There are watches you love right away, watches that shine brighter than Margo Robbie and have Nelson Mandela’s depth of character. 1518s, Rexheps, George Daniels, etc. Others though, take a little warming to. The two-tone (SA) ref. 25594 is neither. This is a watch that is so iconoclast that it...

There’s an old German proveb that goes ‘Das billige ist immer das teuerste’, or ‘The cheapest is always most expensive’. Germans invest in quality. You get the sense that a watchmaker on a bench at Lange wouldn’t be able cut a corner if they tried, that in their mind anything...

Ghost dials are the ultimate form of discretion through patina. Something about the philosophy of wearing a Rolex which doesn’t say Rolex anywhere (or only just) is very enticing. I’ve previously likened the effect to de-badging a luxury German sportscar, which is surprisingly common over there. But, given more thought...

Last year, Cartier outsold Omega by turnover for the first time, taking second place behind Rolex as Switzerland’s largest watch seller. This worries me slightly. It’s not that I don’t want Cartier to do well, quite the opposite. But I also don’t want Cartier to become more associated with Harrods...

One of the greatest food critics ever, AA Gill, would always write that the quality of the food in a restaurant is inversely proportional to the splendor of the view. The structure of this dichotomy applies very well to hype watches equally, where the intrigue of the watchmaking or history...

There is no greater shame than seeing a once pioneering, irreverant watchmaker become diluted in selinity, as different ownership structures muddle that once-crystalline purpose. There’s a terrible feeling that acquisition will see an independent go from unbridled passion to release after release of tired and thoughtless nouveau-riche cash grabs. That...

For decades, a gold Sub has always been the universal standard ‘F-you money’ watch. In much the same way that Rolls Phantom wafts past in total opulence, the 1680/8 wears with similar imperious grandeur. People know what it is, people know what it means. This one, though, it’s a bit...

Rolex’s storied professional line conjures images of Pan-Am, Comex, Hillary, spelunking, the Daytona 500, and, if you like 5s on your dial, the British RAF (Air-King). Yet there is one professional’s Rolex which often receives little or no mention. Many Rolexes today a marketed under the heading ‘rare’. The 6541...

The holy trinity 80s ultra-thin perpetual calendars that resuscitated mechanical watchmaking as an art form post-quartz-crisis are truly entering their own today. They made quartz look childish, like when you challenge your dad to a drinking contest only to realize your life has ill-prepared you (or wasn’t as depressing as...

If a watch-curious alien were to come down to Earth, you’d have a very hard time explaining why vintage watches are more appealing than their modern counterparts. Generally speaking, things get objectively better over time. That is, with one exception: tritium. The warm glow of a well aged 3H (tritium...

About five years ago, I encountered my first Yves Klein Royal Oak at a collector meetup in San Francisco. I made an all-too-obvious audible gasp when I clocked it. My girlfriend of the time, who was starting to learn the ropes, said, ‘So that’s just a blue dial Royal Oak,...

Whoever came up with idea to make the three subdial registers of the A386 tri-color is a genius. In watch design, the gold standard is being distinctive enough to be recognized from across a room or mid-distance. Most meaningful designs nail this trick, but there are surprisingly few. Why does...

The Crash is that sole watch whose trajectory best encapsulates the last two decades of watch collecting as a whole. In the year 2000, very few would be able to describe the differences between a London and Paris Crash. Today, anyone who’s aware of Loupe This has that covered. It...

There is no greater tell that a watch is firmly in the collector zeitgeist than when Hodinkee writes a guide on its genealogy. But when the Fifty Fathoms passed that milestone passed last month, it seemed perhaps a bit overdue? I mean this is really the first dive watch as...

Round pushers on a 13ZN and you’re definitively in the cognoscenti, no matter where you’re turning up. Raj Chaudhuri wrote an exceptional article for ACM last year titled ‘Is the Longines 13ZN still collectible?’. The answer, if community enthusiasm is anything to go by, is yes. It certainly deserves to...

If you’ve been shopping for a toaster recently, you’ll know most people buy a Cuisinart. Alternatively, you could buy a 600 USD Wolf that is milled from steel, toasts four slices at once, senses where slices are loaded to self-center, and will automatically recognize bagels from bread. The one review...

It’s a bit bizarre how a single material change can elevate an entire watch: a steel Patek, Sodalite Daytona dial, tantalum JLC (long time readers, I appreciate you), or even brass movements vs gold for our Journe friends. Did you know Rolex made a few steel Day-Dates prototypes? Bet that...

UAE dial Rolexes are about a desirable as it gets, in any context. But the vast majority of signatures are on Datejusts and Day-Dates, the dressier watches. A steel sport Rolex with UAE enamel at 6 is remarkable in every regard. This is particularly the case for the 1675 GMT-Master,...