Tag Archives: made in great Britain

Charles Frodsham & Co

I have been meaning to post this piece for sometime. This is a discovery I made thanks to the Instagram postings of “The Watchnerd” ( #watchnerd).

Dial detail – Charles Frodsham wristwatch

 

A company that amazingly, after reading around the British watch world, I have never come across before; and as you can see from the image above they produce stunning watches.

Charles Frodsham & Co. are the longest continuously trading firm of chronometer manufacturers in the world, and are synonymous with precision timekeeping instruments of the highest quality; watches, clocks, regulators and wristwatches.

Charles was born into a dynasty of clock, watch and chronometer makers on the 15 April 1810. His father William James Frodsham (1779-1850) and Hannah Lambert had ten children, five of whom were apprenticed to their father and later became horologists in their own right.

Charles was educated at Christ’s Hospital, the Bluecoat School in Newgate, London, and as a condition of the Foundation, was apprenticed at the age of fourteen to his father William. He showed early promise submitting two chronometers (numbers 1 & 2) to the 1830 Premium Trials at Greenwich, No.2 gaining the second Premium prize of £170. A further nine chronometers were then entered for trial in subsequent years, until the termination of the Premium Trials, in 1836.

As at the moment I have no other source of information other than the companies website I suggest you go directly there www.frodsham.com  . I am now really curious to discover more about these watches which even seem to impress the famous Roger Smith.

Bremont Townhouse

Yesterday evening I was lucky enough to attend Bremont’s Townhouse event in London. This evening is the occasion during which Bremont present their new watches for 2018.

The evening kicked of with a presentation by the Arctic explorer and Bremont ambassador, Ben Saunders. As with other similar talks given by Bremont ambassadors, Ben gave a really interesting talk which make you feel like a super coach potato. Ben, with the help of Nick English, also managed to explain elegantly the justification for his relationship with Bremont. An explorer needs a reliable accurate watch to aid them with navigation which is especially important in the featureless terrain of the Arctic. The watch needs to be mechanical as quartz watches become less reliable in the extreme cold. An interesting fact I did not know.

The presentation of the watches was done with the usual Bremont style. I would only criticize the level of lighting, the low lights made it difficult to see the details of the watches well.

The star watch of the evening was the new Supermarine Endurance, the watch Ben used in the Arctic.

Supermarine Endurance

Supermarine Endurance

The second most eye catching new model for me was the U2/51-Jet.

Bremont U2/51-Jet

This is an update of the existing popular U2 model with the addition of the vintage lume previously seen on the limited edition P-51 watch.

I then managed a quick try of the new S-501 divers watch which adds the more vintage styling of the S-300 series to the larger watch. This change works very well as you can see below.

S-501

I finished off my quick visit with a quick look at the understated Airco range, in particular the new white and blue dialled variants.

Blue Dial Airco

It blue the colour for this year ?

A big thank you to the Bremont for yet another well organised and enjoyable event. I hope to look at these and other new watches more in depth in future posts.

Schofield Bronze Beater 2

If you don’t receive Schofields news letter you might have missed their latest announcement – The Bronze Beater 2 !

The Bronze Beater 2

The Bronze Beater B2 now in two finishes, raw and force-patinated. That is the raw at the bottom and the darker one above has been chemically treated to oxidise the case. The B2 will be available in less than two weeks!

The dials are double blue with a gold rim and centre. Luminescent numerals and hour markers with the other print in metallic bronze except the pink B. Hands are brushed bronze with little thorns as counterpoise.

Inside they will use an ETA 2824-2 Swiss auto.

Here are some more of Schofield’s excellent images showing more detail.

The Bronze Beater dial

Caseback

I am really looking forward to seeing these in the “bronze” at the Salon QP

 

Bronze watch on the beach

If you have been reading some of my previous posts or maybe seen my Instagram stream, you will know I have a Bronze Pinion Axis Pure LE for which I been giving updates on the development of the famous “bronze patina”.

Anyway slowly slowly the case of my watch  has been getting darker and I have been quiet pleased with the result.

Axis Pure – before my holiday

Having read about and seen the drastic effect contact with sea water can have with bronze , some examples I have seen such as some bronze Panerais or the Oris diver of which have gone pretty extreme. I was interested and slightly concerned how my watch would react to my two weeks in Sicily.

Before I show you the effects of seawater I must say the Axis Pure with a couple of Nato straps works out as a pretty good holiday watch. It is water resistant to at least 100m which avoids worrying about swimming. It is tough and any knocks it might take can only enhance its “lived in” look. Finally you don’t have that worry of it attracting the undesirable attention, some more famous Swiss brands get, from street criminals. With the bronze version you get the added interest of how the case will react to different environments like the chlorine of the swimming pool to salt water of the sea.

The conclusion is chlorine seems to have the effect of slightly brightening the metal whilst the sea is the most fun.

Pinion Axis Bronze + Sea water

The photos above and below where taken after the watch had been in the sea for an hour.

Pinion Axis Bronze + Sea water

My first thoughts were “wow, that looks pretty cool” quickly moved on to “will that come off?” Now I was pretty confident there are ways to bring the watch back to its original finish but I did not want to return to the “as new look` – fortunately with a bit of a rub you can bring the watch back to whatever level of patina you like.

