Latest watch news · Page 51

What We Know The cat is out of the bag on what is likely to be the biggest watch news of the year. The Swatch x Audemars Piguet "Royal Pop" just launched, ahead of its official availability on May 16, 2026, at selected Swatch stores. There are no wristwatches here, just eight unique pocket watches in two different styles, cased in brightly colored Royal Oak-shaped bioceramic cases, powered by manually wound mechanical SISTEM51 movements. Eight watches, for each side of the iconic Royal-Oak bezel. All the watches are instantly recognizable as Royal Oak-inspired. They have a "Petite Tapisserie" dial and a Royal Oak octagonal bezel with eight hexagonal screws. Every watch comes with a 40mm case (without the clip) and measures 44.2mm by 53.2mm when mounted in the clip. The thickness is 8.4mm. The hands and indices on all watches feature Grade-A Super-LumiNova.  The watches can be dropped in your pocket, worn in the pocket, or popped into a holder attached to a calfskin lanyard (in three lengths), attached to a bag, or placed in a removable stand that lets the watch function as a desk clock. Swatch and AP say this will change the way we wear watches, breaking free from the wrist (suggesting the expected wristwatch collaboration is unlikely at the moment). The new Swatch x Audemars Piguet "Royal Pop" comes in two main variants. There's the "Lépine" style, where the crown is at 12 o'clock on the pocket watch, which come in six varieties: Otto Rosso (pink case and dial with red ...

Every watch enthusiast has gotten the question from a newly watch-curious friend: “what should be my first real watch?”  Of course, designating any watch as “real” over another is a bit silly, but the sentiment remains. For newbies to the horological hobby, there are few “first” watches better than any model from the ever-expanding and always-iconic Seiko 5 lineup. From skin divers to field watches and way beyond (especially if you look at vintage…), there’s a Seiko 5 for everyone, and not just new fans, either. Most serious enthusiasts can attest to having a 5 in their collection, or at least having owned one (or many) in the past. So, when Seiko comes out with a new 5 entry, it’s hard not to be excited, and four new Seiko 5 Field models have arrived to continue that tradition. The HDB006, HDB007, HDB008, and HDB009 bring a lot of the hallmarks of Seiko 5 field watches, including wearable dimensions at 41mm in diameter and 13.2mm in thickness, strong LumiBrite coating on the hands, indices, and bezel markings, and trademark Seiko robustness and reliability thanks to the 4R36 caliber automatic movement, which provides 41 hours of power reserve, a stop second hand function, and a day/date complication. While none of these features are particularly remarkable or innovative, they prove the everlasting utility of a field watch as an everyday timepiece. The new HDB00- models do have an extra party trick up their sleeves in the form of a simple compass on the ...

For the past few days, if you’re even remotely into watches, your Instagram feed has probably been flooded with speculations about Swatch’s next big collaboration. Ever since the first teasers dropped, the rumours have only grown louder. And, honestly, the clues were becoming impossible to ignore. Swatch would be teaming up with Audemars Piguet, and […]

The watch world hasn't seen an auction season like this in quite some time. Well, ever, frankly. Phillips set multiple records (43 by their count, though many are quite obscure), including a new record for the highest single sale of $96,328,083, besting their result from just last fall. If you add in their online auction, they passed $100 million for the first time ever. Sotheby's smashed the record for the most expensive A. Lange & Söhne ever (for a pocket watch, we might add)—a record that only stood for a few weeks, set during the house's Hong Kong sale. But it wasn't so much the overall numbers that were shocking as the fact of which watches were selling for what prices. So, what the heck is going on? Well, we were watching; some of us from afar, others (Andy Hoffman) in the auction rooms. Instead of focusing solely on broad strokes, let's look at five specific results and why they matter for the market. A Bog-Standard Stainless Steel Akrivia AK-06 is Now a $3.8 Million Watch, 30 Times Its Original Retail Rexhep Rexhepi is the hottest watchmaker of the new, young generation, and it's not particularly close. That's not a dig on his contemporaries, but rather a reflection of the realities of the market, where people are clamoring (to an unbelievable degree) to buy a watch from a man who has made very few watches in the first place, and the few that have come to market reach astronomical prices. There aren't many data points to go off of. Only twelve Akrivia or Rexhep ...

The new TAG Heuer Formula 1 Solargraph x Indy 500 skips the loud racing palette for something quieter. Limited to 1,110 pieces at $2,250.

