much harder to get it right two days before the big dance. Which is what we’re attempting to do in these two, probably ill-fated videos. Part one features Omega, Patek Philippe, TAG Heuer, and Longines. In part two, we consult our crystal ball for new releases by Seiko, Tudor, Hublot and Rolex. Our decision to make this video already seems questionable. Because I swear my notes included a prediction Patek would release a casual sports steel chronograph, I swear!
BASEL BUILDUP: It’s happy families at Time+Tide most of the time. We have our likes, dislikes. But it’s horses for courses, and it’s cool. That said, if there’s any setting that causes a bit of healthy conflict, it’s the Baselworld experience. And by about day four it’s a pressure cooker. This is about when we wrote this story last year, and no doubt we’ll write something similar in 2017. Picture Felix and I lacing up the gloves as we speak. You can decide who’s the guy in white and who’s the roo…. Mummy and daddy are fighting again. But sometimes it’s for a very good reason. Good relationships rely on clear and honest communication. And if you’ve run into Felix and I around the halls of Baselworld this year, the chances are you’ve seen us openly and honestly communicating. Sorry for the shouting in public, but we don’t always agree. And that’s why, hopefully, Time+Tide is bearable to read. It’s also why we’re continuing to open the site to new voices. We hope you’ve enjoyed recent contributions from Ceri David, Justin Mastine-Frost, and David Chalmers as much as we have. But when it comes to Felix and I, well, we like to come at…
We don’t talk much about quartz here at Time+Tide, and that’s usually for a good reason. Most quartz watches are pretty boring. There are, however, some exceptional quartz technologies out there, and the just-announced Longines Conquest VHP is a great example of this. VHP stands for Very High Precision and it is, believe it or not, a reissue of a model originally released in 1984, when ultra-accurate quartz represented one of the watch world’s great frontiers. As you’d expect from a watch with precision in the name (albeit in acronym form), accuracy is a key feature. The Conquest VHP boasts a deviation of +5/-5 seconds a year, compared to an accuracy range of some 25 seconds per month for regular watches. These impressive figures are due to a movement developed by ETA exclusively for Longines, which offers a host of features absent from your typical quartz, including thermo-compensation, five-year battery and a gear position system designed to help the hands re-align in case of shocks or magnetic displacement. Aside from the impressive tech specs, the Conquest VHP line looks handsome too – offered in three-hand/calendar and chronograph options, in an array of sizes and blue, black silvered or carbon fibre dials. Not bad, Longines, not…