AdmiralsCup

Corum Admiral's Cup Challenge 44 Black & Gold Watch

A sure compromise between fancy and fun, the new Corum Admiral's Cup Challenge 44 Black & Gold is a suave new character in the Admiral's Cup watch lineup. No, it isn't a radical new design in the Admiral's Cup line of timepieces, but rather another installment in Corum's ongoing quest to promote the Admiral's Cup collection as the premiere non-regatta timer yacht racing themed watch around! I am pretty sure it has succeeded in that endeavor.

The "44" in the Corum Admiral's Cup Challenge 44 Black & Gold watch refers to the black PVD steel case's size of 44mm wide. The name of the watch is more or less "primarily descriptive" of the watch without much character in the title. The bezel is 18k rose gold, and so are the applications on the dial such as the hands and hour markers. The style is fittingly bold, but not necessarily more so than other Admiral's Cup timepieces. Inside the watch is Corum's calibre 753 automatic mechanical chronograph movement that has been Chronometer certified. The true black and gold version of the watch is limited to just 188 pieces while a brushed gray dial version (matched to a gray PVD case) is also available and limited to just 128 pieces. There is no way of knowing why there is a difference in availability. It is also hard to tell if there is lume applied to the dial of the watch. It could be the "dark" style lume - but I hope it is there. Sport watches such as this suffer a loss of credibility without having any type of darkness visibility. If not, at least plenty of other Corum Admiral's Cup watches have lume applied to the large stylish hands. The Admiral's Cup Challenge 44 Black & Gold watch should be available soon.

Ariel Adams publishes the luxury watch review site aBlogtoRead.com.

Tags: 44, admirals cup, AdmiralsCup, black, challenge, corum, gold, watch

Corum Admiral's Cup Tourbillon Watch Fully Set With Diamonds

by Ariel Adams (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Timepieces / Watches

People often miss the point of watches like this when they comment, "it's not worth that price!" No, it's probably not worth the retail cost (which is certainly $100,000 plus), but you aren't paying only for the value of the materials, you are paying for image and exclusivity. The Corum Admiral's Cup Tourbillon 48 is a status symbol on your wrist, and the cost of ownership will keep the watch out of most people's hands.

Corum's Admiral's Cup line has recently evolved into a show-off watch. Progressively getting larger, the watch that began as a celebration of a yacht race now seeks to be a timepiece 'measure of a man.' This 48mm wide version covered with diamonds has shed the characteristic flag hour indexes and replaced them with black diamonds (48 black diamonds make up the hour markers). The rest of the 18k red gold case is covered with 1,389 diamonds of various cuts for a total of 10.5 carats. The watch is no longer much of a submersible with a water resistance of only 30 meters. Overall look of the Admiral's Cup Tourbillon is extremely decadent.

Powering the watch is a manually wound Corum caliber 372 with a tourbillon complication. Interestingly enough, the power reserve is about 90 hours, which leads me to believe that the movement has at least two barrels. While tough to notice, the tourbillon cage is shaped like the iconic Admiral's Cup key logo that is typically present on the end of the seconds hand on the non-diamond version of the watch. The dial isn't the easiest to read, but no one who acquires a Corum Admiral's Cup Tourbillon 48 is doing so for practical time-keeping purposes.

Ariel Adams publishes the watch review site aBlogtoRead.com.

Tags: admirals cup, AdmiralsCup, Corum, corum admirals cup tourbillon, CorumAdmiralsCupTourbillon, diamond watch, DiamondWatch, timepiece, watch