2008 -> 2009

2008 has been quite an exiting year when it comes to watches. As a collector and admirer of fine timepieces i have seen some great new watches. Technically the brands start working with new materials, not only for the cases, but also for movement parts. When it comes to design it seem that the main focus is still on large watches, but i wouldn’t be amazed if this will change next year already.

Coming from the Netherlands it also made me proud to see the birth of a new Dutch watch brand. The brother Bart and Tim Grönefeld showed their first watch during the European GTG a friend and i organised last november. The Grönefeld GTM06 shows an incredibly high standard of finish and the minite repaeter gong… well, you have to hear them to believe the incredible sound coming from a small wristwatch!

From a personal point of view i hope to see some more reasonably priced and reasonably sized watches next year. Not every brand needs a tourbillon i think. And not every brand needs to have the same size as a Panerai. Let’s hope for an interesting 2009.

Furthermore i would like to thank all visitors of monochrome-watches.com for their comments and especially all the emails i receive. I would also like to thank all moderators and members of my favorite forums: Horomundi, Purist Pro, Timezone, Timezone UK, Watchuseek and Watchlounge. And of course thanx to my fellow watchbloggers 🙂

And last but not least i’m gonna burn myself on selecting the beauty and the beast of 2008… Picking ‘the beast’ is an easy one for me. Hands down for the most ugly watch of 2008, the Rolex Sea-Dweller Deep Sea. Of course there are a lot of ugly watches and this one isn’t the ugliest… but it was my biggest disappointment of 2008.

When it comes to my favorite ‘beauty’ of 2008 it’s harder to select one. Jacquet Droz did some amazing things. I just love the Jacquet Droz sports watch and the Ceramic Grande Second is also very nice! De Grisogono came with a spectacular new watch. I find it amazing that a relative small brand comes with such innovative new watches, every year again!

Another great addition to any collection was the new/old Panerai PAM26. A Destro Luminor Marina in a DLC’d case. Simple, classic, yetvery beautiful.

But now it comes to making a choice… which watch was for me THE most beautiful watch of 2008? There where just too many true beauties, so making a choice is very hard…. so hard that i can’t choose between these two. In my opinion these where my personal favorites of 2008.

The Girard Perregaux Vintage 1945 Off-centered hour and minute in white gold

And my other number one is the Glashütte Original Senator Sixties chronograph.

Cheers,

Frank