My next experiment will be to leave the watch a little longer before taking it back to normal.

Pinion still have a few of the Bronze watches left and they are now available a special price here

https://pinionwatches.com/product/axis-pure-bronze/

Roger Smith – Grand Prix D’Horlogerie De Genève Jury

British Watchmaker – Roger Smith

This was obviously intended to be a Roger Smith week. I was planning to post a nice little video he had put on Twitter of a co-axial movement and then ….

I read he has been named as part of the jury for the prestigious 2017 Grand Prix D’Horologerie De Geneve. As well as a great personal honour for Roger I am sure we can take this as a great compliment to British watchmaking. Congratulations Roger !

Pinion – Piers Berry Interview

 

Piers Berry talks to "The Jewellery Editor"

Piers Berry talks to “The Jewellery Editor”

I thought this interview with Pier Berry of British watch brand nicely sums up many of the issues around the British watch revival.

http://www.thejewelleryeditor.com/watches/interview/truth-behind-revival-british-watchmaking-pinion-watches-piers-berry/

This event has now the highlight of my Grinidgetime calendar. It is an opportunity for me to meet in person many of the people I have been writing about over the year. Given the number of people that also want to meet these people I limit these meetings to a quick hello, just to put a face to Grinidgetime. Last year I managed to shake the hand of the great Roger Smith.  This year  there was at least his “Great Britain” watch.

Roger Smith - Great Britain

Roger Smith – Great Britain

Again, I have to mention I was disappointed that neither Meerson, Pinion or Schofield were exhibiting this year.  I was also disappointed that Farer did not have a stand, the brand caught me a little by surprise and I really like their new range of automatics.

Our first port of call was The Deep Time diver’s watch exhibition where I really enjoyed seeing an early Panerai, a Blancpain  Fifty Fathoms and an Eterna Kontiki  helps which remind us there are alternatives to Rolex Submariners. The first British stop was the Bremont stand, which disappointingly look identical to last year’s.  So I moved swiftly onto the first floor where  to see the Christopher Ward stand, this year featuring  Morgan three wheeler to highlight the relationship between the two companies. There was also  their star watchmaker Johannes Jahnke working away at a bench.

 Johannes Jahnke

Johannes Jahnke

Then up to the second floor where I almost literally bumped into Nicholas B-W of Fears Watches looking very pleased with himself. The show was going very well. Chatting with Nicholas he explained a little more to me about the philosophy of the brand. Apparently, he had been advised that the brands history would permit them to be much more upmarket. Nicholas explained that he thought this would be a betrayal of what the brand had been, good value watches with Swiss movements. He went on to explain that one key design feature of the Radcliff watch was legibility in the dark, interestingly having the date window is key in being able to orientate the watch.

My editorial assistant ( my just teenage son) was very impressed, He was even more impressed when Nicholas let him try on “watch No. 1”

#1 Redcliff + # 1 Son

#1 Redcliff + # 1 Son

The next stop was to say hello Toby Sutton to see how Dennison was going a year from their launch at last year’s Salon. He was wearing the material Denco53 with the French paratrooper strap which is a really great combination. This is the only picture I have managed to find, you must admit this strap looks made for this watch.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BIA9KVPjsEb/?taken-by=dennisonwatchcaseco

Next was Robert Loomes; I wanted to congratulate him on his talk the day before and of course to have a closer look at the new Stamford. I also had the pleasure of meeting his wife Robina, apparently the strategic mind of the couple. Robert was his usual enthusiastic self and was very pleased with the reception the watch had received at the show. It looks like he will be busy for sometime to come.

Our last “British” stop was to see the new “Portsmouth” at the Garrick stand. Here I had hoped to get some pictures of the watch, unfortunately exhibition cases and and an iPhone prevented this. So here is a picture from the Garrick website.

Garrick Portsmouth

Garrick Portsmouth

David Brailsford of Garrick was a another happy man. He told me sales at the show were going very well. They had sold out of there Regulator model and the Portsmouth was generating a great deal of interest despite the £17,995 price. So the Norfolk watchmaker is going to busy for sometime as well. Finally, I managed to resolve a doubt I had been harboring for a while, David confirmed to me that the watch was originally going to be called the Plymouth. Being Hampshire born I am much happier with this name.

So to sum up, another very enjoyable show this year. The best news being the great the great reception that the British brands exhibiting are receiving from everyone. Well done.

 

Two Roger Smith’s for sale!

Those clever people at Hodinkee tweeted a few days ago that they have discovered not one but two early example of British watchmaker Roger Smith’s work for sale.

Series 2 & Daniels Anniversary

Series 2 & Daniels Anniversary

Clearly these are not cheap. The gold Series 2 is up for £150,000 , the Daniel’s Anniversary for £235,000 .

For the complete story  https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/two-early-roger-w-smith-watches-watch-xchange

 

Time to buy a British watch

Google analytics tells me that I do have some readers from outside of the UK. From a watch point of view you are lucky people because the recent Brexit decision has had a considerable effect on the value of the British pound.

Both GasGasBones and Pinion have recently communicated this.

Here is what Pinion have published.

Pinion price promotion

Pinion price promotion

That looks like quiet a saving. The same is clearly true for all watches priced in Sterling. I imagine though this will not last long though as soon British companies using Swiss parts will be hit by higher costs.