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“Watch What-If” is a special column on aBlogtoRead.com that asks the playful question “what if an iconic watch you know and love was offered in a different style?” The idea embraces a good timepiece’s core design and has fun by offering new colors and material concepts to stimulate your senses. These ideas may be provocative, artistic, or just plain silly. This is about fun, Photoshop, and the celebration of wrist watch design and experimentation. The original design we work off will always be at the bottom of the article. The designs are brought to life by Beau Hudspeth who does the artwork and concepting after he and I choose the models and styles to focus on. These special design experiments are extremely time consuming and labor intensive but we hope you enjoy the results. Ideas and comments are more than welcome. Enough response may even lead to a round two of design of the same watch – so please comment below. You are also encouraged to suggest watches that make it into the Watch What-If section here on aBlogtoRead.com.

Watch What-Iffed: Piaget Altiplano 43 Automatic

The original:

Written by Mr. Ariel Adams – aBlogtoRead.com, trusted independent watch media.

One of Jorg Gray’s new for 2011 models is the JG3ᕼ collection that comes in both three-hand and chronograph models. For an interesting watch under $1,000 Jorg Gray offers a lot of good choices. Visually interesting though still classic in their proportions the JG3700 watch collection is an interesting range.

One of the nicest elements of the design is how the Italian calf-leather strap is fitted to case. This integrated look is always a bonus. The case is 45mm wide in steel and water resistant to 100 meters. Some models are polished while others are polished and then done in IP black. The crystal is one of those mineral glasses coated in sapphire. Different brands have different names for this, but the idea is to offer the scratch resistance of an all sapphire crystal in a less expensive watch.

Aside from the case the three-hand and chronograph models have totally different dials. Each has Swiss movements – ISA for the three-hand, and Ronda for the chronograph. The three-hand model is available in both a dark all-black model with rose gold toned hand and hour indicators, and a light white model with black hands for legibility. On several occasions I mentioned the importance of high dial contrast to Jorg Gray which they have taken to heart.

One interesting thing on the dial is their interpretation of the “open” date window display on the three-hand model. The window is large enough to show more than just the current date, but small enough to only fully show the current date. This should help to reduce the confusion sometimes accompanying date windows of this style.

Even if you don’t like the dials you can’t call them boring. Jorg Gray wanted to add as much decorative interest as possible. There are various textures and polish styles on each version. I like the circular Geneva stripes on the outer dial of the three-hand model. On the chronograph you have a dial with mostly Clos du Paris pyramids on the face. Jorg Gray really liked skeletonized hands, which you�™ll see in these models – though I tend to like the style of the hands on the chronograph models better.

Jorg Gray places â��Swiss Movement” on the dial to identify the origin of the movements. Problem is that the placement of the phrase is asymmetric and throws off the balance of the dial a bit. You see the term “Swiss Made� is phrase with two words that are about the same size. So if you split them up on the dial at the bottom they allow for the dial to be symmetrical. “Swiss Movement” on the other hands is made up of words with very different sizes. Placement on the dial is as seen here with the full phrase. As a fix many brands instead used the shortened phrase “Swiss Movt.” Balance restored! Jorg Gray might want to think about using that shortened phrase moving forward to further refine the dial style of this and other watches.

Both the three-hand and chronograph version of the JG3700 have their appeal and I like the color palette choices. These are inherently simple watches with contemporary designs and some welcome character that is often devoid in watches of this type. Price for the three-hand JG3700 model is $595 and $795 for the chronograph model.

Written by Mr. Ariel Adams – aBlogtoRead.com, trusted independent watch media.