About Norma Buchanan

Norma Buchanan is the executive editor of WatchTime magazine. She has been a reporter and editor for 30 years and has specialized in writing about watches and the watch industry for 18 years. She is also the author of "The Watch Buff's Book of Trivia."

Seconds City: Exploring La Chaux-de-Fonds

La Chaux-de-Fonds_Inside_Museum

In our March-April issue, on sale now on newsstands and for the iPad, Norma Buchanan visits the Swiss watchmaking town of Le Locle. In this feature story from our June 2009 issue, Buchanan journeys to another cradle of Swiss horology, La Chaux-de-Fonds, a town that is still, as Karl Marx described it a century and a half ago, “one giant watch factory.” … [Read more...]

Rolex to Launch Tudor in the U.S. this Summer

Tudor Heritage Black Bay watch

Rolex has confirmed to WatchTime that it will be launching its sister brand, Tudor, in the United States in the late summer. It has set up a new company, Tudor Watch USA LLC, in New York City. … [Read more...]

WatchTime Exclusive: Inside Rolex Bienne

Rolex Bienne building

On a rare tour of Rolex’s movement-manufacturing complex in Bienne, Switzerland, WatchTime's Joe Thompson and Norma Buchanan witnessed the making of the Cosmograph Daytona Caliber 4130. Buchanan reported on it in this feature from our March-April 2010 issue. … [Read more...]

Mountain Climbing: Montblanc’s Journey to Haute Horlogerie

Montblanc_HQ_LeLocle_150

In this profile piece from WatchTime's January-February 2009 issue, executive editor Norma Buchanan reveals how Montblanc, a brand best known for pens, entered the heady world of haute horlogerie, and explores the brand's ultra-complicated Grand Tourbillon Heures Mystérieuses. … [Read more...]

First Watch: U.S. Presidents and Their Timepieces

JFK_Omega_150

With the presidential race between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney heating up, we felt it was the perfect time to share this feature on presidents and their watches from the WatchTime archives (December 2008). Click here to find out what brands graced the wrists and waistcoasts of our chief executives. … [Read more...]

Piaget’s Gouverneur Collection: Pictures, Specs, and Video

Piaget_Gouverneur_Chrono_150

Piaget's headline introduction at this year's SIHH watch fair in Geneva was a new collection of dress watches called Gouverneur. Click here to read our report on all three models in the line, including photos of the watches and their movements along with an informative product video. … [Read more...]

Mastering the Rolex Sky Dweller (Video)

Rolex Sky-Dweller white gold

In the past half-century, since it launched its GMT Master, Rolex has brought out just one new complication: the Yacht-Master II, in 2007, which has a countdown yacht timer. This year it’s launching another, the Sky-Dweller, equipped with both a second time zone and an annual calendar (a calendar that automatically differentiates between months of 30 days and 31 days, and need be adjusted just … [Read more...]

TAG Heuer Carrera Caliber 17 Chronograph Jack Heuer 80th Birthday

TAG Heuer Carrera Calibre 17 Jack Heuer 80th

This year Jack Heuer, TAG Heuer’s honorary chairman and former chief, celebrates his 80th birthday. (Heuer is the great grandson of company founder Edouard Heuer.) In honor of the milestone the company is launching a limited edition (3,000 pieces) Carrera Caliber 17 Chronograph Jack Heuer 80th Birthday watch. It was during Jack Heuer’s tenure that the original Carrera, one of the world’s … [Read more...]

New from Parmigiani: Two Wristwatches Inspired by the Past

Parmigiani Fleurier has unveiled two new limited-edition wristwatches inspired by antique pocketwatches from a collection owned by Parmigiani Fleurier’s parent, the Sandoz Foundation. Both wristwatches are part of Parmigiani’s Toric collection. Find images, prices and wallpaper inside. … [Read more...]

Salvaging Lange’s Most Complex Watch

When watchmaker Jan Silva got his first glimpse of the innards of the A. Lange & Söhne Grande Complication 42500 pocketwatch, made in 1902, his heart sank. He saw that restoring them to anything resembling a working movement would be a Herculean labor. … [Read more...]

30 Minutes with Lutz Bethge Montblanc’s CEO discusses the brand’s high-watchmaking ambitions.

When Montblanc unveiled its Metamorphosis watch at the SIHH watch show in Geneva in January, many believed it would be years before the exotic new chronograph would be ready for market. After all, the watch, with its 567 components, seemed hopelessly complex. The prototype on display was kept behind glass: it didn’t work well enough for a live demonstration. … [Read more...]

The Man Behind the Brand: Pierre Jaquet-Droz

Pierre Jaquet-Droz was a real devil. Or at least people thought so. In 1758, Jaquet-Droz, whose name lives on in the high-end mechanical-watch brand owned by the Swatch Group, scared so many people with his mysterious, other-worldly machines that he was suspected of witchcraft. … [Read more...]

Swiss Watch Industry Loses “Just” 4,200 Jobs

It could have been worse. Last year, Swiss watch companies eliminated “only” 4,200 jobs, compared with the more than 5,000 that some officials had predicted. Employment is now 49,097, a decline of 7.9% from 2008, and nearly the same as in 2007. Manufacturing jobs were hardest hit, declining 9.8%, to 36,275. … [Read more...]

TIME TEST: It’s Automatic

How much do you know about self-winding watches, past and present? Sharpen your pencil and set that cerebral rotor a’spinning. Answers, as usual, appear at the end. … [Read more...]

Time Test: French Twist

Watchmaking has its own mini-language: a set of French terms with specific horological definitions. Match the following words with their meanings. The answers appear at the bottom in the form of 3-C, 5-G, etc. (To find out how to pronounce these words, see Part 2 of our Pronunciation Guide in the WatchTime.com “Reference Center” section.) … [Read more...]

TIME TEST: The Name Game

Ever wonder how your watch got its name? Test your knowledge of watch-brand handles by matching these brand names with the explanations of the origins. Answers take the form 1-C, 2-G, etc. Good luck! … [Read more...]

TIME TEST: Signed, Sealed, Delivered

How much do you know about the various quality seals and certificates awarded to watch movements these days? Find out by taking the WatchTime test. As always, the answers appear at the bottom. … [Read more...]

BNB: RIP

Movement maker BNB Concept is out of business. But its founder, and many of its watchmakers, have found a new gig. … [Read more...]

TIME TEST: Famous Firsts

The first month of a new decade: what better time to mull over other promising (albeit not always successful) beginnings? Test your knowledge of a dozen watch-world firsts (the answers are at the end). … [Read more...]

TIME TEST: The Year in Watches

For those who may have missed it, this was our featured article last week, and it was so popular, we've carried it over. Say goodbye to 2009 with this WIS quiz on some of the year's top stories. To see how you did, or to ensure a perfect score, scroll down to the bottom of the page to see the answers. … [Read more...]