Watch collecting is all about passion.
Passion for craftmanship. Passion for quality. Passion for beautiful objects. And passion for community and sharing similar interests, goals, and perhaps "passion" itself.
In this context, few other brands has surprised me more in my journey collecting watches than Oris. It's not the most important, nor the most expensive, nor the most mainstream watch brand. What they are is a no-nonsense, affordable, yet very innovative, honest, and passionate brand.
I say this as the owner of two Oris watches and with a goal of adding one or two more to my collection. And this is not simply because Oris is supporting American heroes like Carl Brashear or due to producing satisfying entry level watches. But it's because from my experience the Oris folks live their motto: "real watches for real people." And this is a very refreshing statement.
Here is a collection of pictures I took during Oris's annual party / concert this year at Baselworld. Again, easy, open bar party, with cool people and inviting only local bands that are trying to make it into the difficult music business. The result: cool conversations, excellent music, and great fun. In other words, the little things that makes us real as humans.
One of the winners in the 2019 GPHG awards in the first week of November was a two year old upstart watch brand from Kuala Lumpur named MING Watches. The young brand won best watch in the Challenge category at the Geneva show to the delight of its founder and watch aficionados who have regularly helped sell out the brand’s 11 prior releases since its debut of the 17.01 watch.
MING watches are not limited per we but are produced in small batches of a few hundreds, which in effect make them limited. A quick perusal to their web site shows that all models, except for the two new 2019 models have sold out. Interestingly the new models are also priced much higher than the previous ones. However, before getting ahead of ourselves, how does one go about seeing or trying on a MING watch?