Pocket watches are, for the most part, a thing of the past. Where the (mechanical) wristwatch is still firmly holding ground, has there been a tremendous decline in the sales of pocket watches. That doesn't stop some brands from still making them on occasion, even when it is a one-off like this stunning Parrot Repeater pocket watch by Jaquet Droz.

Most mechanical watches emit a sound of some sort. Some tick modestly, yet others quite noticeably. This is not really on purpose, but more the way that they are constructed. There is, however, a category of watches that are designed to make a sound. Some chime the time, others have an audible alarm, but all are without exception fitted with a beautiful and complex movement, such as the following four watches.

There are great benefits of being a jeweler with a long-standing tradition when it comes to watchmaking. A deep understanding of both fields often yields amazing results when both are united in a single creation. This is most certainly the case with the following creations by Bulgari.

Creating an icon is the dream and hope of every brand, yet only a few can turn this into a reality. When A.lange & Söhne was relaunched in 1994, they did so immediately with the Lange 1. It was not only the asymmetrical dial design that accomplished this but also the outsize date. This complication would become a hallmark feature on many A.lange & Söhnes, but it would also be the inspiration for another icon: the Zeitwerk, which the brand launched in 2009.

Jaeger-LeCoultre has a long-standing tradition of creating Grand Complications that make sure that your heart skips a beat. Even without seeing the watch itself, their latest creation fills you with anticipation, in particular, because of the last three words of its name: Gyrotourbillon Westminster Perpétuel.

This weekend it is time for some action again in Geneva, as Phillips will be having its November auction. As is usual, there are many highlights among the 226 lots that will hopefully be welcomed by their new owners. As always, the selection is remarkably diverse, but also very high-end not only in terms of make and model but also in terms of quality. Here are a few lots that caught our eye!

The history of the minute repeater goes back to a time before electric light. As lighting an oil lamp was quite some work, watchmakers build repeating mechanisms in pocket watches so that they could sound the time on demand. The invention of the minute repeater was claimed by both Edward Barlow and Daniel Quare, but it was Quare who obtained a patent for it in 1687. Initially, watches equipped with a repeating mechanism used bells to chime the time, later to be replaced with wire gong, which took up less space. These weren't minute repeaters, at first, but quarter repeaters, chiming the time to the closest quarter.

Some brands have a reputation to uphold but don't. Instead, they take great pleasure in exceeding them, like Jaquet Droz recently did with their Tropical Bird Repeater.

The jump hour is a complication loved by many, yet only a few brands have one in their collection. One of the reasons for this is that it is difficult to make. The jump hour is a volatile complication in which power is build up in a spring during the hour to be released upon the hour. Not only does this require superb power management within the movement, but there is also to challenge to achieve perfect alignment of the hour disc after the jump has taken place.

Ultra-thin watches: not too long ago this was the exclusive territory of dress watches. Brands like Vacheron Constantin, Patek Philippe and Piaget, ruled in this domain. Yet as many things in the watch industry change, so also this. In more recent times having the world's thinnest mechanical watch (with or without a complication) seems to have turned into a showdown between Piaget and Bulgari, who put a distinctly different spin on things!

Christophe Claret is in many ways a renaissance man, and this is especially evident in watches like the Adagio. It combines practical complications with an exquisite movement and captures them both in a bold case with delicate details.

After Part I of Haute Time's Favorite Baselworld Watches, there are still a few new watches that we would like to highlight, as they made strong entries to our wishlists, and perhaps those of yours as well.

Baselworld 2018 brought a lot of new watches, from the large, well-known brands, but also many independent brands introduced extraordinary new models. These are five of Haute Time's favourites!

For a few days a year Basel, normally a modest provincial capital on the Swiss borders with Germany and France, is the capital of the world, the watch world that is. This year is particularly strong in terms of new offerings. The vast majority of the brands exhibiting at Baselworld introduced watches that are very pure in their DNA, while at the same time in tune with what the market currently desires, like these four watches:

Rarely has a name for a watch been as appropriate as for the Bvlgari Diva’s Dream Minute Repeater, as this timepiece can only be categorized for what it name already tells us: a dream. This dream is pretty much a fairy tale as it describes the marriage of a beautiful case, and a stunning dial, with one of the Haute Horlogerie's finest, and thinnest, minute repeater movements in the world: the manufacture caliber BVL 362 which we can also find in the Bvlgari Octo Finissimo Minute Repeater.

Blancpain is a brand that most certainly doesn't shy away from creating unique, and complicated, watches. This Carrousel Repetition Minutes is a prime example of this, as it unites an already complicated minute repeater, with a carrousel.