This is perhaps one of the most difficult watches to attempt to categorize, ever. It’s integrated, but it isn’t really sporting. It’s full yellow gold, but not really a dress watch. It has a moonphase, but it isn’t a mechanical movement. Now I am, somewhat infamously, a lover of mechanical...

The Tank Cintrée has been around since 1921, very shortly after the first 1919 Tank. It was adopted by British soldiers in the Boer War for its relatively masculine proportion and the fact that it wasn’t a pocket watch. Post war, those same credentials propelled it to be the ultimate...

If you think the depth and breadth of vintage marques like Universal Genève or Enicar are strong, they are. And yet, neither really hold a candle to the world’s longest running vertically-integrated manufacture outside Switzerland. Seiko has made more dive watch offerings than I will ever be able to hold...

Rolex does not often appear next to the word ‘complicated’. Rolex pride themselves on creating tools for professionals, however outdated that worldview may be in 2022. However, when Rolex do flirt with complication, the results are often breathtaking. In all their 117 years in watchmaking, only two Rolex references have...

Yeah, alright, I’ve featured it before and this is probably my teacher’s pet amongst all the neo-vintage IWC lot. I know it’s not terribly complicated. The innovation is one-dimensional. But with IWC’s recent reissue and collectors becoming increasingly being accepting of ceramics, I thought it fit to revisit just what...

Albert Camus once wrote that ‘a true masterpiece does not tell everything.’ There is beauty in artistry, but perhaps even more in mystery. Journe’s T30 has a magic about it, not because of what is revealed at first glance, beautiful though it is, but because of its unimaginable depth in...

If you’ve always dreamt of a steel Day-Date, and many of us have, they do exist. Just perhaps not where you might expect. Arguably, Tudor’s Day-Date is just as attractive if a little less historic, something of a vice-president. The 76200 Prince Day-Date debuted in the early 1990s only to...

Of all watchmakers who were there at the very start of the independent movement, Daniel Roth may be the least understood and appreciated (relatively to his immense accomplishments). Having paved the way for an entire category, I can think of no early independent whose work is more deserving of increased...

If you didn’t know, Mick Jagger isn’t just one of the most accomplished and energetic singer/songwriter frontmen of all time. He’s a watch guy, and quite an interesting one. Although he’s been spotted wearing other things such as a Seiko 6309-7040, Mr. Jagger is a Heuer man. The vast majority...

Nineties Blancpain is a distinct beast entirely, from all of horology. Famously, toward the ceasefire of the quartz crisis, Blancpain ran ads claiming ‘since 1735, Blancpain has never produced a quartz watch and we never will.’ Jean-Claude Biver and Jacques Piguet may not have quite singlehanded dragged Swiss mechanical watchmaking...

I simply cannot get enough of the calibre 1.96. As I’m not picking one up anytime soon, this is my love letter. It is possible for something to be expensive and massively undervalued. Much in the way that a multitude of collectors have only recently begun to acknowledge the exceptional...

This, I could fairly argue, is perhaps one of the most attractive vintage dive watches to ever exist. The Navies of France, Germany, and the United States all used the now-legendary Fifty Fathoms at some point in time and in so doing made it a relatively famous and desirable tool....

Watch enthusiasts are, almost by definition, students of detail. Early Speedmaster productions, particularly pre-moon, offer a wealth of varying tiny details which may fill a lifetime of study. Few of them, however, are able to spotted across a room. I can only think of tropical dials, broad arrow/alpha handsets, straight...

How do you celebrate a 100 year anniversary of Vacheron Constantin’s presence in Japan? With a 75-example run of beautifully hand guillochéd Traditionelles, obviously. No, I don’t understand why the run wasn’t 100 examples either. Nevertheless, the rest of this effort VC simply nailed. The Japan 100 Years Traditionelle’s pièce...

Eclectic, eccentric, and something of an enigma, FP Journe’s Élégante was originally conceived during a trip to the Middle East in 2003, where he was asked by many clients’ wives why he had not yet offered a women’s watch of any kind. Eight years of hard work went into an...

A damn great watch doesn’t always have to require dipping into to your least successful child’s college fund. It’s easy to become cynical when a humble no date Sub is listed as an ‘investment class’. Yet, I believe in the core of my being that watches should be enjoyable to...

There is little that draws my eye like a damn lovely Sherpa Graph. The attraction is threefold: the obvious physical beauty, what an Enicar says about you (i.e. you know watches and care little for snobbery), and the value they present relative to other Valjoux 72 peers. Plus, there’s the...

Wei Koh & crew know what makes a beautiful watch. Nowhere has this been more evident than their three collaborations with Chopard, of which this recent scientific dial is the third entry as an LE of 25 examples. This is the best of Revolution’s eye, Chopard’s high-end Qualité Fleurier movement...