Yosuke Sekiguchi's Primevère has now debuted at auction, but here we have a wild Piece Unique about to follow. This one is highlyg distinct: No. 36, completed in 2026 and catalogued as a pièce unique, the ‘Interprétation du Japon’. The 39.5mm by 12mm steel case and white grand feu enamel...

Well before what we know today, Roger Dubuis produced eight years of deadly serious, nearly-classical Geneva watchmaking. Dubuis spent nine years at Longines and fourteen in Patek Philippe's complications workshop, where the 2499 and 3448 crossed his bench, left in 1980 to restore other people's masterpieces, and founded his brand...

A. Lange & Söhne launched the Lange 1 Daymatic Honeygold, ref. 320.050, on 7 December 2025. The date matters in Glashütte: F. A. Lange founded his manufacture on 7 December 1845, and Walter Lange revived by registering it again it on the same day in 1990. The edition was limited...

A limited production of a classic shape Cartier always causes a stir. But this is particularly the case when only 90 examples were made, for the 90th, with a salmon dial—of the Santos Dumont. The Santos Dumont was Cartier’s first wristwatch shape and one of the very first men’s purpose-made...

This, ref. DAAG01, is a 2025-revived Daniel Roth—and one is currently auctioning for the first time ever. Daniel Roth the brand returned in 2023 under La Fabrique du Temps / Louis Vuitton and the tourbillon that reopened the brand sits deliberately close to the 1988 original. However, the man himself...

One could argue whether the Resonance or Tourbillon is FP Journe’s signature, but it’s certainly one of the pair. The Tourbillon Souverain ‘TN’—Tourbillon Nouveau — debuted in April 2004 and ran until 2018, when the Tourbillon Souverain Vertical and its calibre 1519 succeeded. It replaced the brass-movement Reference T directly,...

A ref. 110.049—better known as the Dubail—is about to head to auction for the first time in awhile, and that’s a big deal for the Lange 1. It belongs to the Soirée family, introduced in 2001, which gave the Lange 1 a mother-of-pearl dial. Most say the reference was created...

This is a salmon dial 25661BC, a unicorn amongst 36mm QP collecting. Audemars Piguet built reference 25661 from 1985 to 1994, and the factory ledgers put total output at 342 pieces: 244 in yellow gold, 37 in platinum, 32 in white gold, and 29 in pink gold. That makes the...

The Asymétrique began in 1936, when Cartier unveiled a watch that deliberately broke its own rules. Known originally as the Tank Parallélogramme (also the Oblique), it was the last Tank released during Louis Cartier's lifetime. Its lozenge-shaped case tilted the dial 30 degrees clockwise, a trick born of the era's...

The most modern machine at Haldimann is an optical microscope from the ’60s, certainly not a CNC. Haldimann’s workshop and entire operation is his home, a villa overlooking the river Aare in Thun that has a deliberately meditative vibe. His eponymous independent manufacture makes 20-30 watches per year, entirely in...

The original Cornes de Vache (translates as cow horn) from 1955 combined two technical innovations: Vacheron’s first water-resistant and antimagnetic chronograph. Those technical steps have been largely forgetten by most, but what has stayed front of mind was the design—featuring some of the most sculptural lugs ever on a case....

In 1995, Audemars Piguet turned 120. To mark the occasion, AP looked into their catalogue for the most prestigious, representative piece it could build upon and landed, naturally, on the Royal Oak Perpetual Calendar. The result was the ref. 25810OR, produced that year in a run of just 120 examples—one...

Early Roger Dubuis, in design and finish, often feels closer to the Patek Philippe of old than much of Patek Philippe does today. It could not feel more separate from the brand's modern incarnation. This brief flash of brilliance came directly after Dubuis had spent nearly two decades at Patek,...

When most of the industry scrambled to fit quartz movements into their collections, Peter Baumberger correctly read the quartz crisis as a passing phase and an opportunity. He slowly purchased the rights to the Urban Jürgensen & Sønner name along with machinery the industry had written off as obsolete, partnering...

When Vacheron Constantin introduced reference 43031 in 1983, it was the first time the maison had ever put a perpetual calendar on the wrist. Conceived in the depths of the quartz crisis, it stood as a defiant statement—alongside Audemars Piguet's 5548 of 1978 and Patek Philippe's 3940 of 1985—that classical...

Patek Philippe’s first serially produced Tourbillon also happened to be a Minute Repeater. That’s not even the most astonishing thing about the ref. 3939, though, as when it was introduced in 1992 it came to market at just 33mm. The manual calibre RTO-27-PS took up the entire caseback, with little...

The reference 25668BA is Audemars Piguet's Openworked Quantième Perpétuel in yellow gold, and the most expressive of a bloodline that begins with the 5548 of 1978. Where the 5548 introduced the thinnest self-winding perpetual calendar the world had seen to revive mechanical watchmaking in Switzerland, the 25668 stripped the movement...

The 111.025 is a bit of an enigma: short-lived, widely collected, and in production for a flash. Most estimate total production well under 100 pieces. Most early Little Lange 1 references were produced before 2001–2002, and by the early 2000s the brand had halted production of most of them—these pieces...