Jacques Etoile & Mercure (intro)

By TLex I'm not sure how much introduction the name Jacques Etoile needs. The German owned and made brand, is well known by collectors for their Atlantis model with its Plongeur hands and 500m Fricker case.

The name Mercure, however, might be slightly little less familiar. Both brands are owned by master watchmaker Klaus Jacob, whose formula for success is 'Swiss quality, German precision and prices as 25 years ago, are our targets for a success.' While the Jacques Etoile brand is blessed only with the Atlantis, Mecure now have two divers models in their collection.



The MERCURE Poseidon, which saw its debut 2009 is a 42mm diver with a rather unusual 330m depth rating. Its case sports an Omega Seamaster style (10 o'clock) manual Helium release valve, obligatory for those offshore divers who are involved in saturation diving. The watch has been fitted with a scratch resistant sapphire crystal with double AR-coating. The Poseidon is powered by specially adjusted ETA 2824-2 automatic caliber.



This year Mercure added two new internal bezel divers to their collection, the Bellagio I & II, which come in two movement variants; an ETA 2824 auto (490euro) or a Valjoux 7750 chrono (990euro). The new Bellagios have had their exteriors coated with PVD, while their dials have been fitted with sporty carbon fiber internal rotating bezels. I'm not sure of the case sizes, but I would guess they wouldn't exceed much more than 42mm. For further info. on any of the models featured click on the 'Mercure' icon at the bottom of the post.