Stay tuned to
Swatch
This page does not contain any fancy pictures but I hope to provide some
substantial information for collectors. If you want to see some pictures
of interesting swatches then go to my virtual
swatch museum. Although I am probably a bit biased, it is highly recommended
,
especially the section about special packagings.
Older Swatch info (Last updated:
07-NOV-2009)
news from 2007 are below:
- Sydney "New
Years Eve Party 2007" special. Swatch has released a
nice special for the New Years Eve Party 2007 on 31-DEC-2007 at the Opera House in Sydney,
Australia. The special consists of the 2003 gent swatch Funny Village (GR146) with a
new strap.
The strap carries the imprint: "The Time of our Lives". The
guarantee is stamped "31-12-07".
The
watch is packaged in a nice red
velvet bag with a white vintage print "NYE 2007". Limitation
is unknown but probably not too high. Thanks to
lots_of_swatch from the Swatch-Clopedia
forum for the information and pictures.
- Snow Mobile 2007 event special.
The Swatch Snow Mobile 2007 event took place from 13
to 16-DEC in Saalbach-Hinterglemm, Austria. As in the last years,
a special Snow Mobile 2007 swatch
was released. It exists in two versions, both have the same new
strap, made especially for this event: The first one is the Fun
Boarder Snow Mobile 2007 (based on Mountain
Mania, SULM101D, 300 pcs, including a 2 day ski pass for
Saalbach). The second one is the Fun Boarder Snow Mobile 2007 VIP
(SULM102I, 925 pcs, used for VIP entrance during the event).
Swatch The Club did not hold a special club event for all club members
this year. But there was an online
competition on the official club webpage where Swatch The Club
gave 16 club members the chance to qualify for the race. The
fastest three won a place in the Swatch The Club raceteam. All you
had to do is to apply and send in a video to Swatch The Club. You can read a report on Matthias's
nice webpage and at Michael's
nice webpage.
Both
have a lot of photos showing meters of snow in Saalbach (a complete
contrast to last year's
club event!) Update:
Check out this nice TV
report showing a lot of the action and members of the Swatch The
Club raceteam! It is absolutely worth checking out. Thanks
to Peter for the information and to Michael for the pictures.
- Swatch The Club Austria Bonus Pass
special. In 2007, members of Swatch The Club Austria
were able to collect bonus points for every Swatch watch
purchased. For 20 bonus points, club members received a special
Jelly in Jelly access Swatch Bonus Pass (SUMK101K).
More details here.
Thanks to Michael for the information.
- Thai King birthday special. In
honor of the 80th birthday of His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej, Swatch
Group Thailand has created a special limited edition Swatch watch called
Happy
80th Birthday (SUJZ107) in a limited edition of 15000
pcs, available only in Thailand. The watch has been designed by
Her Royal Highness Princess Siriwannavari Nariratana to design this
special limited edition and named it "Happy 80th Birthday".
Previously, she has designed the special Love And Nature (GZ156) in
1998. The new Happy
80th Birthday special features nine rabbits on the
watch. The special packaging
of the watch features a rabbit head. Here
is the info flyer and here
are more detail pictures of the special.
- Swatch The Club Xmas event
2007. The Swatch
The
Club Xmas event took place from 30-NOV to 2-DEC in nice city of
Budapest. 122 club members from 16 countries from all over the
world participated at the event. A very special Swatch was
released in an unnumbered edition of only 150
pcs(!) to commemorate this event: The first ever Irony Lady
special called Star
Stones (YSZ100G).
So this is a very very rare watch. Star
Stones is a variation of the current Xmas Irony Lady Swatch Shiny
Stones (YSS224G). There are two differences to Shiny Stones: The dial has a
different color (pink instead of beige) and an additional star is
affixed to the strap. The packaging also fits very nicely to the
watch: It comes in a little red leather
box (opened) carrying the logo of
the event (the theme was "King and Emperor"). The leather box is
packaged in a little red leather bag.
Very
nicely done, as you can clearly see that a lot of thoughts went into
this nice watch and packaging. Here
is a detailed report about the
event with many pictures and even some little videos!
- A huge Swatch in Grenchen. Grenchen
is the "Swatch town" in Switzerland, one of the places where Swatch
watches are produced. At the center of the new Monbijou roundabout
in Grenchen, a tower carrying a huge
Swatch Shake the World No.19
(SUJZ102) . The height of the watch is about 7 meters. Here
is the official press release by Swatch (in German). Picture
by Swatch.
- Strategic alliance of Swatch and
Tiffany. "Swatch clocks in for breakfast with Tiffany as
glamour marries kitsch" is the great title of a report
about the newly announced strategic alliance of the Swatch
Group and Tiffany & Co.
Swatch is to set up a company (wholly owned by Swatch) that will use
Tiffany?s designs and branding to sell watches that will be manufactured
and distributed through the global Swatch network.
- Singapore Airport special. To
commemorate the opening of the Singapore
Changi Airport Terminal 3 in JAN-2008, a nice special Swatch Changi
Airport (GS126C) has been released
in a limited edition of 5000 pcs. It is the gent Linear Linen (GS126) from
2005 with a new strap, packaged in a nice paper sleeve.
- Withdrawal of Olympic swatch. The
Irony Chrono Graphic Combination (YCS496),
part of the Beijing Olympic Collection, has been recalled by Swatch and
is being withdrawn from sale. The logo
printed on the watch is misprint (head of the little man is
missing). On the packaging, you can see the correct
logo. Here
is a newspaper report about the withdrawn watch. Update:
Soon, the Chrono will be reissued with the correct logo.
Thanks to Marco Soares for the information and to Alain
Choisy for the update.
