Every damn time I spot an Overseas, I am reminded how desperately I need a 222 in my life. The oft-forgotten third musketeer in the original steel sports holy trinity, Vacheron’s 222 has seen increasing limelight in the wake of recent 5711 madness. I cannot tell you how many times...

If what you’re after is no-nonsense vintage Seiko that that simply tells the time with a minimal level of pretense, you don’t have to pick up that 18K 5646-7005 Grand Seiko. You don’t even need a 6159-7001 Diver. If one wanted to get aggressive in Japanese functionality, it would be...

Valjoux’s VZ series of calibres has been found under the name of Patek Philippe, Vacheron Constantin, and what we see here: AP. What is not as easily understood is just why that series of movements deserved to prove so popular among the most esteemed manufactures of the 1940s and 50s....

Heuer’s Autavia could be fairly said to be the backbone of vintage Heuer enthusiasm, alongside (but perhaps slightly ahead of) the Carrera and Monaco. To the layman, the Monaco is probably most recognizable for its Le Mans movie placement, on the wrist behind a 917K. The Autavia, however, was actually...

Few manufactures have such a harsh delineation between early and latter models as the renown FP Journe. Sure, as a counterpoint, Rolex produced early dials in gilt radium and later transitioned toward tritium. But that’s just a detail. Journe shifted the entire foundation of their movement from brass to gold...

Auro Montanari once stated in a Phillips interview some years ago that he mainly collects five houses: Omega, Longines, Cartier, Patek Philippe and Rolex. I am certain there are exceptions, for example I’ve seen his Universals in other media, but when pressed those five came to mind. If one needed...

The careful, studied attention of GS history rewards effort. While a deep dive in Hublot will leave one scratching their head, the same effort devoted to the best of Seiko will force your cursor to hover over the ‘add the cart’. The Hi-Beat shown here holds quite a few distinctions....

In philosophy, there is an infamous thought experiment known as the Ship of Theseus. The crux is this: if a Greek warship were to live a long and successful life, over time its hull will be patched. Sections will be swapped. Perhaps a mast will be fell in a storm,...

Ask anyone truly in the vintage-watch-know for a category of watch that currently presents outsized value. I would bet at least half of them would flag Movado. In recent scholarship, watch enthusiasts have begun to highlight manufactures of individual component makers alongside brand stories. Singer dials, Valjoux moments, Frères bracelets,...

Not all that is desirable in Cartier is CPCP, vintage Tank, Crash, or Cintrée. Though many collectors may treat it as such, Cartier’s long and storied history has innumerable alternative high points. In the mid 70s, Cartier began to see the Santos line as potential sporting alternative to the integrated...

I swore that despite the Royal Oak’s 50th this week I would not join the party. This not because I have anything against it, quite the contrary. Rather, that I aim to feature whatever is most interesting in the market at any given time. Surely, the odds of an all-time...

Say what you will about Vader, the man’s got taste. The 101.035 was Lange’s last production watch to feature platinum with an all-black dial. The reference’s run was stopped short after seven years, as Lange started to desaturate the platinum and black market they observed in other brands and their...

This is not a new watch, it is a love letter. See, Chopard revived not just their long-astray name with one effort, but an entire style of watchmaking. If the CPCP Monopoussoir was a well-heeled investment in independent watchmakers as effective ghost-writers, then the incredible LUC 1860 watches of the...

No, this is no Aquastar sub-brand. Ardath were a Dreyfuss-owned midcentury watchmaker with eclectic inspiration. The manufacture made classic Roman chronographs, Roskopf movements, Swiss lever three-handers, and even pioneered dual timezone displays in the Long Distance (a watch with one dial sharing two movements, one automatic and one manually wound...

Blancpain once ran an ad campaign stating ‘Blancpain has never made a quartz watch and never will.’ That’s convenient, as the house had gone bankrupt well ahead of the quartz crisis and Biver only restarted production once mechanical watchmaking was trending back to strength. Jaeger Lecoultre, on the other hand,...

Like very few aspects in life, it is often possible in watch collecting for one to both have their cake and eat it too. There are ultra-thin perpetual calendar chonographs, dive-GMTs, modern fusée chains, and value independents. Indeed, we are in something of a renaissance for the width and depth...

IWC is no little known secret amongst the German cognoscenti; enthusiasts world-over are aware of their robust history. However, even with relatively strong scholarship and attention, one or two references may still slip through the proverbial cracks. In fact, I think IWC probably has at least one watch in just...

This one is about to get as nuanced as my posts come; which is to say I’m not really that educated on these matters. Nonetheless, we’re going to get down and dirty with Wilsdorf iterations again. The 7928 is one of my highlights in all vintage divers, for its working-class...