Book Review: A Movement in Time with Breitling and Rolex; An Unauthorized History

A Movement in Time with Breitling and Rolex, An Unauthorized History, written by Mark A. Cooper, is 150 pages broken down into five parts and then a glossary of watch terms. The first part is “The History of Rolex”. The second part is “How to Identify Fake and Replica Rolex”. Next is “The History of Breitling Watches” followed by “How to Identify Fake and Replica Breitling”. Then the final part is titled “The World’s Other Quality Watches and History”. This last section covers Ball, Cartier, IWC, Longines, Omega, Patek Philippe and Zenith.

           

I did not intend to review this book yet, but it has earned its worth this week. A good repeat customer came in with several watches, one of which was a Breitling Avenger that just didn’t feel right. The long story short, some of the information in this book proved my suspicions correct - the watch was a fake.

That being said, it is not a very well written book.  By that I mean writing style and mechanics, not the content. There are misspellings and grammar mistakes all over the place. The sections just seem to run into each other and his thoughts seem to wander in a few places. It is a self-published print on demand type of book and I do not believe the author used an editor. Another major problem with this book is the images are not clear, actually they look like photocopies. All and all, the presentation of this book is of poor quality. Being that the book is exactly 150 pages I can’t help but wonder if that was a price point magic number and the author crammed a little for that reason.

The information provided in this book is useful and, although most of it is available from other sources, he tries to amalgamate the information. I also found the glossary somewhat lacking and skimpy, although I already have several watch and clock dictionaries, so it was not a major problem for me. I believe that if the author chose to update some his material, obtain better images, and hire a professional editor, he should republish it. Then it would be a convenient reference guide for both Rolex and Breitling. As it stands now, it’s a little rough around the edges.

Hamilton Wristwatches A Collectors Guide - Book Review

This book written by, Rene Rondeau, is a must have for collectors of Hamilton wristwatches. I will admit it is a pricey book, currently used on Amazon for $347.86, but nonetheless a valuable tool for the identification of men’s Hamilton wristwatches. The book starts with a brief history of the Hamilton watch company and is then followed by three main sections.

The first section is a list of all men’s Hamilton wristwatches. The list is in alphabetical order by the name of the watch (Hamilton named all of their watches). Next to the watch name is a page number, which leads you to the next section.

The second section of the book shows illustrations of over 1,000 Hamilton watches. This section is organized by the shape of the case and the metal it is made out of. Using this section you should be able to identify almost any Hamilton wristwatch in a matter of minutes.

The third section is titled, “Notes”. It consists of more detailed information on the 100 most collectible men’s Hamilton wristwatches. Included in some of these descriptions are production numbers and other tidbits. The watches in this section are denoted in the second section with an asterisks.

The appendix gives information about American made movements done by Hamilton and also has a section about the Sherwood models. As I stated, this is a very convenient reference book for men’s Hamilton wristwatches and I have reached for it on my shelf quite a few times since I bought my copy last year.

            Note: My apologies on the poor photo but my cameras are still in revolt.