- Vendôme store update. On
22-NOV, a meeting will take place at the Paris Vendôme store, with
champaign and chocolate. The reason is the special illumination of
the place. The Vendôme store has not received any new models since
june. It is not yet known if there will be a special Vendôme Xmas
special. Thanks to Henk Seligmann for the
information.
- New Athens 2004 NOC. A
new, so far unknown Athens 2004 Olympics NOC Switzerland One Team, One Spirit (SUDK106R,
same as the regular Switzerland, with an additional loop around the
strap) has surfaced. It was distributed to the members of the
Swiss Olympic Team, eg. the Swiss Volleyball team. Thanks
to
Alain Choisy for the information and picture.
- Xmas 2007 collection. Squiggly has published
some details about the 2007 Christmas
collection. It will contain seven watches and one Swatch Bijoux.
Two of the watches are expected to be limited: Christmas Charms (YUS113G, a new product
line: Irony
Square
lady! numbered and limited to 4999 in a very interesting special
packaging), Winter Day
(SUJW100S, Jelly In Jelly). The other
five watches are: Holiday Dream (SUBM106A/B, Square), Zauberfee (LK286G, Lady), Shiny Stones (YSS224G, Irony Lady Lady), Caress
Perles (SFK305G, Skin), Blue
Signs (YRS402G, Irony Retrograde). In december, Swatch
will release an Irony Medium special called Diamonds In The Sky
(YLZ401S, limited and numbered 499 pcs, retail 950 EUR, containing 80
little real diamonds, total 0.4ct). Update:
Swatch has launched a nice special website for the Xmas
collection: www.swatchseasons.com
- Swatch in the NY Times archive.
Recently, the New York Times has opened its archive. I
have found two nice reports from the past: 1. Fueling A Frenzy: Swatch
(10-MAY-1992) is a report from the height of the Swatch craze, including
some well familiar names from the Swatch collector scene: June
Berliner and Henry Buhl (he purchased the Lot 24 My Swatch during the Wristory
auction in 2001, the result was the Helmut
Newton
swatch special, limited to only 100 pcs) 2. Coming Soon: Swatch Watch, the Sequel
(26-MAR-1995) is a report about the collecting scene in the mid 90s.
- Swatch no longer supports Cabaret
Voltaire in Zurich. According to this newspaper
report, Swatch has stopped the financial support of the Cabaret
Voltaire and the Dada-house in Zurich. The support will end in
AUG-2008. Swatch has given 320000 CHF each year to the Dada-house,
the city of Zurich a similar amount. In 2004, Swatch has issued
some special Dada swatch watches and they also held a unique Dada
event in Zurich. Here
is some background information about the Dada-house. Thanks
to Henk Seligmann for the information.
- Swatch The Club Gold & Pioneer /
International event. The Swatch The Club Gold &
Pioneer / International event took place from 2 to 7-OCT in Antalya,
Turkey. The theme of the event was Treasure Hunt. About 70
club members participated at the event. You can find some 'live'
impressions with many pictures from the event at Matthias Stawinskis
nice webpage.
For
the international event, the club members received a special
packaging of the gent Skulling Time (GB220C, from
2004), with an extra loop Treasure
Hunt around the strap and a nice paper
sleeve. The G&P special 2007 is a golden Irony The
Chrono called The Chest. It is a completely
new watch, similar to the Irony The Chrono Golden Chest (YOG100G).
The watch is packaged in a small chest
box, numbered to 200 pcs. Here
is a picture of the outside of the box. Michael
has published two very nice reports about both events: International
event and G&P
event. Update: Rodolphe
Foucart has published three nice videos from the event, check
them out! Thanks to Matthias Stawinski for
the instant report!
- Access specials. Thanks
to Alain Choisy, I was able to update my long list of access
specials with a few Jelly in
Jelly access specials (SUMK101C to SUMK101Q, SUMK103C).
Check it out!
- Unique prototype. Here
is a picture of a (probably) unique and therefore ultra, ultra rare 1984
prototype for the Davos Symposium
special. The dial of the prototype is derived from the 1984 gent Inc.
(GA103). Here is a picture of
the back of the proto. Even more interesting: A similar
Davos Symposium proto (closed dial of High Tech II (GA101)) was
auctioned on 19-JAN-1992 in Vicenza, Italy during one of the famous
Antiquorum auctions Important
Collection of Production Models, Variants, Prototypes and Hybrids.
A picture of this other proto can be
found in the catalogue
from this auction. Thanks to Jeroen Kieven for
the update.
- French Swatch Blog. A
nice french Swatch blog can be found at ... http://www.swatchblog.fr/
It
also contains an interesting article
about a printed newspaper report about the Swatch collection of
Rodolphe. Lots of pictures, check it out! Thanks
to Rodolphe Foucart for the information.
- Corto Maltese special / event.
Corto
Maltese is an Italian comics series featuring an
eponymous character, a complex sailor-adventurer. As hinted
already on the Swatch
The
Club website, a special Jelly In Jelly swatch Corto
(SUJZ106) was released on 30-AUG
to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the comic. Later in October, a more
limited black and white special swatch 19 degrees South 169 degrees West
(SUJZ105S, limited to 11111 pcs) will be released. Here
are pictures of the limited special and its packaging. Swatch The
Club held a special presale
event in Lausanne on 31-AUG, Michael has a great report
with many pictures on his nice webpage.
Until 23-SEP, you were able to enjoy an exhibition called Swatch
and Corto Maltese at the Cité Du Temps in Geneva,
Switzerland. The
official Swatch website
has a nice special section about Corto Maltese, check it out! Update: A meet and greet
with the real Corto Maltese
took place in Brussels on 17-OCT. Jeroen has more details and a
lot of pictures here
at the Swatch-Clopedia forum. At the end of the event, all
collectors received a very nice special
packaging of the Corto
(SUJZ106), containing a T-shirt,
a large poster,
and some stickers.
