It is a special edition, of only 50 items, characterized by the chromatic choice of the green dial/watch strap, personalized with Montenapoleone written on the bottom. Obviously all the style and construction codes of the Royal Oak Offshore collection are followed: the case is conceived of as to protect the mechanism from any external aggression; octagonal bezel with hexagonal screws; waterproof gasket visible between the case and the bezel; exclusive «Méga Tapisserie» dial; strap perfectly integrated in the case.

It is powered by the in-house 3126 self-winding caliber Audermars Piguet. Among its features: 60 hours power reserve due to the barrel-spring that, by supplying a longer-lasting constant force, increases the walking precision; the stability of the movement is further reinforced by the cross-through balance bridge. The balance is also fitted with eight inertia blocks enabling extremely fine adjustment, while a 22-carat gold ball-bearing mounted rotor ensures bidirectional automatic winding.

To sum up, a fine watch, appreciated by the most demanding collectors and to them dedicated.

Paolo Gobbi

Italian version

Osvaldo Patrizzi, expert watchmaker acknowledged all over the world, advocate of the project since the very beginning, will organize the auction with the support of his Maison Patrizzi & Co.

Will take part in Only Watch 2009: Audemars Piguet, Bell & Ross, Blancpain, Bovet Fleurier, Breguet, Cabestan, Cartier, Chaumet, Chanel, Confrérie Horlogere, Corum, De Bethune, Delacour, Franc Vila, Franck Muller, Frédérique Constant, Gerald Charles, Girard-Perregaux, Hermès, Hublot, Jaquet Droz, Les Ateliers de Monaco, Louis Vuitton, MB&F, Montblanc, Omega, Patek Philippe, Piaget, Tag Heuer, Tourneau Timepieces, Ulysse Nardin, Vacheron Constantin, Van Cleef & Arpels, Zenith.

Italian version

The same happens with those who love the world of motors, since very often watches have become protagonists or co-protagonists of important moments or persons (try to guess how much could be worth one of the watches wore by the great Gianni Agnelli!). This is the way we have to look at the Bressel 1665 “Ago” by JeanRichard, presented during the Geneve Showroom. This model is dedicated to the great Giacomo Agostini, the motorcycle pilot who conquered the biggest number of awards, winning 123 Grand Prix and who conquered the podium in 160 of the 187 races, for the world title, to which he participated: the only one who achieved a number of titles, 15, bigger than the number of seasons he participated, 14 overall. For such an important ambassador JeanRIchard created a really important watch: a Foudroyante Rattrappante Chronograph produced in limited edition of only 50 items. It is dedicated to the fans of motorbikes and to experts of high level mechanic. Its heart is a mechanic movement of automatic manufacture, with 13 lines and ¼, 40 rubies, 28.800 alt./hour frequency, visible through the transparent bottom on which the Ago signature lies. As important is the 42mm case, entirely made in palladium (precious metal that has origins in platinum but lighter than the latter) and personalized with two different colours for the dial: silver or black.

So, a very interesting watch, worth collecting and that will continue to be object of talking in the future.

Paolo Gobbi
Italian version

Within the scenario of world high-wathmaking, A. Lange & Sohne is one of the most appreciated brands both for its aesthetic qualities and for technical and functionality innovations characterizing its every piece. Since last March, the brand’s Italy and Southern Europe division can count on a new, young brand manager, Luca Dondi, who boasts significant experiences in Ferrari and Maserati. Dondi explains to Luxgallery A. Lange & Sohne’s brand strategies in Italy.

What are A. Lange & Sohne’s brand strategies in Italy?
We expect 2009 to be a year of consolidation for the brand, with a slight increase compared to 2008. We do not expect Italy to face any drastic changes, especially considering the fact that we’ll anticipate trends by presenting a number of different novelties, at least one per month, involving the entire price range. Excellent quality, unique innovations, movements conceived as real works of art. A. Lange & Sohne has always worked in full respect of such core values and we’ll keep faithful to our philosophy this year too. We are sure that contents and quality will receive recognition by the audience.

Is it the first time that you deal with a watchmaking maison? What are the similarities with other luxury brands?
Having worked for Ferrari and Maserati, I discovered the liaison between these top automotive and watchmaking companies to be the constant search for functional innovation. I personally feel passionate about technique and brands that have an authentic history and noble origins; it was not particularly hard to move from Maserati to a brand such as A. Lange & Sohne, whose origins date back to Emperor Augustus the Strong, whose court opted for A. Lange & Sohne brand.

