A Weekend of Watches in Las Vegas


pilotsDays Two and Three of the JCK Watch and Jewelry Show in Las Vegas brought some interesting new watches to our attention, including a few that made their debut at the show and some others that impressed us with their price-to-value ratio.

Glycine, a Swiss brand known for pilots’ watches, celebrates the 60th anniversary of its Airman model next year. In anticipation, it has released several new Airman models, including one with a smaller case size for ladies. What really blew us away, however, was Glycine’s new Combat models (pictured below). There’s an automatic version, with a Swiss-made ETA 2894 movement, and a manual-wind version with an ETA 6497. Both are priced at only $1,000.

 

 

Glycine Combat pilots watches

Raymond Weil is another Swiss-made brand with comparatively accessible price points. The new model that caught our eye was the Nabucco Intenso (wrist-modeled below), with its rich blue dial and aperture at 11 0’clock that shows off the watch’s inner workings.

Raymond Weil Nabucco Intenso

Frédérique Constant, which has established a reputation for wallet-friendly watches with in-house movements, introduced here at the show the latest iteration of its Classic Manufacture, the first one with a central seconds hand. There’s one with a steel case and one with a rose-gold-plated case (both below). The former costs $2,250 and the latter, $2,550. Good luck finding many other timepieces with a Swiss-made manufacture movement in that range! Frédérique Constant also gave us a sneak peek of a watch set to debut in the fall, with yet another in-house movement, this one a world-timer.

Frederique Constant Classic Manufacture

We also saw some pieces on the pricier end of the spectrum, including a Hublot limited edition that’s perfect for American patriots who happen to be watch collectors: it’s dial is an American flag, and if you look closely at it under a loupe, you’ll see that the red, white and blue flag pattern is actually made up of minuscule text from the U.S. Constitution. (The watch and a zoomed-in closeup are below.)

Hublot flag watch
Hublot flag CU dial

Girard-Perregaux, which unveiled the lion’s share of its 2012 models in January at the SIHH watch fair in Geneva, launched a new U.S.-only version of its ww.tc world-timer watch here in Vegas. It’s called the Dark Night and has a sharp-looking, predominantly black color scheme. It’s got a black PVD case and a comfortable rubber strap and costs $25,900. Girard-Perregaux U.S. president Michael Margolis said the idea was to do a watch that was “all-black but readable.” Here’s a peek.

Girard-Perregaux Dark Night

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