The
packaging
is limited and numbered
to 150 pcs. And a Corto Maltese Swatch The Club event will take
place in Lucca, Italy on 3 to 3-NOV. Thanks
to Andrea Marco Faggioli for information.
- Honorary Citizenship. Swatch
founder
Nicolas G. Hayek and his wife Marianne will become honorary citizens of
the Swiss town of Meisterschwanden on 11-NOV. More details here.
Thanks to Michael for the information.
- New Irony product line
Retrograde. As reported since more than two weeks on
this french
watch
forum and on this french
watch news page, Swatch plans to launch a new Irony product line
called Retrograde on
1-NOV. It will be a classic chronograph (diameter 41mm), price
will be a little bit more expensive than Irony The Chrono: 150 / 160 EUR. The most
interesting thing about this new product line is the tri-fold
"retrograde" functionality of the different hands: The little hand
at the 2 o'clock position counts the minutes until 4 mins, 59
secs. It goes back to
the starting position then, therefore the name retrograde. The little hand at the 10 o'clock
position counts every 5 minute until 59 mins, 59 secs. It goes
back to the starting position then. And the large seconds hand
counts up to 30 seconds from 3 o'clock to 9 o'clock and goes back to 3
o'clock. If this sounds too confusing to you, have a look at the
excellent pictures of the first four models on the french
watch
forum and you will probably get the unique idea of this product
line... I bet that this will be a great success. The case
of the watch looks a little untypical "Swatch" however, it is a
different shape to what we know since 1983. Also the glass is real
mineral glass, not plastic. So this watch should be a little more
scratch resistent. Update:
Here
are pictures of the actual watch and here
is a little video of the watch in action. Thanks
to Rodolphe Foucart for the information.
- Bernina special. The
swiss sewing machine company Bernina
has released a nice Swatch special for the 75th anniversary of
the company: The special Bernina (YLS123C) is a
strap variant of the Irony Medium Invader
(YLS123). Customers who buy certain Bernina sewing machines
during september/october will receive this watch as a gift with
purchase. Limitation is 5000 pcs, this includes 400 pcs for
Germany. Thanks to Alain Choisy for the
information and picture.
- Club Voice special. For
the relaunch of the magazine of Swatch The Club (now called "The
Voice"), it was planned to issue a special
packaging of the Jelly In Jelly Swatch Instantaneous Fresh
(SUJK102C) in a nice special
packaging, limited and numbered
to 300 pcs. This special packaging should have been
distributed at a club event but apparently, this event was cancelled at
last minute. So for the first time, this special packaging has
surfaced at the Swatch kiosk at the G&P event in Turkey. Thanks to Michael and Henk Seligmann for the information and
picture.
- Verbier access special. As
in previous years, the swiss town of Verbier
will release a special swatch for skiing. This time a Jelly
In Jelly access called Snow Sphere (SUMK101N). Note that the
basis model of this watch (SUMK101) has not yet been released, it seems
to be the "Jelly In Jelly" successor of the Freeride access
(SKK100). It is only available as "strap variant": Snow Sphere (SUMK101N), Caprices (SUMK101E) and Wiener Eistraum
(SUMK101D). Thanks to Jacky
Beauverd for the information and picture.
- 1998 Diax special. Around
Xmas
1998, the Swiss phone company Diax released a special version of the
Chrono Time To Call (SCK112C), with two extra
loops around the strap. Meanwhile, Diax has been absorbed by the
Swiss phone company Sunrise.
Thanks to Alain Choisy for the information and picture.
- Rotterdam Swatch event. On
7-OCT, a Swatch event will take place in Rotterdam during the FIS World Cup Big
Air. There is a Swatch Container Shop during the day.
You will also be able to sign up for a "right to buy" for the Corto
Maltese special swatch 19 degrees South 169 degrees West
(SUJZ105S).
- New instant stores. The
Swatch store in Leipzig, Germany has been closed, it has currently been
replaced with an Instant Store
since 15-SEP. And another instant store was opened in Malta
for one week recently. Here is
another picture from Malta. Thanks to Dino Wierz
and Yasmin Galea for the information and pictures.
- Unique Swatch auction. On
20-SEP, a charity watch auction called OnlyWatch
2007 took place at the Monaco Yacht Show. Swatch
has created a unique Irony Nabab swatch called Pearly Pink, it was auctioned
as Lot 31. Only one piece of this Swatch exists. The design
is inspired by the Vendôme / Spiga Irony Nabab Pink Folie (YNS100PU)
from 2003. Update: The
watch has been sold
for
4500 EUR. Thanks to Dino Wierz for the
information.
- Ja Gern St. Gallen special /
event. On 8-SEP, during the live performance at the
Kunsthalle St. Gallen, Swiss performers Ja
Gern have created a special Swatch Jelly in Jelly with special
Packaging (limited to 444 pcs). This performance is part of the Museum Night in St.
Gallen. Swatch The Club hosted a special event Time
as
activity: Ja Gern! on that day. A special gent Ja Gern
(GZ159D, Jelly Piano with a new strap)
was given to Kunsthalle
employees or sold to Swatch club members during that day, limitation is
unknown. Michael has a great report
with many pictures on his nice webpage.
Thanks to Christine Tanner for the picture.
- Flik Flak online museum. Michael
has created a superb online
museum
for Flik Flak watches (kid's watches made by Swatch), it is well
worth a visit. Flik Flak is celebrating their 20th anniversary
this year.
- Schmid Muller website. I
just stumbled upon a nice website
by Marlyse Schmid et Bernard Muller. They were one of the first
designers for Swatch watches and they have designed Swatch classics such
as 12
Flags (GS101, 1984) and Breakdance (GO001, 1985) and
much more. Their website also has a special section
dedicated
to Swatch, check it out!