What place does Italy hold on A. Lange & Sohne’s market?
Among the connoisseurs of high-watchmaking, A. Lange & Sohne is a very requested brand, a good sign for the brand and for the entire market, that allowed for the achievement of great sale results in April, reporting a significant growth in number of pieces compared to the precious 6 months, despite the market’s overall decreasing trends. Italy is for us the third market in the  world, Europe’s second after Germany. In Germany A. Lange & Sohne’s models are distributed on large numbers, whereas in Italy clients are very selective. Based on our experience, we know that whatever is successful in Italy, is very likely to be successful all over the world. In general. When we talk of A. Lange & Sohne, we refer to much awaited for items, realized in small quantities, increasing thus their value: in fact, a crono needs a six-months period to be manufactured.

What are the key models and novelties of 2009?
The main item, that has always brought great success, is the Lange 1, icon-item exactly as its entire family. As far as it concerns more complicated items, we count on Lange 31 and the big news available for purchase at the end of the year: Zeitwerk.

So, what should Italian fans expect?
Big news and world previews. Italy will be the first market on which we’ll launch Lange 31 and Zeitwerk. The former in July and the latter, as mentioned, towards the end of the year.

Who do you deem to be your most frightful competitors?
I believe that A. lange & Sohne, for its unique products and constant innovation, can quite stand alone, without any big competitors to struggle against. In fact, this year, we aim at growing as for the waiting list and for market quota.

www.alange-soehne.com

Davide Passoni

Italian version

We met Cristiana Colarieti, the young and charming CEO of Scatola del Tempo, a company that has made the history of horology and has been synonymous with automatic rotating watch holders for years. Cristiana picked up the heritage of her father Sandro Colarieti, a real icon in the world of the last century’s most exclusive horology, a great collector and a mechanical genius.

Cristiana, can you tell us how the idea of the watch winders originated and what it means to you to have taken over your beloved father’s business?

The idea of the winders came about in 1990 – one year after the birth of Scatola del Tempo – and it sprang from a personal need of my father’s, who wanted to wind up his Quantièmes Perpétuels effortlessly and without wasting any time. His idea has changed the way in which automatic watches are wound up.
Dad presented his project to Patek Philippe and with some help from the technical department, he worked on the winder and put it under a variety of tests for over a year, opting in the end to use it for his own complex watches.
It was the beginning of an international success, since up until that moment nothing even slightly similar had ever existed on the market. Taking over my father’s business makes me feel proud. I treasure among his many teachings the notion of believing in oneself and try your best to reach your goals. My objective is to continue ensuring the brand he created will grow and make sure he will always be remembered as the great man that he was, not purely under a professional point of view but also as a human being. Those who’ve had the chance to meet him will know what I mean.

For many years Scatola del Tempo was the only company serving the major Maisons of world horology with its prestigious creations. Obviously with time many companies producing similar devices appeared. How did you brace yourselves to take on the international competition challenging Made in Italy goods in the same field?

We were alone on the market for many years, but once the patent expired, thousands of companies producing cases and winders for watches made their appearance. We have to say that in general terms, the competition doesn’t frighten us, though obviously we are always very alert over what is launched on the market.
We rely on our strong points, the first in line being quality. We’re proud to be able to say that all our goods are really made in Italy, not just designed or assembled here, as is the case with some companies. We’re firmly convinced that quality and reliability are an investment and are certain that our clientele is able to appreciate and judge the difference between our goods and our competitors’. In producing our cases nothing is left to chance. To cite an example: the production of one of our most successful models, the 7RT, requires four and a half hours of work with over 100 manual steps. Scatola del Tempo is still a handcrafted product, our hand-made quality is united with the most advanced technologies. We were the first to produce a light pen-operated lock, followed by one with a fingerprint sensor and then, three years ago in Basel, considering where the market was heading to, we were the first to unveil the oversize watch winders.

In 2007 you launched Timesafe in a partnership with Conforti, a large brand of safes. The safe is entirely leather-lined and contains 24 rotating panels for winding automatic wrist watches or Quantièmes Perpétuels. It’s a real winner from your company, a product exclusively created in a limited edition of only 50 pieces. Can we ask what the reactions to this product were?

Timesafe was really a huge success, beyond our wildest expectations. The idea was born when we noticed certain reactions in some important clients of ours. Though they appreciated our armored-plated briarwood cabinets, with anti-breaking glass and fingerprint-driven locks, they still didn’t feel their beloved watches and jewels were truly safe. Only a safe can give the perfect psychological idea of safety. We thus looked up and contacted another great Italian brand, presenting them with our idea. Within a few months we created the first Timesafe® safe.
Every client has had a chance to personalize it both in the number of winders they had fitted and the set-up of the drawers, naturally by choosing the shade of leather they preferred.
One of our priorities when we deal with such exclusive furniture is meeting the customers’ needs completely, aiming to strike the right balance between the client’s needs and the level of technical feasibility. The final result is usually satisfying for both.

