My recent pet fascination has been neo-vintage—particularly limited—pre-instagram watches. You may recall seeing the Septantieme, SSASS Alpinist, or early steel Franck Muller recently. I may need to create a category here. The deeper I dive, the more vast this space seems to become. While searching out a strong vintage Tissot...

The Seamaster 1948, if you don’t know, was released in 2011. If you don’t know Omega, that doesn’t make a lot of sense. The model was design to recall one of the best vintage Seamaster designs with modern updates. They pulled a Singer on their own history. This Seamaster 1948,...

Modern sleeper watches are few and far between. Discretion is not as marketable as it once was. This Ulysse Nardin Monopusher is a true sleeper in three contexts. First, the watch may wear a marking from Ulysse Nardin, but was originally designed by a young FP Journe for La Joux-Perret....

Just when you think vintage Rolex ‘barnfind’ possibilities have fully dried up, something like this happens. 6200 Submariners are not exactly common. They are so uncommon, in fact, that I’d wager most owners could name half of the other owners. What I am saying is this: there are only a...

Hajime Asaoka’s sub-brand Kurono Tokyo started with a bang in 2019. No matter what you think of the recent trend of independent sub-brands, the ground Kurono have covered in a very short time is remarkable. In two short years, they have left a true imprint on the collecting public’s consciousness....

I like misfits. As a guide to life, they are generally more embracing of themselves and interesting. Granted, one could say all smackheads are also misfits. The rule is not absolute. In watchmaking, there are monolithic corporations like Richemont or Swatch. Then there are the established independents: think Journe, Dufour,...

Few watches will ever experience the fame that the Daytona has gathered in its recent few decades. Perhaps the Nautilus and Royal Oak have seen similar ascensions, but that’s all I can think of with a massive 10 seconds of thought dedicated to the effort. However, there are no other...

If you’re a watch collector hardcore, you likely love Universal Geneve. If you’re a bit of a watch obsessive, may be aware some of their movements made their way into watch assemblies under other names. By no means was UG the ETA of their era. However, some sales did take...

Blancpain and Jean-Claude Biver are often credited with leading the charge of mechanical watchmaking’s return to dominance post-quartz crisis. Defiant ads proclaimed ‘there has has never been a quartz Blancpain and there never will be’. Pieces like the revived Fifty Fathoms, 1735 Grande Complication, and (toward the end of JCB)...

The Movado M90 is an early two-register chronograph that has largely been consigned to the history books. Recent explosions in value of François Borgel (FB) Patek Tasti Tondis has also pulled up values of M90 and M95 Tasti Tondi case variants. The humble non-FB cased M90 and M95, however, are...

There’s something very majestic about Grand Seiko’s double-signed era. After the SBGR305 introduced GS-only signature dials, independence was solidified. Before that, times were more uncertain. There is a certain lack of confidence or perhaps humility that the double signature implies. A large Seiko at 12 is stealth. If you know...

AP’s first Perpetual Quantieme, the 5548, was conceived in secrecy during the height of Switzerland’s quartz crisis. At the time, the marque was struggling and contemplating leaning more on quartz for future models. Three senior watchmakers within AP (Michel Rochat, Daniel Golay, and Wilfred Berney) developed an ultra-thin perpetual calendar...

I generally like to believe that present is better than the past was and that we can make the future better than today. Despite this, I fall for vintage watches over their modern counterparts frequently. Included in that, for the most part, are Sinn. I find something about 1990s Sinn...

You may have noticed, but Seiko/GS and hi-beat movements are kind of a thing. The pairing goes together like whisky and chocolate. I say that because the combination is both frequently enjoyed and quite subjectively enjoyed. Many collectors prefer Spring Drive or the uncomplicated SKX/Five flavour. Marmite is the word....

Early Ingenieurs are emblematic of IWC in design and substance. The German side of Switzerland has always prided itself in inventive problem-solving and militant (perhaps a poor choice of adjective) precision. This second generation 866 Ingenieur tethers these brand principles to a sort of bauhausian Mk XI design. What resulted...

Much has been said and written here about modern alarm complications, but it is worth noting that the alarm complication itself has a somewhat more humble origin in commercial diving. Vulcain’s naval pieces of the 1960s rung out some of the first mechanical alarm chimes. Since its introduction, a Swiss...

Posted recently on S. Song’s page for a seriously reasonable sum, this 1974 second generation Monte Carlo is a legend of design. Tudor have been of interest to collectors in a big way for the last three decades now and one glimpse at a piece like this proves why. The...

I get nervous every time a legendary design is re-issued. This is so much room to royally fuck up a classic watch when the proper amount of care is not given. Tag, I’m looking at you. There is one exception, however. There is one manufacture that has proven themselves time...