- New Puzzle Motion swatch product
line. On the Swatch-Clopedia
forum, you can find information and pictures (example,
more on the Swatch-Clopedia forum) about a nice new product line Puzzle Motion: A
new Jelly-in-Jelly with a moving Kaleidoscope face (eight
small
discs which turn constantly). It is rumoured that these
five new watches (Disco Vibe (SUPB100), Moving Flower (SUPK100), Blue Satellite (SUPK101), Fine Mystique (SUPK102), Interpretation (SUPK103))
will be released in August. Retail is $85 US. To me, this
idea is one of the best innovations by Swatch in the recent
years. This should be a great success. You can find information about Puzzle Motion on the Swatch
website. And here
and here
are two promo advertising clips for Puzzle Motion. Here
is a video of the actual watch in action! Alain Choisy reports
that there are problems with the Puzzle Motion swatches: The discs
do not always return to the right position. Despite this problem,
the Puzzle Motion swatches are sold now in a few countries. Update: Swatch Japan runs a
nice website called puzzlemotion.jp.
- New collectors website. Italian
collector Pierangelo Taiocchi has started a new Swatch
collecting website. It looks great (despite the line:
"completed 5%"), check it
out! It has some new ideas / features such an interactive list of
participants at club events, videos from events, valuations of Swatch
watches with regard to ebay prices and more. Well done!
- Recent Swatch events. 1.
Beach
Boat
Timeless
Party during the Klagenfurt FIVB event from 2 to 5-AUG. For
the Klagenfurt FIVB Beach Volleyball event, a special
access
Swatch was released, limitation is about 2000 pcs.
2. Beachparty
in
Frankfurt Swatch Store on 4-AUG.
- Nicolas
G. Hayek interview. Here
is an interesting interview (in the German Manager
Magazin) with Nicolas G. Hayek explaining why the Swatch Group
is mainly family owned and other things...
- Taiwan Chinese Valentine's Day
special. For the Chinese Valentine's Day, Swatch Taiwan
has released a nice special
packaging of the new gent swatch Petit Collage (GE194), part of the Fall/Winter collection
2007/08. The special is limited to 1500 pcs, not numbered.
Here
is another photo of the little lunch box packaging. Thanks to Sophia Chang for the information and pictures.
- "Be Swiss" Club event. From
27 to 29-JUL, Swatch The Club held a Club event called Be
Swiss. About 50 collectors from all over Europe came to
the 'heart' of Swatch, Switzerland, and they enjoyed several typical
Swiss activities and a visit to the Swatch
FIVB 2007 World Championships in Gstaad, Switzerland. The
participants received a nice Be
Swiss special packaging containing the Touch Alarm Nostalgic Touch (STAF100C)
with a unique loop around the strap in a
nice red paper sleeve. The special
is limited to 80 pcs but only 50 pcs were distributed at the
event. The club members also received the Jelly in Jelly Gstaad WM 07 (SUMM101C) in
the special black paper sleeve and a lot of other goodies,
including a unique self-made Swatch bell!
Here is a detailed report with many pictures from the event.
- Presentation of the F/W
collection. The upcoming Fall/Winter collection 2007/08
was presented on 29-JUL during the Swatch
FIVB 2007 World Championships in Gstaad, Switzerland. The
collection was presented by models (pic1
/ pic2
/ pic3
/ pic4)
and
Swatch Pro-Team Members, eg. Snowboarder Xavier
De
le Rue, Swiss Beach Volleyball player Martin
Laciga, Brazil Beach Volleyball player Leila
Gomes de Barros. Here
is an online press report about the presentation. Pictures
by Swatch.
- Portuguese Swatch specials. To
celebrate the III Feirawatch-boavista
(3rd watch fair, selling watches at reduced prices), the Portuguese
Swatch shop Watch-Boavista
has created two specials which were sold during the III
Feira dos Relógios (30-JUN to 7-JUL in Oporto,
Portugal). The first one is the regular
special containing the Jelly In Jelly Instantaneous Fresh
(SUJK102), limited to 20 pcs and the second
special is the VIP special containing the Jelly In Jelly Fluid Word (SUJK104), limited
to only 4 pcs. Thanks to Vasco Dias for the
information and pictures.
- More Full Blooded Swatches. In
July, Swatch has released four more versions of the Full Blooded (SVCK4032G)
Irony Diaphane Chrono which in turn is a variation of the Shaq 34 Gold (SVCK4008G)
Irony Diaphane Chrono. The watches are called: Full Blooded Night (SVCK4035G), Full Blooded Blue (SVCK4036G), Full Blooded Pink (SVCK4037G), and Full Blooded Silver (SVCK4038G).
Update: Swatch The Club
Italy has released a nice special
packaging with space for all five Full Blooded watches, it costs
140 EUR incl. the Full
Blooded Blue
(SVCK4036G). Limitation is 150 pcs, it is only available in
Italy. Thanks to
Dino Wierz for the information and pictures and
to Andrea Marco Faggioli for additional
information.
- Club Austria Come Together
event. On 18-JUL, a Come Together event organized by Swatch The Club
Austria took place on the Badeschiff
in Vienna. A commemorating swatch special (with a
special paper sleeve) was also released. Michael has a great report
with many pictures on his nice webpage,
check it out, it also includes a picture of the special! Thanks to Peter Altmann for the information.
- Berlin
FIVB Club event. During 11 to 15-JUL, the 2007 Swatch
FIVB BeachVolley World Tour went to Belrin, Germany.
Swatch the Club Germany hosted a small event on the weekend. The
fourteen participating club members were able to purchase a special
packaging of the Jelly in Jelly FIVB Snowpass Hit
it (SUMM101).
