William Shatner is a man of many talents; actor, comedian, narrator and singer, to mention a few of his many roles. The man is best known though, for his portrayal of James Tiberius Kirk of the Star Trek franchise. He has now though, apparently turned his talents to the ancient art of watch making.
Shatner recently partnered with the Egard Watch Company to develop a limited-edition timepiece entitled Passages. Called a “mechanical work of art,” Passages doesn’t need a battery for power, and instead uses your wrist movements to automatically wind it up, a technology adapted from Miyota, a company owned by Citizen.
The idea kicked off when Shatner and Casper Van Dien, Egard’s brand ambassador met. Shatner fell in love with Van Dien’s watch and instantly became a fan. This eventually led to collaboration with Egard founder Ilan Srulovicz. Shatner worked directly with Srulovicz to design four different versions of the watch; Black, Rose, Steel and Gunmetal, each can be ordered with either a steel or leather band. The name Passages comes from “Shatner’s idea that represents the valued moments in time, for himself his family and generations to come,” Egard said.
Fitting of a watch designed by a star ship captain, Passages “is dusted with 100 percent authentic asteroid dust,” Egard said. The watch has a unique shape that’s made of high-grade stainless steel designed for watch making, and the special-cut domed sapphire front is “virtually scratch proof.” The back is, of course, signed by Shatner.
“In our process to come up with the infinite scale of time, we came up with the idea to put authentic asteroid dust on the dial,” Shatner said “Each limited edition passages watch comes with dusted asteroid (some of the most primitive material in the universe) on the dial so you can walk around with a piece of the universe on your wrist.”
Rather than selling it at the more traditional time piece outlets and bespoke jewellers, Egard, which was founded recently in 2012, and uses movements from Switzerland and Japan, has gone the crowdfunding route via Indiegogo. Besides crowdfunding being the future of commerce, Egard says this allows them to sell a watch for less than $400 by cutting out the middlemen and marketing expenses, which would normally go for $1,199 if it were to sell at retail value.
It also allows Egard to make the watch that much more unique. Each watch costs $399, but there’s also a $550 edition that gets you a fancy box, both leather and steel straps, and a USB drive which contains behind-the-scenes footage from the watch development.
The crowdfunding campaign ends on December 27, but currently has more than tripled the $75,000 goal, with an estimated delivery date of March 2014.
[Image via watchuseek]
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