Blurring the line between dress and sport watches, we have this vintage Turn-O-Graph from Vacheron which, as far as I can tell, has no weakness. Not only does it incorporate a rotating bezel, water resistance, yellow gold case with downturn lugs, and red triangle twelve marker, it has an extremely...

I recall very clearly being a young horological padawan, learning of the historic contributions the 321 calibre has made to humanity. I also distinctly remember, three years later, learning that there was a Seamaster running the very same venerable movement. Many, many queries ensued. How was this possible? Shouldn’t this...

IWC has this sort of unapologetically tool-competent aesthetic which may have culminated in this: the 1832 Ingenieur. I can be fairly accused of being overly fond of the more svelte 666AD, an antimagnetic dress which was grandfather to the integrated sports offering shown here. However, that watch lacks the magical...

In a theoretic word association game, if I said ‘date at 6’ you would also certainly respond with the one and only Tudor Monte Carlo. However, there are many other noteworthy references sporting a nether-date including an Omega Seamaster Calendar, Seiko 6138, Ball Skindiver, Zenith Big Date Pilot, and many...

Complication is a term not commonly found in the Rolex parlance. Chronographs, water-resistance, and anti-magnetic material science are as far as Wildorf pushes these days. However, early to mid-century Rolex one century ago was another thing entirely. There were 4113 rattrapantes, 6062 moonphases (with star indices), and 8171 triple calendars...

Eastern Arabic numerals are hot; change my mind. Memes aside, I tend to fall on the side of Breguet numerals, Roman numerals or straight indices. However, even the most classic of collectors has to acknowledge the beauty of region-specific numerals, particularly when they tell a story. Dubai’s Watch Week, started...

October is the time for orange and black, however it appears the market favors that combination in all seasons. The 1163 is a sought-after reference as is, but three variants stand out as particularly attractive to Heuer’s fanatics. The first, the Jo Siffert, needs no further introduction. Formula 1 made...

The Seiko 5 is a watch that needs no introduction. I would be willing to bet that brilliantly humble, mechanical yet economical platform guided at least a quarter of you into the financially disastrous hobby in which we now reside. Recently, Seiko collaborated with fashionable upstart Rowing Blazers to release...

If you’re going green dial, why not go green dial from well before it was cool? The 1811 Yacht Club was introduced in the late 60s to be a casual yet luxurious mildly-water resistant steel offering. Its design brief was one well ahead of its time, front-running integrated sports watches...

Watch collectors are a community whose interest lives and dies in the finest of details. The Memovox is a model whose history has spawned a handful of very interesting and nuanced variations. I have yet to meet a grizzled collector who does not swoon at a vintage Memovox. The watch...

Overlooked Omega is not only an alliteration, it is a strikingly diverse and intriguing landscape. I am guilty of not yet having a deep knowledge of Omega’s observatory chronometers, the Ploprof story, or just where Armstrong’s 321 rests. Despite these sins, I am still a massive fanboy for all things...

When I say integrated sports watch, you almost imagine a RO, Nautilus, or Overseas. You almost certainly do not imagine a Laureato, Octo Finissimo (despite it holding all the records today), or this: an imaginative 1980s diver with a full integrated titanium bracelet. This is a under-hyped, comparatively economic, materially...

Inverse panda, pump pusher, steel bezel, single-line Cosmograph text: these are things dreams are made of. I admit to being a fan of this reference to an almost child-like extent. I’ll try to rein that in as I feature this example. You will be familiar with the Circuit de la...

An ultra-thin Calatrava may be executed to an exacting standard by a Lange or Patek. The Saxonia is a stellar (literally) modern Germanic discourse in simplicity. Patek’s Calatrava line may be the most historically storied time-only dial of all time. That said, I’m not sure either have executed their pure-dress...

One of the most singularly amazing recent trends of modern independent watchmaking is a decoupling of innovation from purpose. I’ve heard it said before that for something to be art it can have no purpose other than itself. In that regard, this Upside Down certainly earns its title as a...

I find it difficult to believe that a design from the 1940s can feel so perfectly at home eighty years on. Imagine being tasked today with designing a watch that would look good in the year 2100. That seems an impossibly difficult task with a low probability of success. This...

Rolex’s fabled gold Submariner may in fact be the single watch most classically representative of the ‘fuck-you-money’ attitude. Or at least, it was. See, the gold Submariner has gone through this sort of inverse bell-curve of public acceptability from the 1960s through today in 2021. To start, it was a...

Few self-proclaimed tool watches yield the kind of functionality on offer from this vintage Bivouac. Fewer still do so with such personality, coordinated design, and bizarre history. Unique to this watch, the outer dial scale is not a tachymeter or pulsations scale. It is a mechanical barometer/altimeter. The pressure drops,...