The watch comes packaged in a nice paper sleeve, it is limited and
numbered to 30 pcs only. The packaging was signed by the German Pro-Team Members
Julius Brink and Christoph Dieckmann. In addition, the club
members received a nice welcome
package with many goodies. For the staff of the event, a new
FIVB
staff 2007 special (SAZ106C) is available, it is the old
Edwin Moses automatic
(SAZ106) with a new strap. Michael has a great report
with many pictures on his nice webpage,
check it out! Thanks to Michael for the
information and pictures.
- Portuguese special. A
special packaging of the new gent Bloomy
Sunday (GL114, part of the fall/winter 2007/08
collection) will be released in Portugal. The watch is packaged in
a nice tube. Thanks
to Ricardo Rocha for the picture.
- 10th Swatch bourse at the world
museum. The 10th Swatch Bourse will take place at
the World Museum (near
Milano, Italy) on 16-SEP. A very nice special
packaging (limited to 77 pcs, numbered) will be released to
commemorate the event. The packaging has been designed by the
Italian designer Tino
Stefanoni, price is 150 EUR.
- Taiwanese Graduation promotion
gift. As in the last years, Swatch Taiwan is
distributing a nice graduation promotion gift with purchases over $120
US: A white or pink umbrella.
Here
is a picture of an opened
umbrella. Thanks to Sophia Chang for the
information.
- New
Beijing Olympic collection. Four new Beijing Olympic
Swatch watches will be released soon. You can find the information
and pictures on the Swatch-Clopedia
forum.
- New Swatch The Club
merchandising. Here
is the (quite nice!) he 2007/08 Swatch The Club Merchandising. I
like the T-shirts!
- New
Swatch The Club community. In the near future, Swatch
The Club will launch a new club members community webpage collectors.swatchtheclub.com.
It
looks great, a huge improvement over the old website, check it
out! As it has not yet been officially opened, there may be some
glitches here and there.
- Fake Swatch watches. Yasuhiro
Minato
has pictures of a few fake
swatch
watches, some are good (Yuri), some are not so good (Happy
Fish)...
- Taiwanese Mother's Day gift. Swatch
Taiwan has distributed a nice promotional gift with purchase for
mother's day: A pink mirror,
somewhat similar to the mirror distributed in 2005 in Taiwan with the
mother's day special 5-PETAL JOY (GE406). Thanks to Sophia Chang for the information.
- Instant Store at Hessentag. During
the Hessentag 2007 (a Hessian state fair from 1 to 10-JUN) in Butzbach,
Germany, Swatch was present with an Instant Store. A report can be
found on Michael's nice webpage.
- Portuguese Charity special. On
6-JUN, Swatch has released a special Jelly In Jelly swatch Mundo Perfeito (Perfect
World, ref.no. SUJK125), in Portugal only. The watch comes
packaged in a nice paper
box. The sale of this watch (retail is 52 EUR) will benefit
a portuguese children charity project called Movimento ao Serviço da Vida.
Jeroen has more details at the Swatch-Clopedia
forum. Thanks to Pedro Coelho for the
information.
- Swatch Events 1992 videos. Here
is another blast from the past: Three videos of Swatch events in
Germany and Switzerland in 1992:
Swatch The World Event in Zermatt, Black Box Swatch
Exhibition in Berlin, and
Crazy World Of Swatch (Swatch fashion show in Frankfurt).
- Nicolas G.
Hayek Center opening special. On 24-MAY,
the Nicolas G. Hayek Center will open its doors in
Tokyo, Japan, in the Ginza district. Here
is a real picture of the building. As you can see at the japanese
website of the Swatch Group, the building will have fourteen
floors: The first five floors are reserved for boutiques of the
different brands of the Swatchgroup (Swatch, Omega, Breguet, Blancpain,
...). The middle three floors are reserved for the customer
service. The top six floors are reserved for the offices of Swatch
Group Japan. To commemorate the opening, a special version
of the Jelly In Jelly Swatch
Swiss Ski
(SUMK103) will be released in a limited edition of 300 pcs. It has
an extra loop around the strap and
the ref.no. is SUMK103D. The watch
comes in a regular plastic box. Retail price is 8925 Yen (~55
EUR). You can also find this
news bit on the japanese Swatch website. The Swatch Store at
the ground floor will also carry pieces from the Vendôme
collection. The Swatch Japan website has a great information
page about the new Swatch Store. Masa from Japan has taken
the following pictures at the opening yesterday: entrance
of the building; still closed before
grand opening; the big moment! Here
are some nice official pictures of the building by Swatch.
Apparently, the swatch was very crowded with the people who would buy
the limited swatch. Yuji Tada has sent me nice pictures from the
opening event, click here
to check them out! Update:
In 2009, the magazine ArchitectureWeek
has published a nice online
article about the architecture of the building, featuring many
pictures. Thanks to June Berliner and Yuji Tada
for the information and pictures.
- Interesting info about a Thailand
special. In mid 2006, I published the following
info: For the 60th anniversary of the Thai King in governing the
country, a special gent swatch Guiding Light (GZ166C-1) will be released in a numbered edition, 4509 pcs.
Here is a closeup of the face of
the watch and here
are lots of pictures of the watch and packaging by Yasuhiro
Minato. There are some pictures of the actual watch on the Swatch-Clopedia
forum. Here is an interesting update by Jörg van Dyk:
This watch (ref.no. GZ166) was originally planned as Xmas special 2001,
as you can see from this page from the
Swatch-Clopedia 2002 or even better from this
photo of an early Xmas 2001 prototype. It would have
had a different strap of course. The watch almost made it into the
shops as it was produced already. But as we all know, this Xmas
special was replaced in the last minute by the Plume de Fete Xmas special 2001 (SFK136).
