Perceptions of watches change over time and no watch may have rocketed from total obscurity to the spotlight as quickly as the 222 last year. The 222 was, for some time, the very unobvious, alternative choice. I know this because for a decade until 2022, when someone asked me ‘Royal...

The 1665 Double Red Sea-Dweller (DRSD) is like a 5513 Sub turned up to eleven. It’s a little more technical with a helium valve, a little more appealing to some for its lack of cyclops, and just a little more nuanced in the details. But this DRSD goes way past...

Until this year in the new 1908, the words Rolex and guilloché almost never went together. But very, very occasionally, there was a Day-Date with a hand engine turned dial. A quick Google will turn up the last one that came to market which we covered, a square pyrimidal cut....

The first of anything in Rolex-land tends to be a bit different, not just because it’s new, but relative to what came after. These small, initial periods of experimentation are where you get meters first Subs, red depth Datejusts, fuchsia GMTs, ‘Blackout’ 14270s, and, indeed, this Floating Cosmograph. This is...

In the release of IWC’s latest Ingenieur, the brand went out of their way to not advertise the watch on the basis of its magnetic resistance or indeed list it in any media. Isn’t that a bit odd for thee IWC Antimagnetic watch? In this 3508 from the late 80s,...

The Monopoussoir is dead, long live the Monopoussoir. Yes, there’s a new Monopoussoir around but CPCP will always be a more significant moment in Cartier’s long and storied ascent out of the treacherous 1980s. There is just so much to this watch, culturally and tangibly. And I don’t even think...

For all the chatter around design-led watchmaking now, it’s easy to forget that Roger Dubuis went to great lengths in the 90s to create a shape quite unlike anything before or after. After branching out on his own, the Sympathie line was the first time Roger pushed the boundaries of...

This Triple Calendar Chronograph is not a Rolex, Heuer, Girard Perregaux, or Zodiac; it has no brand, the generic label. It was the ultimate pride and joy of a budding watchmaker in the mid-late 1960s. This dial reads Technicum La Chaux-de-Fonds, short for Technicum Neuchâtelois. This was, at the time,...

The 5303R is much more than just the only Patek Philippe repeater that Sylvester Stallone hasn’t yet flipped. It is the only Patek Philippe wristwatch with its tourbillon visible dial side. More notably, it was first to have its chiming hammer and gongs dial-side as well. And it is directly...

There are many watchmakers today with immense history who seem a bit aimless, but no brand extends so far in both directions as Breguet. This is the 3357, a watch whose architecture was designed by Daniel Roth in the mid-1980s Chaumet era which is still in the catalogue today. Breguet...

This is a Pre-Daytona, but it’s way more interesting than it appears at first glance. This is the Pre-Daytona equivalent of a perfect Paul Newman: finding any 6238 with a black dial. For standard dials, the 6238 might hold the Rolex record for having the largest discrepancy between dial colors....

In the world of 90s Holy Trinity chronographs, I don’t think you can argue that VC had the sexiest case. The 5070 is lovely, but not this voluptuous. It’s thoughtful enough to not be retro, yet a bastion of traditional watchmaking technique. It might just be the most elegant evening...

Many will argue this is the first-ever Explorer, ref. 6350, and it’s honeycomb. But others will state it’s the ref. 6150. In the 6150, only some examples actually said Explorer on the dial and it wasn’t yet an officially certified chronometer. By this 6350, both traditions were firmly in place....

Sporting a Crash is the closest thing in watches to walking around holding a Salvador Dali above your head. But sporting an NSO (Cartier’s new program to create custom orders for their best clients) Crash is like having Dali make that painting just for you. The allure of a tailored...

Middle Eastern dials are not all equal. They’re all fantastically interesting, from UAE Armed Forces Datejusts to Oman Day-Dates or even Syrian Explorer IIs, all of these watches call back to a time in Rolex when the brand was more personable and willing to go more than the extra mile...

Zenith may be known as the don of the high-beat chronograph, and they are, but things didn’t start that way. This is the S.58, a 150 meter dive watch, and it’s what Zenith were pouring their hopes and ambition into before the El Primero had ever lied about being first...

Everyone seems to be waiting with bated breath, hope, and timid caution to find out just how time will judge the 5970. You’ve heard it before and you’ll hear it again, this is the last of the Lemania ébauches; 5270 that followed axed that tradition. But, further, the 5970 was...

This was the RM of its day, just with more substance; AP invented the combination high complication with sporting ambition in the 1984 ref. 5554. This is, and to ours will likely forever remain, the apex of Royal Oak collecting. Maybe not this precise iteration, but the pre-leap year QP...