In the last couple of days, I’ve again added a huge number of watches and movements to our database. Also, a few smaller (though great 🙂 ) changes have been made by Alwin and Dion- both functional as well as some design thingamalingies.

With the intend of keeping things interesting, both for myself as well as for you, I have been trying to find some kind of middle road between a high volume of easy uploads and unusual and indie watches. The former are mostly ETA-based brands, whose watches are quickly uploaded in bulk as they use standard (or moderately altered) movements already in our database – Hamilton, Longines and Bell & Ross come to mind.

Others, like Vacheron, Patek, Lange, and Audemars Piguet, require custom movement uploads. It is however interesting to note that the info on these is readily available and very well sorted, hugely decreasing the time needed to sort out the information needed to fill all our fields. Patek and Vacheron take the reigns here, sorting their watches if desired by movement used, with full specs and info on all. While I haven’t really taken on Vacheron yet, our Patek database is starting to be quite something – although most are from the current collection.

Speake-Marin has been fun and I think only the Triad pieces need to be added from his current line-up. It’s a pity I can’t seem to locate pics of all his movements, but I applaud his open communication regarding the use of Vaucher movements. I’ve also begun to work on Lang & Heyne.. since we’re trying to add all, why not add a few unusual ones right at the start, right? Also, check out the Daytona page for a first taste of vintage.

Alwin and Dion have been adding a new function to the Calibers pages, which shows what we’re after – clear and open information with as much cross references as possible. It is now possible to view which calibers use a certain movement as a base – get a taste of it at the ETA 2824-2 page. While obviously a lot more movements need to be added to make it truly interesting, it is already a fun feature. They’ve also cleaned up the Brands and Calibers pages – the lay-out is much more clear than it was before.

Ok, back to work 🙂

Tonight Team Watchbase will be at the Bremont Kingsman event hosted by Ace Jewelers. What better motivation could we have to post a bit on the three watches created especially for the film?

Bremont is part of a group of British brands who, under the watchful eye of MR Porter, MR PORTER, director Mr Matthew Vaughn and costume designer Ms Arianne Phillips, who have collaborated on a collection of menswear items inspired by – and worn in – the film.

A total of three watches has been created for the film, all based on thecaliber BE-54AE-powered ALT-1 Worldtimer model. All of them feature special dials with the Kingsman logo. A model with rose gold case was not previously available in the ALT-1 collection.

Check out the details on each of these with a Watchbase Search for Kingsman – or just use the links below;

• Bremont Kingsman Special Edition Rose Gold
• Bremont Kingsman Special Edition Stainless Steel
• Bremont Kingsman Special Edition DLC

The WatchBase database is growing fast, with hundreds of watches being added on a daily basis. And we have just reached a big milestone:

1,000 (one thousand!) watches listed !!

Browsing by caliber?

The unique structure that we’ve created when masterminding WatchBase makes it possible to browse by caliber and quickly get an overview of all watches that have used said movement – well, at least the ones we’ve added to our database.

One movement of which I’m pretty sure that I’ve got a near complete list of watches for is the Patek Philippe Annual Calendar Chronograph caliber CH 28-520 IRM QA 24H. I think only one reference of 5960 or 5961 is missing.. Can you tell which one?

PS – should you happen to know the reference number of the sapphire-set 5961, please let me know!

We’ve been making big steps with adding watches to our database in the last few days. As the list is growing, our initial idea is slowly starting to emerge – full info on as many watches as humanly possible. And once the data is there, we can make lists, timelines and whatever else fun we can think of.

Among the close to a thousand watches that I’ve added last week are a couple that’ll show what I’m talking about – the IWC Laureus models. As you probably know, the Schaffhausen-based brand has been releasing a limited edition model for the Laureus Sport for Good foundation almost every year since 2006. All of them feature a distinct blue dial and closed caseback with a special engraving, and most of them have proved to be hugely popular. Can you name them all – and preferably in good order? If not, try a WatchBase search for ‘Laureus’ to get a quick overview.. Have fun!

Last one – what model do you think will serve as the base for the 2015 IWC Laureus? I’ve already seen it, so I won’t play.. 😉

On the home of the website we have a “Latest additions” section, showing you which watches have been recently added to our watch database. But with the current steady growth of the database, we figured it would be fun to show more of these recent additions on the homepage.

So this section has now been extended to show all new watches that were added in the past 7 days.

Check it out on the live website here.

Yay!

We just finished uploading the current collection of caliber 240-based Patek Philippes. As we’re sure all of you connoisseurs are aware, these include the World Time models, the 5140 Perpetual Calendars, the Celestial and the Nautilus with moonphase, date, power reserve and small seconds. Have fun browsing!

Caliber 240 in its most original form was introduced back in 1977 and it’s been powering a large number of Patek Philippe models ever since. From simple two-handed watches to small and grand complications – this little engine that could has seen them all.

SIHH 2015 has come to an end. Our visit this year was short and intense, but that doesn’t stop us from reflecting on a few of the novelties.. starting with the PAM 614 Panerai Luminor Submersible 1950 3 Days Chrono Flyback Automatic Titanio – try saying that three times! 

The first completely catalogued brand in our watch database is…
… drumroll please…
SevenFriday!

We’re live!

With “live”, we mean: a first basic version of the site is online and only a handful of watches are listed.
But hey, after working on this “behind the scenes” for several months, it’s a big day anyway!