My guess is that the change took place to make some advertisement about
the new Vendôme store... At the Vendôme Store itself, a slightly
different version of the Plume
de Fete Xmas special was sold in 2001: Plume
Serafine (SFK136P, numbered
xxx/200) containing 2 extra breastpins.
Thanks to Thomas Sonneville and to Michael for the
information.
- "Love For Swatch" book. Fiorenzo
Barindelli (founder of the Swatch World Museum) and Kelly Magni
are the authors of a new book called Love For Swatch. It
will be a thick (about 240 pages, in Italian and English) and colorful
book about the history of the Swatch and the World Museum, hopefully a
worthy successor to the best book about Swatch watches so far: Swatchissimo.
It has been a long time since a good table book has been released about
Swatch watches (with the exception of the Swatch-Clopedia catalogue of
course), so this is a very welcome addition to the world of Swatch watch
collecting. Here is an ad
for the book. The book will be released
on 20-MAY, during the ninth swatch bourse at the World
Museum. A special packaging
of the book, together with the Jelly In Jelly Pfauenauge (SUJS100) will be
released in a limited edition of 150
pcs, retail of the special
packaging with the watch is 80 EUR. To give you an
impression of the book, here are a few example pages: Swatch
history, Swatch The Club, Opening of the World Museum, Fiorenzo
Barindelli collection. You can also preorder the book at Squiggly
now. Pictures of the book can be found at the Swatch-Clopedia
forum.
- French Outlet store. Swatch
has
opened an outlet store in Troyes,
France, at the Centre Commercial Mac Arthur Glen, 10150 Pont Sainte
Marie. You can buy older swatch watches, including Vendôme swatches and specials at minimum
30% discount to the original retail price. Lots of older Vendôme
swatches were recently sent back from the Vendôme store to Swatch France
so that they can now be sold at a lower price in Troyes. Thanks
to Henk Seligmann and Thomas Sonneville for the information.
- USA VIP loyalty program. Swatch
has started a new VIP loyalty program in the USA (for USA addresses
only). As a member of the program, Swatch will send you a $25 gift card
upon the purchase of your first 10 watches. If you buy 20 or more
swatches (including discounted watches), you will receive a free
membership with Swatch The Club. You also receive a nice
VIP loyalty program membership card based on the Sam Francis
Swatch. The back of the card includes your name and membership
number. According to their mailing: "Additionally, your VIP
status will grant you access to exclusive events and product launches in
the future, as well as keep you up to date on special in-store
promotions via email." Although it sounds somewhat related, this
loyalty program is not related to Swatch The Club. Thanks
to Brian Pier for the information and picture.
- Swatch and MTV?s Best. Show.
Ever. MTV Europe and Swatch today announced a
partnership to create MTV?s first user-generated, viewer-led show, MTV?s Best. Show. Ever.
More details can be found on the Swatch
official
website.
- Fat Boys @ Swatch Breakdance
contest. Check out this unique video: The
Fat Boys at a Breakdance contest sponsored by Swatch. This
must have been in 1984 or 1985, note the curtains
designed by Keith Haring in the background! Thanks
to Jeroen for the hint!
- Swatch "Kiez Brunch" in Berlin.
On 26-MAY, the Swatch Instant Store Berlin is hosting the Kiez-Brunch #2. The brunch
starts 12 pm at the Instant
Store in the Muenzstrasse. All Swatch collectors are
invited, no special will be released, though. More
information can be found at Michael's excellent webpage.
- Book about Dutch Swatch
specials. Dutch Swatch watch collector Hans van Buuren
has prepared a book called Swatch Specials from the Netherlands.
The title says it all! The book has 286 pages (I never thought
that there are sooo many dutch Swatch specials :-) The book looks
great as you can see from his preview
web page. One question remains: Why is the Kiki Picasso Swatch Art
special on the front page of the book? How is this watch releated
to the Netherlands?
- Swatch and Red Bull X-Fighters.
Swatch is the official timekeeper of the Red Bull X-Fighters, a
freestyle motocross (FMX) competition taking place in bullfighting
arenas. Thanks to Michael for the information.
- New Spiga / Vendôme swatches. Masas
has posted pictures from the upcoming
Spiga
/ Vendôme swatches at the Swatch-Clopedia forum, very nice
watches!
- Spiga / Vendôme Mother's Day
special. The upcoming Spiga / Vendôme Mother's Day
special 2007 is called My
Lovely Mother (GE192PU). It is a nice gent with a neck tie for your mobile phone. Limitation is
400 pieces for Vendôme and Spiga. Thanks
to Masas from the Swatch-Clopedia
forum for the information and picture and to Thomas Sonneville
for the update.
- Highland Open special. The
O'Neill
Highland Open by Swatch is the coldest surf contest,
taking place at Scotland's northernmost coast from 24-APR to
1-MAY-2007. To commemorate the event, Swatch will release a
special Fun Scuba Highland
Open (SUGB104C, the Fun Boarder Black Anguilla (SUGB104) with
a new strap). Limitation is 2000 pcs. The watch comes
packaged in a nice paper sleeve.
Thanks to Alain Choisy and to Andrea
Marco Faggioli for the information, pictures by Swatch
and Alain Choisy.
- FIVB 2007 specials. As
in the last years, Swatch will release two watches for the Swatch
FIVB Beachvolley World Tour 2007: The first one is an Irony
Chrono called Game
starter (YCS487), with a red
silicon
rubber strap. The watch comes packaged in a special paper
sleeve. The second one is a Swatch Jelly in Jelly Snowpass
called Hit
it (SUMM101), with a clear plastic strap featuring a
colourful action scene from a beachfront court. A third
Beachvolleyball special will be released in Switzerland only around end
of may for the Swatch FIVB 2007 World Championships in Gstaad,
Switzerland, from 24 to 29-JUL: A Jelly in Jelly Gstaad WM 07 in a special
paper sleeve. Thanks to Jeroen, pictures from Swatch-Clopedia
forum and to Jacky
Beauverd for the information and picture.