Ranging from the total exclusiveness of Timesafe down to your more accessible goods, lately you’ve surprised all your aficionados by shattering two of Scatola del Tempo’s taboos, with your latest creation, Softline. As it happens, not only have you introduced an “entry level” product as far as its price goes, but you’re also selling it directly online. Why make this “revolutionary” choice?

With Softline we had a younger customer target in mind, not necessarily collectors of complex watches, as our habitual customers tend to be. We wanted to give the owners of automatic or complex watches – though not necessarily very expensive ones – a chance to buy a quality product at a far more accessible price. This can be done precisely thanks to online selling, which has no intermediary steps. It’s clearly a Scatola del Tempo product, but there are obviously some substantial differences with the high-ranging series. The main idea was to offer a Made in Italy product of quality at a decidedly competitive price.
Another aim of our exclusively online sale of Softline models is to acquire a larger slice of the American market. At the moment there’s a vast offer of online winders but in the majority of cases the quality is mediocre. We thus hope that with the arrival on the market of models such as Softline, many clients will turn to Made in Italy goods, buying a reliable product at an affordable price.

Talking of being Made in Italy, by now the brands that have truly remained faithful to the Made in Italy philosophy are few and far between. In other words, even many of the most prestigious Italian brands have outsourced their production to countries with a cheaper workforce. Today, in such a difficult climate for world economy, what does it mean to remain faithful to a production line entirely carried out in Italy?

It’s true, we’re part of a small clique of oddballs and we’re proud of it. It’s often difficult and always laborious, but we think it’s a choice you can’t compromise upon. Made in Italy isn’t just an abstract notion but really a product really made by us Italians.
Many still don’t realize that this is a heritage that’ll be lost to Italy forever, if outsourcing becomes routine. I’m talking about the experience of innumerable small craftsmen, who’ve worked their entire lives in their workshops, making Italy grow and making us great in the world, and all that experience will be lost forever. As far as we’re concerned we have no intention of changing our ways and I hope, from the bottom of my heart, that many others out there will do the same. The only way forward to us is preserving the real Made in Italy, leaving future generations a huge and unique heritage of expertise acquired through the centuries, which has made Italian products some of the very best in the world.

Which are the most interesting markets for Scatola del Tempo and which are its most successful products?

At the moment there are nascent markets such as the ex USSR, for instance Ukraine and Kazakhstan, which are both very interesting countries. We’ve started selling in China – for once it’s the Chinese who buy our goods and not the other way round – and this is certainly also an expanding market. We also have specific requests from all over the world, for custom-made models. We have recently sent three armor-plated 64RTs to Morocco. One of our bestsellers for over fifteen years was the 7RT. At the moment we sell the oversized series quite successfully, especially in its new chocolat shade.

Which are the novelties that Scatola del Tempo reserved to collectors and fans during BaselWorld 2009?

Basel offered us a chance to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of Scatola del Tempo with all our friends and clients. The novelties at Basel 2009 have once again astonished our clients and our fiercest competitors. As it happens, we came out with a line entirely made of wood. It’s in essence zebrano wood, which mustn’t be confused with macassar. It’s not only a far more modern design than previous ones, but most importantly it allows one to rewind oversize watches too, something previously possible only when buying the leather models. Furthermore, we presented two new special models: the 21RT EB OS, a cabinet in zebrano wood with a grand total of 21 rotators in an ultra-modern design, always in an oversized version, not to mention the new oversized version of the Timesafe.

In conclusion, can you tell us of your project to increase the exclusiveness of your product by handing out special awards to exclusive world cinema personalities such as Lukas and Spielberg, Muccino and Whitaker?

No product, no matter how exclusive, can be truly successful unless it’s really put across. For this reason we decided to promote the notoriety of our brand on the international markets by starting a campaign connecting us with the world of Hollywood celebrities, and beyond.As a result, a few years ago, thanks to our press agency in the USA, we started awarding acknowledgements to the most high profile and successful stars, directors and producers of the moment.Naturally, the news of the awards ceremonies were published in the international press, which contributed to turning the spotlight onto the exclusivity and uniqueness of a Scatola del Tempo product more than a thousand words could do.

The Erwin Sattler Case is a pix whose starting price amounts to almost 60 thousand euros, created with precious woods and provided with secret code to preserve at maximum safety the pieces of high watchmaking. Numerous are the extra features, from light flows to gold-plated surfaces and mechanisms, from Alcantara covered drawers to sliding hollows which can be operated with a remote control. The mechanic system was conceived to eliminate friction and reduce to the minimal all noises.

Italian version