It only vaguely resembles its famous forbearer. The 50mm Black Titanium Admiral’s Cup is hardly the most egregious, but it was one of the most expensive.
The new Admiral’s Cup was an immediate and long-term hit – that mutated into dozens of highly questionable variants. The playful piece found favor amongst chino-wearing WASPs trying to look casual down at the yacht club. Unveiled in 1963, the next generation Admiral’s Cup was radically different: a twelve-sided case with 12 brightly colored nautical pennants as indices. In 1960, Corum launched a small, square, water resistant Admiral’s Cup watch to capitalize on the hoopla. The Admiral’s Cup was a prestigious sailboat race that ran from 1957 to 2003. They just didn’t know what to do with them. That said, the titanium-bezeled monopusher chronograph (running on an in-house movement) shows that Corum’s engineering and manufacturing departments had mad skillz. If marketing puts too much pressure on the design team to create new pieces – the next one’s gonna be a hit for sure! – desperate designers end-up creating desperately bad watches, like this. If no one shoots down their flights of fancy, horological Dodos hit the streets. When left to their own devices – shielded from marketing mavens‘ influence – design teams can easily become divorced from retail reality. In this case, there’s no modern artist to blame. It’s rarer (only 99 made), it’s lost more of its original value (72 percent) and you get a lifetime warranty (as opposed to three years).Ĭorum deserves credit for creating a complete horological farrago – a watch where none of the aesthetic elements have anything to do with each other. This entirely positive manufacturer reviewer feedback loop encourages watchmakers to create products from the Just Because We Can School of Watch Design – technologically sophisticated timepieces destined to end-up in the “Sell to the Gray Market At Any Price” column in the watch dealer’s ledger.Īs mentioned above, Corum CEO Severin Wunderman brought modern art and high horology together for their limited edition Bubble series.įor what it’s worth (less than four grand), the Centro outdoes the Ti-Bridge on three fronts. Interestingly, Adams’ review used the word “interesting” five times. “There is a lot to like about it,” ’s Ariel Adams declared at the time of the Ti-Bridge’s launch. Part of the blame rests on the shoulders of the horological press, which never met a junket watch they didn’t like. The titanium-cased tourbillon is an excellent example of Corum’s combination of technical prowess and aesthetic failure. Not sold.Īssuming the Corum Ti-Bridge sells at the new asking price – which I don’t think we can – the watch will have shed 67 percent of its original retail price. This watch is one of “just” 500 Ti-Bridges made. Like most of Corum’s expensive watches brought to market back in the day, the Ti-Bridge wasn’t a mainstream model.
(no commission on link) offers the following new-in-box Corums at astounding discounts. The following limited edition products pushed the outside of the envelope – and folded like a cheap tent. Which brings us to today – and yesterday’s Corum catastrophes. The timepieces released under his watch have added credibility to the brand’s pretense that they’re still Swiss. Biard launched what he calls “disruptive collections” (e.g., Lab 01), he reined-in Corum’s worst excesses. They charged the former Girard-Perregaux international sales director and CEO of Russia-centered watch distributor Lifestyle Products International with reinvigorating the moribund brand for their Chinese audience.Īlthough Mr.
CORUM LIBERTY COIN WATCH PLUS
The vertically integrated Chinese conglomerate continued along the heritage plus art-for-art’s-sake path laid out by Corum’s previous owner. Wunderman’s death in 2008, Hong Kong’s Citychamp Watch & Jewellery Group added Corum to its portfolio, which includes the incredibly restrained Eterna brand (awesome video here). Īlthough there were some hits and terrific parties, the strategy didn’t pan out.
CORUM LIBERTY COIN WATCH LICENSE
In 2000, Holocaust survivor and Gucci watch license holder Severin Wunderman bought Corum and launched expensive limited edition “artisan” pieces like the Big Bubble 52 Magical Matt Barnes above. It did so largely on the back of its Double eagle and Walking Liberty coin watches, and its flag-strewn Admiral’s Cup. Born in 1955, Corum was one of the few small Swiss watch brands that managed to survive the quartz crisis as an independent.
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