- Second UN Human Rights special.
A second UN Human Rights special Jelly in Jelly swatch called Shake
The World No.2 (SUJZ104) will be released in early
may. It looks very similar to the first UN Human Rights special Shake The
World No.19 (SUJZ102). This time, the white '2' on
the dial refers to article 2 of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights. Swatch dedicates a part of the
money earned by the sale of these Human Rights watches to support
selected UN projects in favour of human rights. Thanks
to Jacky
Beauverd for the information, picture by
Swatch.
- Swatchgroup
invests in Asia. The parent company of Swatch, the Swatch Group invests in
asia: First, the Swatch Group has bought
an
ancient hotel in Shanghai, the South
Building
Peace Hotel which was
build in 1908. In 2008/09, the hotel will reopen as an artist
center called Swatch Art Peace Hotel. Opposite of the hotel,
Swatch will open four stores for Omega, Blancpain, Breguet and
Swatch. Three floors of the hotel will be reserved for artists
from all around the world who can live free of charge for six months in
the hotel. Sounds like a great idea. Second, Swatch will
open a large building called Nicolas
G. Hayek Center in Tokyo, Japan, in spring 2007.
More information at the japanese
website of the Swatch Group. Thanks to
Jean-Bernard Mani for the information.
- Roland Garros 2007 specials. As
in 2006, Swatch will release two special swatches for the Roland
Garros 2007 tennis tournament in Paris, France: The first is
a skin called Rève
d'Ivoire (SFK294). The second one is a Jelly In
Jelly called Jeux
d'Elite (SUJK129). Both are packaged in a yellow
Tennis ball. This year, the watches will be available in
other countries than France as well, eg. the watches are available in
Portugal already. Thanks to Michael and to masas
from the Swatch-Clopedia forum for the information and to Jacky Beauverd for the picture.
- Big Mountain Pro special. Swatch
is sponsoring the Swatch
O'Neill Big Mountain Pro 2007 event, a brand new freeride
snowboard and ski competition taking place in the alps from 1 to
10-MAR. To commemorate the event, Swatch has released a special Big Mountain Pro Fun Boarder
(SULM102C, it is the Snow Mobile 2006
[SULM102] with a new strap).
Limitation is 2000 pcs. Here
is a promotional trailer for the Big Mountain Pro 2007 event.
Thanks to Andrea Marco Faggioli for the update.
- Swatch sponsors MTV The Games.
Swatch is the main sponsor of
MTV The Games 2007 in
Asia. The alternative Olympics feature crazy and uniquely
entertaining sports events against the clock.
- Club Swatch 2007/08. The
Swatch
The Club special 2007/08 is a Jelly In Jelly called Global Thinking (SUJZ400, close-up
of face, with date
function). A really "up to date" theme! The watch
comes with a very nice special packaging.
The watch was launched during a Swatch The Club event in Rome, Italy
from 31-MAR to 1-APR. The 70 participating club members
received a special version of the packaging
(SUJZ400C, grey instead of white, numbered xxx/300).
More gadgets were given
away: A CD-ROM and seven pins
representig the seven days and/or characteristics of Swatch
spirit. Here
is a nice report by Michael about the club event. Thanks
to Roberto Quadrini for the information and to Marcel from Squiggly
for some pictures.
- IOC Skin special. A new
IOC olympic special has surfaced, it is the Skin Pure Black Olympia Logo
(SFZ108) with the olympic rings on the dial.
- Swatch TV report. Here
is a long Swatch TV report from DEC-2005. Includes extended
interviews (in English! report is in Turkish) with Swatch Boss Nicolas
G. Hayek, Klaus-Peter Mager (intl. Swatch marketing), and Swatch The
Club Pioneer Member Henk Seligmann from the Netherlands (at 25:45). Also
includes an insight into Swatch history, snippets from the Fun Boarder
launch event in Bürgenstock, Switzerland.
- Dutch Blue Man Group event. A
Blue Man Group event took place in Amsterdam on 11-MAR. Collectors
were able to purchase the limited Blue
Man Group art special Paint
In Blue (SUJZ101S), afterwards, a they went to a live
show of the Blue Man Group. Michael has a nice report!
- 1990's Luzern auction pictures.
I have updated my page about the Swatch auctions which took place
in Luzern, Switzerland in 1991 to
1994, check it out!
- Caprices Music Festival
special. A special Jelly In Jelly access Caprices (SUMK101E) has been
released for the Caprices
Music Festival taking place in Crans-Montana, Switzerland from 7
to 11-MAR-2007. The watch comes packed in a nice black paper
sleeve, limitation is unknown. Note that the basis model of this
watch (SUMK101) has not yet been released, it seems to be the "Jelly In
Jelly" successor of the Freeride access
(SKK100). It is only available as "strap variant": Caprices (SUMK101E) and Wiener Eistraum (SUMK101D).
- Mini mini Swatch exhibition. On
25-JAN, the renovated Museum Zeughaus (part of the
Reiss-Engelhorn-Museum
in Mannheim, Germany) opened its doors to the public. Part of the
permanent exhibition is a collection of (mainly very old) clocks.
Among
the clocks is a display cabinet
of Swatch watches, featuring 20
swatch watches from the collection of swatch collector Joris van
Eeden. It would have been possible to show some more swatch
watches as you can see from this
picture... But it is always nice to see those 83 blister
packagings :-) Here
is the press release about the exhibition. Update:
Here
is a TV report about Joris von Eeden from last year, showing his Swatch
collection and his collection of antique watches, very nice!
