The fascination with heritage, or vintage, or 20th century designs in wrist watches is evident in the vast quantity of reissues, homages, look-alikes, recreations and reinterpretations available today, which, we can assume, sell quite well. While I and more than a few other horological scribes have mused that this fascination with the watches of yesteryear… Read more »
An essay exploring the confusing meanings of In-House in regards to watch movement production, and how to clarify the use of the phrase in-house
Our Current Paradigm Is Divisive Within the watch community we hear quite a lot about the distinction between watch enthusiasts and collectors. We consider enthusiasts to be on a lower order than collectors. Enthusiasts may own dozens of watches, but they are dilettantes who lack the focus, dedication and connoisseurship that characterize the collector. Collectors… Read more »
King Seiko is Back! So Seiko finally relaunched the King Seiko brand last month after a 46-year absence. With hindsight, last year’s 140-year commemorative SJE083 King Seiko limited release now seems to have been Seiko testing the public’s reaction to a renewed King Seiko brand. As a huge fan and avid collector of vintage King… Read more »
Oris has found a novel and compelling way to celebrate the exchange between East and West without succumbing to the lame Eurocentrism and reductive new-year-celebration strategies deployed by so many Swiss watch brands. When West Meets East (and Offers a Watch) In the 21st century, mechanical watches are unnecessary, and the significance of watches has… Read more »
In 1932 Patek Philippe released the very simple, unadorned Calatrava wrist watch. Until the early 21st century, the word Calatrava only referred to that specific model from that specific brand. Today, however, you will find that journalists, chatty enthusiasts and especially vintage watch dealers use Calatrava to indicate almost any time-only or time-and-date dress watch… Read more »
The Birth Year Watch Concept The birth-year watch is a simple collecting archetype: you own a watch from the year you were born. Breaking down the underlying concept, however, reveals an unexpected complexity. Excuse my satirical lens, but I’ve been through the birth year watch journey three times. The technicality of the birth year watch… Read more »
I’ve been a Star Wars fan my entire life. When the babysitter canceled last minute, my parents took their toddler (me) to see Return of the Jedi. Star Wars is partially responsible for my watch collecting. It started with a Star Wars collaboration on Nixon’s Time Teller models featuring the designs traits from the iconic… Read more »
I suspect most people reading this article have heard about the Grammar of Design – Taro Tanaka’s 1962-drafted principles for designing Seiko watches so that they could compete visually when displayed next to their Swiss competitors in the Wako department store in Ginza. What might be less known is how many of Tanaka’s principles fundamentally… Read more »
I started 2020 with eight mostly sporty watches. I finish with only four mostly dressy watches. A year ago I could not have imagined what a transformation my collection would have gone through, and I don’t mean ending up with half as many. In fact, after purchasing another dozen or so watches in 2020, of… Read more »