Independents don’t necessarily have a monopoly on creativity, but it does increasingly seem like the small eponymous names are showing the Richemonts of the world how it’s done. This is particularly true of Stepan Sarpaneva, whose brilliance lies in just how much of his personality he’s able to suffuse throughout...

At face value, this is just a 145.012 Speedy with an orange seconds hand. But that’s like calling a Hemi Orange 1969 Dodge Charger just a car; it’s not. That’s General Lee. And this is Ultraman. The Ultraman is the Speedmaster enthusiast’s Speedmaster, a watch that demonstrates how far scholarship...

Dive watch tech advanced at a dizzying pace between introduction and mass adoption in the mid-50s and ’70-ish. Helium escape valves, locking bezels, domed crystal, new types of steel, tritium lume, etc. Then the genre found its footing and slowed, a bit like how they say both the goblin shark...

With collector attention so heavily focused on Roth’s Breguet era, it’s easy to overlook the fact that, actually, Hayek-Swatch era Breguet didn’t just fold. Look at the 7727 and its incredibly innovative magnetic pivots, allowing the balance to float in artificial gravity. I truly believe AL Breguet would have been...

I’ve spoken once or twice here about the phenomena of what I call double take watches. This category I define loosely as the following: a watch which, at a glance under 2 seconds long, looks like something you’re very familiar with. Then you pause. And after spending 5 seconds staring...

A few years ago, I read Mark Manson’s The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck. Somewhat contrarily, I didn’t find it terribly enlightening. But I do think it had one of the greatest titles of the last decade. Because everyone’s flirted with idea of embracing the carefree, that ‘stop...

Unless your idea of wild night out is casually browsing GPHG nominees with a negroni in hand (don’t worry, you’re in good company), you probably won’t have heard of Lyrique. They started last year and have made 70 watches in total, so don’t feel bad. Lyrique is really less a...

Diving chronographs don’t make sense on any level. The point of a dive watch is to separate the inner from the outer, resistance to water pressure. Pushers are, by definition, moving parts on a case that connect outer to inner. That is problematic. But maybe I’m thinking too hard about...

I have a problem with one of the greatest watches ever made: the Datejust. By the metric of pure profit, it might be the most successful watch of all time. But to me, it’s an apology. I know, the ‘just’ refers to the fact that the date snaps over at...

If you love a good mystery thriller with countless loose ends, this your kind of Datejust. No one knows precisely how the Turn-O-Graph bezel wound up on the wrists of the USAF Demonstration Squadron, better known as the Thunderbirds. Lore holds that one pilot previously bought one for himself on...

The Speedmaster is a perfectly executed chronograph with one of the most storied narrative arcs of any watch. But it’s a bit clinical in its precision. Utilitarian. Often, even a bit cold. I think through all the 861 Speedmasters of the early 90s with Luminova and solid backs. Each is...

The Submariner is, today, a uniform mass market product. Mass as Rolex’s production today is about equal to the entirety of the rest of Switzerland, combined. And uniform because not one will age, or very minimally. Every single 124060 looks precisely the same, down to the tiny serifs on the...

In all their 115 years of operation, Rolex have only made a handful of what we’d call complicated watches. If you don’t know Rolex very well, you kind of just assume that, ‘Surely there are a few complicated references from all those years right? Maybe a Rolex perpetual calendar from...

The standard neo-vintage conversation covers the holy trinity QPs, integrated offerings from the 90s like first generation Overseas, Roth for Breguet, Roth for Roth, CPCP, oddities like the Star Wheel or Mercator, and brass Journe. One deserving entrant always gets left out: zee Germans at Lange. I have a hypothesis...

There are several very well defined, repeatable narrative arcs in watch collecting. There’s the famous ‘V’ graph of appreciation for Rolex over time for new collectors. Or at least there was until the AD nonsense, now it could be a V\. There’s the average RM collector, who definitely has a...

Everyone knows the 3019 El Primero story. But, after, not everyone paid attention to just how far Zenith pushed the boundaries of what an El Primero could be. If one needed convincing that the El Primero is not only one of the longest lived chronograph lines, but also one of...

Only 30 217QRS, Karis’ Retrograde Date, have ever be made, in an even split of platinum, white gold and rose gold. But this? This is the very last one produced, 30. And the material combination here is something outrageous: teal mother of pearl dial, green guilloché hour track, and white...

I know it says Rolex on the dial, but in every other way this is the anti-Rolex. It’s got a battery. There’s an integrated bracelet. The dial is not silver, not stone, but wood. It’s a Day-Date, but not as you know it. Everyone has an off day every now...