- Beijing 2008 special. A
new Beijing 2008 olympics special Jelly In Jelly called FuWa (SUJZ103) is now
available in China. It features the olympic
mascots on the strap. It comes packaged in a silver
paper
sleeve. The watch
is also available in Italy, Switzerland, Germany (and probably other
countries) since march 2007. Update:
Here
are pictures from the launch of the watch in China on 12-NOV-2006, note
the maxi version of this watch! Thanks to June
Berliner and Henk Seligmann for the information and to Andrea
Marco Faggioli for the update.
- Semmering Zauberberg specials.
Swatch has issued two Fun Boarder specials, together with the
skiing area Zauberberg Semmering. Here is a picture of the two
watches (the Snow
Mobile 2006 [SULM102] with either a black or a white
strap). The special is limited to 2000 pcs (probably 1000 each),
and the watch contains a one day ski pass preloaded on the watch.
Here
is more information about the watch.
- Wiener Eistraum special. A
special Jelly-In-Jelly access special called Wiener
Eistraum (SUMK101D, "Vienna Ice Dream") has been released in
Vienna, Austria, in a limited edition of 1000 pcs. It is probably
the first ever Jelly-In-Jelly access special. The access swatch
can be used as an entrance pass for Wiener Eistraum:
From 19-JAN to 4-MAR-2007, the square in front of Viennas city hall is
used as a huge ice-skating area. A picture
can be found on Michael's nice website.
- Swiss Snowboard movie special.
Dessine moi une ligne is a
movie starring (among others) Géraldine
Fasnacht (snowboarder from Switzerland, Swatch Pro Team
member). To commemorate the release of the movie, Swatch will
release a special packaging of the Swatch Fun
Boarder Snowy Sky (SULK100C).
If you are interested in purchasing this swatch, you can contact Alain
Choisy. Update: Here
is a promotional video for the Dessine moi une ligne special. Thanks to Alain Choisy for
the information and picture.
- Design study for Swatch. Yet
another design
study for a swatch watch, not official I guess and designed by
Pierre Merlet. The watch is called Infinity, and it is a
Mp3/Video/Photo Player watch. Thanks to Rodolphe
Foucard for the information.
- CollectoMania Club Event. A
Swatch The Club event CollectoMania
took place in Duisburg, Germany on 10-FEB-2007 starting at 3pm at
the Gebläsehallenkomplex Landschaftspark.
A CollectoMania special numbered xxx/300 on the
back of the plastic box (ref.no. SAB104C) was also released: It
is the automatic Punching with
a special strap and a nice black paper sleeve. As about 80 club
member participated at the event, only about 80 of the 300 specials were
given out, so the CollectoMania
special is quite rare. Collectors were able to purchase Point of
Sales and merchandising material. Here
is a detailed report with many pictures from the event.
Later in the evening, a Timeless Party took
place. Michael has a nice report about the CollectoMania
event on his great website.
- Swatch Comic competition. A
Swatch Comic competition was recently held in
Austria. The theme of the contest was "Time" (not too surprising
:-) At the website
of the contest, you can browse the artworks of the winners.
The artworks are current on exhibition
in
Graz, Austria.
- Ambiente goes Swatch store
Frankfurt. From 9 to 17-FEB, you can see exhibitions
from the Frankfurt trade fair Ambiente
in 40 different
stores in Frankfurt city. The Frankfurt swatch store is nicely
decorated with bottles of the Swiss company SIGG.
Thanks to Michael for the information.
- net.hunt, the first ever online game. Did
you ever hear about the Swatch net.hunt, the first ever
online game in APR-1996? Probably not... Click here
to read a story about the Swatch net.hunt
and to find out how the internet looked like more than 10 years ago!
- Swatch Instant Store Art
Exhibitions. Two art exhibition could be seen at the
Swatch Instant Store in Berlin (Münzstrasse): First, artwork by Monoka
in October/November 2006, and in December 2006 some artworks by Christian
Kreisel. Thanks to Michael for the
information.
- Valentine special 2007. The
Valentine special 2007 is a Jelly In Jelly called Feel My Love (SUJK121).
This year, the theme is "Voodoo Love", so the watch comes packaged in a
red box with a little voodoo
doll and some little heart pins. Swatch has added a nice voodoo game about the
watch to the official website. Here
is the TV ad for the watch and here
is something really unique: A true voodoo priest, Eddy
G. Lazaro, has blessed the voodoo swatch with a love spell, check
out his visit to
the Swatch headquarters in Biel and more... Update:
A "VoodooLoveLounge"
will take place at the Swatch Instant Store in Berlin (Münzstrasse) on
10-FEB at 9pm. Free Entrance!
- Vendôme / Spiga Valentine Special
2007. The Vendôme / Spiga Valentine Special 2007 is
called Cherish
Signs (LK283PU), packaged in a red heart. Thanks
to
Emanuele Bertodo for the update.
- Mobile Phone Watch. Almost
ten
years after Swatch presented Swatch Talk (a watch with an
integrated mobile phone, click here
and scroll down for more details) at the Cebit computer fair in 1998, TAG Heuer is thinking about
launching a mobile phone watch. Well,
not completely true according to this Cash magazine article from
2000: The prototype presented by Swatch in 1998 was only a DECT
phone (a cordless phone with only 30 meters range), it was never
commercially sold. But in 2000, a real GSM mobile phone prototype
was ready. It was never commercially sold as well. Let's see
if TAG Heuer is able to
turn this new mobile phone watch into a real product... Thanks
to
Christine Tanner for the information and picture.
Andreas Wiethoff