The Milgauss is dead. Except, if you love Rolex, you’ll know the best core scientific Rolex offering was never called Z-Blue. It was called 6541 or maybe 6543. However, if you’ve glanced recent auction results to find the last great 6541 hammered at 2.5M, don’t lose hope. The 1019 has...

Fewer than 5 years ago, this was a 50K (USD) Day-Date. Today, this is a 200K Day-Date. It is a stone dial, but not one you’re likely to see ever, known as coral. This is not to be confused with coral-red Stella dials, this is coral stone. The tones of...

The Vacheron Constantin Perpetual Calendar has always been the unobvious choice. AP were first to both the post-quartz revolution QP and later integrating that QP with a sports case in the 25554 in 1983. They invented the category. Patek Philippe and Vacheron Constantin only brought perpetual calendars to their sports...

Patek Philippe only has the reputation today that can see it ‘get away’ with things like the rainbow minute-repeating Aquanauts because of the reputation it built with watches like the 5004. In 1994, Patek Philippe faced a question. They’d successfully brought high complication to meet serial production, in a way...

Shaped watches are often overlooked and there might be no case more unjustly maligned than the Patek Philippe 5040. The 5040 is the lesser famous Don Swayze to the 3940’s Patrick Swayze. Why is that? This is a micro-rotor cal 240Q perpetual calendar, same as the 3940, in a Tortue-like...

There’s no CNC machine at Haldimann, an independent whose philosophy is about as far from Rolex as watchmaking gets. The most modern machine they have is an optical microscope from the ’60s. I suspect if you showed an iPhone to Beat Haldimann he’d shout witchcraft and report you to the...

JLC of the later 80s and early 90s, or pre-Richemont acquisition rather, knew how to throw a party. Then CEO Henry-John Belmont, French designer Janek Deleskiewicz, and new recruit Günter Blümlein (of later Lange fame) wanted to take the Reverso and elevate it considerably. Using the model’s 60th anniversary as...

To us, Heuer are not a quartz Moonswatch-me-too Hodinkee marketing exercise. Similarly, Heuer are not 18mm thick, uninspired chronographs made to give Frédéric Arnault something to do other than party. No modern marque may be so far off course from its roots as TAG. So let’s focus on the second...

Here’s a hot take to some: stone dials suit the Datejust even better than a Day-Date. If you’ve been into the more formal side of Rolex for any time at all, most roads lead to vintage Day-Date. But stone dials are the only place where a Datejust stands on equal...

This is that mythical object, spoken about by many in secrecy but never actually seen: the interesting modern Rolex. After featuring the first modern Rolex in finds a few months ago, I received a handful of DMs inquiring, ‘Are there any other modern Rolex you like?’ Yes. The Le Mans,...

The only way I can describe a Double Red Sea-Dweller is like a Single Red Sub that goes to 11. It’s just more of everything. Neither you nor I will ever have use for a helium escape valve. But this has something else because of it: an honesty. It’s serious...

There is nothing like a tropical manual Daytona. The ageing process which has so beautifully crafted these subdials is somehow even more proudly and vividly displayed when contrasted directly against a silvered-white sunburst panda dial. I’ve said this before, but I like to imagine tropical dials as God’s way of...

Japanese independent watchmaking has blossomed in the last 5 years like few areas of watchmaking. From Norifumi Seki’s independent display watch to Asaoka’s gorgeous Tourbillon Noir, there’s a wealth of personality being expressed in metal. One, though, has recently enjoyed the brightest spotlight of all thanks to Ed Sheeran and...

The case could easily be made that the three ‘holy trinity’ neo-vintage perpetual calendars, the storied refs 5548, 43031, and 3940, are the most important complicated serially produced watches of the modern era, particularly the 5548 for bringing the category back. But that’s like saying David Gandy is handsome; duh....

Surely if any chronograph deserves a moonphase complication, it’s the Moonwatch. But, like all good things, it was only introduced in the 80s. This is the ref. 345.0809, better known by collectors as the Speedymoon. Not only does it bring the most romantic of complications to the party, but it...

Pre-Richemont Vacheron Constantin can be accurately summed up by just the hands and dial of this ref. 47052. The hands are voluminous and domed, almost cylindrical with a mirror polish. That finishing takes time. And then there’s the dial: ‘Vieux Panier’ hand guilloché that almost resembles brushstrokes, applied Matese cross,...

Universal Genève are coming back. For true vintage lovers, they never left our thoughts. And throughout all these 70 years, one reference has always remained the apex. Elusive and extremely scarce, this is the 22560 A. Cairelli Split Seconds. This 44mm oversized chronograph is wafer thin, made for the Italian...

This is one of the great, ‘what might have been, had Rolex pursued a different path’ watches. It’s the 3055, better known as the Piccolino, and it has more in common with the Patek Philippe 130 than a 6265 Daytona. Piccolino means little ‘little one’, but it packs an outsized...