00/24 WatchWorld

Baselworld, the most important watch exhibition that was held last month, is a place of contrasts as is illustrated by two watches on display there. Bulgari presented the Daniel Roth Carillon Tourbillon, an example of classical watchmaking at its best. A typical Daniel Roth watch case houses the hand-wound DR3300 calibre, consisting of 327 parts. As its name indicates, the watch has not only a tourbillon, but also a repeating mechanism, a complication that is even more highly regarded than a tourbillon. The repeating mechanism strikes with three hammers instead of the usual two hammers found in minute repeaters or the four in Grande Sonneries: a C for the hours, an E for the minutes and an E-D-C sequence for the quarter hours. The DR3300 calibre has two barrels, one for the movement itself (with a power reserve of 75 hours) and one for the striking mechanism. Only 30 watches of this beautiful watch will be made (the number is engraved into the winding crown).

I'm a bit of a social media enthusiast - you'll find me on Twitter talking about watches and other things at @TimTomato - and the latest craze in this arena is the website Pinterest. I wasn't sure quite what use Pinterest would prove to me, until I hit upon the idea of using it to gather interesting watch images. So I've started by uploading the images of every single watch I tried on and snapped with my iPhone at BaselWorld this year. On Twitter you'd put the #womw hashtag with this for "watch on my wrist". So here's the link to my BaselWorld #womw extravaganza: http://bit.ly/I1dIrq

• MeisterSinger MeisterSinger
• Omega Omega
• Zenith Zenith
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Visiting Zenith at Basel World this year was quite the treat. One great looking watch after the other. Not least the stunning Pilot DoubleMatic. Already a stunner in steel, this limited edition of rosegold is even more tempting than the lighter sibling. Here´s a little tech on the 250-pieces Midas wonder: One disc transferred onto the flange reveals the time in each iconic city, while a second disc indicates day or night. Paired with a chronograph, the Pilot Doublematic watch has two barrels, one of which is devoted to measuring time and the other to an alarm function. The alarm is activated and set by a pushpiece button and crown at 8 o’clock. On the dial, a pierced ruthenium black and red hand shows the time set for the alarm, while an opening at 8:30 confirms that it is turned on. An alarm reserve indicator at 7 o’clock tracks the status of the barrel.

My dear friend and colleague Miguel Sebra popped by the press room at Basel World and sported this dicreet critter, the ChronoSwiss Wristmaster. Actually not a new watch this year, but none-the-less very spectacular. Basically it looks like somebody put two dash computers around his wrist.

I'm one day into my BaselWorld stint, but two parties in already. Last night there was a smart dinner on the Louis Vuitton boat, but before that a huge knees up with TAG Heuer to announce the Hollywood star Cameron Diaz as the brand's new ambassador.

BaselWorld Watch Fair officially kicks off today, but for many in the press things got underway yesterday. I had a few meetings, and went to a couple of parties with TAG Heuer and with Louis Vuitton in the evening. The highlight was a meeting with Patek Philippe to see the watch which is the exclusive cover story for the new issue of 00/24 WatchWorld, out today: the Ref 5204 Split Seconds Chronograph with Perpetual Calendar.

Danish duo, Morten Linde and Jorn Werdelin, will present a new Oktopus model during Baselworld 2012. This time the revamped Oktopus not only features a cool looking skeleton Big Date aperture, it also lacks...a turning bezel! Since the early 1950's the diver's watches had a rather distinct design with a turning bezel that offered an easier reading of elapsed time of under one hour from a specific point.

The watch I’ve been sporting over the Christmas break is, by a distance, the most elegant, beguiling model currently produced by Baume & Mercier. A retro-styled flyback chronograph with a dial that balances arcane detailing with crisp readability, it’s brought some much-needed credibility back to the Richemont-owned brand.