There are many, many things in the watch world that simply do not make sense. Is Tim Mosso a Swiss automaton? How did watch polishing become a debate about meta-existentialism? Is Lange service Germany’s attempt to get into the cartel game? More than any of these mysteries, I seek to...

There are a handful of watches so desperately attractive and simultaneously difficult to attain that any number of players have been known to attempt to reproduce them with generic components and a liberal interpretation of intellectual property. These players will go unnamed save to say that one starts with M...

This is the kind of beautiful madness that has resulted from Kudoke’s star apprentice branching out on his own. What you are looking at is one of Germany’s newest independents. It’s not just Glashütte creating beautiful objects anymore, Dresden has been blossoming recently. This is the Sternenhimmel, which translates as...

In full transparency, when I first started down the rabbit hole of watch learning, I didn’t ‘get’ double signed dials. Tiffany, Oman, or Domino’s, it always seemed a bit too close to those car dealers who’d put a sticker that says ‘Dave’s Mercedes’ next to E63 with a gaudy license...

A Speedmaster with a meteorite dial just seems right. However, it didn’t happen until 2010. Though it’s often assumed that the platinum 321 was the first meteorite dial Moonwatch, it wasn’t even second (that was the Grey Side of the Moon). Because the appearance is so similar, it’s often mistaken...

This is a prototype, depending on how you define it. At the very least, it is the first ever Series 2 Open Dial in white gold and one of 5 examples with a mark 1 movement. The mark 1’s escapement is the first evolution of Smith’s co-axial, the first step...

Watch media, collectors, and enthusiasts often speak about the Nautilus as if it’s one thing. After all, we often write ‘the’ Nautilus, as opposed ‘a’ Nautilus. Simultaneous, we more often talk about Submariners, not the sub, because we acknowledge that sub is a broad church. But both are slow evolving...

Recently, a well-known collector and watch media personality stated in an interview that, ‘As vintage becomes more unattainable to most, collectors are turning to neo-vintage.’ That’s about as correct as George W. Bush was when he stated, ‘We know that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction.’ Neo-vintage isn’t on...

Meet the only Rolex dial, Datejust or Day-Date, that can make Lapis look utterly plebeian. When you hear someone say jasper dial Rolex, they’re normally talking about a green hardstone with red veins. But jasper occurs naturally in varying shades and one of those is this rich red. It’s what’s...

We tend to think of Patek Philippe as the sovereign monarch of timeless, elegant designs. Their image is monolithic, imposing, and changing only at a crawl. Well, no; at least, not entirely. People say the King Midas is divisive, but it doesn’t even come close as polarizing as the 3633....

It’s 1965, you’re an Israeli, and you’re a fighter pilot. Lyndon B Johnson is increasing supply of serious military hardware to your country. Tension between Palestinian and Israeli interests are on a slow boil, you’re in a hot part of the world. The Suez Crisis, Six-Day War, War of Attrition,...

When I was growing up, Lululemon didn’t make socks. The 90s were tall white Nikes. Then for all of the 2000s and early 2010s, if a sock extended above your ankle you were a virgin. Now, the youth who say things like ‘rizz’ and ‘that slaps’ are wearing Nikes almost...

There’s no AP catalogue that shows this watch exists. It’s a 25720PT Star Wheel, obviously, but not as you know it. Toward the end of production, a handful of very rare, very unusual iterations were created. There are fewer than five known with gem set bezels. In yellow gold, a...

Normally, a box & papers should be the cherry on top of a watch purchase; the quality and flavor of the ice cream itself is far more important. However, a handful of watch presentation boxes have had so much creative effort and love poured into them that they become collectible...

In the same way that when you distill Journe to just the essential elements you wind up at a Chronomètre Bleu, when you distill Voutilainen you wind up at the Vingt-8. The Vingt-8 was Kari’s first entirely ground-up design, movement and all, introduced 2011. Kari chose the most simplistic watch...

This is a Daytona with just one line of text. One. Walt Disney was said to repeatedly answer questions with, ‘observe the masses and the do the opposite.’ In the modern era, the Rolex Daytona has more script written at 12 than a Star Wars opening crawl. Today, it reads...

We all know the three neo-vintage QPs that brought watchmaking back from the dead, but the pair of openwork or skeletonized references from AP and VC have always stood a bit apart, out of the spotlight. They’re not just less often seen, they’re divisive. Perhaps they skirt too close to...

In art, design, music, and many other creative disciplines, you are taught the rules first so that you may choose to break them deliberately. This, I never used to understand, why not just lean in to unbridled creativity? I’m not sure I have the answer, but it’s probably something like...