Founded in 1904 in Geneva, ZRC first specialised in bracelets and waterproof cases before entering the world of professional dive watches in the late 1950s. The big change came when ZRC was contracted by the French Navy and created the Grands Fonds line, robust, highly engineered instruments designed for underwater use. Defined by their unconventional […]

As many are likely well aware, 2026 marks the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and as we approach the 4th of July, there are going to be a lot of reminders of America’s big birthday. The watch industry, as we know, loves an anniversary, and Marathon has gotten in on the act with the new edition of their Navigator pilot’s watch with a handful of patriotic nods to America’s founding.  Marathon has been supplying the Department of Defense and various branches of the United States military with MIL-SPEC watches for many years, and the Pilot’s Navigator in particular has special resonance within their collection as it was originally developed in partnership with Kelly Air Force Base in San Antonia, TX in 1986. It’s a signature watch for Marathon and directly tied to the Canadian brand’s longstanding relationship to the American military, so it serves as a natural canvas for a limited edition.  Various aesthetic features of the new Anthracite Stainless Steel Pilot’s Navigator have been inspired directly by the U.S. flag and the Star Spangled Banner. According to Marathon, the anthracite stainless steel case (coated in black ion-plating) is inspired by the line “the twilight’s last gleaming” in the national anthem. Similarly, the single red tritium tube at 12:00 is a reference to “the rockets’ red glare”. Lastly, a “1776” stamp can be found on the dial just under 12:00. It’s circled by stars, and a visual refer...

Held on the mountainous slope of Vancouver's North Shore, the Vancouver Timepiece Show offered its second-ever installment this past April. The event offers a true enthusiast-driven platform for a variety of value-driven brands and is part of a now three-show-strong portfolio for Canada's Timepiece Shows, spanning Vancouver, Toronto, and, later this month, Montreal for the first-ever appearance.  Less than a week after the big show in Geneva ended, I hopped on a plane and flew to Vancouver for a very different type of watch show. Held in a bright and airy space in The Shipyards of North Van, the Vancouver show evolved this year, with fewer brands showing but attendance up by about 20%, to roughly 3,000 people over the weekend.  A smaller, more casual show than the Toronto event held in September, the Vancouver Timepiece Show reflects the local watch scene while attracting brands and attendees from a much wider range. Scroll on for highlights from the brands at the show and a good handful of local watch-spotting.  A pastel Halios Seaforth with the 12-hour bezel. Very Vancouver.  Some Marathon wares glowing under UV light.  The newly released Marathon CeraShell Navigator evolves a 40-year-old classic with a new case material that offers improved bezel performance, conventional springbars (vs. fixed), and a lighter weight on the wrist.   Micromilspec continues to impress with versions of their multi-talented Milgraph, seen here as a special 75-piece version called "Proj...

For 2026 Czapek returns to some of their greatest hits, with a new breath of freshness to the Antarctique. Xavier de Roquemaurel explains.

Since its debut, Horloger Ming, the brand led by Ming Thein, has built its collections on light, transparency, and layered dial constructions. From early minimalist pieces to more technical watches like the 29.01 Worldtimer, Ming has explored how a dial can interact with its environment. Recently, the brand went even more expressive, resulting in the […]

On April 27th, 1976, NASA made 55 out of 97 of its Omega Speedmaster chronographs available to the National Air & Space Museum (NASM) in Washington, DC. Then and now, these Omega watches were considered a collection with significant artifactual value! This article is a contribution by space and watch enthusiast Philip Corneille, founder of […] Visit Here’s What Happened To The NASA-Issued Speedmasters! to read the full article.

Naming a watch is important. This goes without saying, probably, but it’s something we don’t really talk about or think about enough. Just last week I was having a conversation with a colleague about how unfortunate it is that Grand Seiko seems to keep missing the mark with naming conventions. With so many releases, it’s tough to keep individual reference numbers at the front of the mind, and “Tentagraph” has yet to permeate watch culture in the way the brand perhaps thought it would. Some brands have a knack for coming up with catchy and distinctive names for watches that both make a ton of sense and are easily remembered and associated with a given watch. The team at Ulysse Nardin are the kings of this. The Freak? The Super Freak?? The Blast??? All immediately iconic in my opinion.  Today, Ming joins the Watch Name Hall of Fame (side note: that’s an article idea we’ll be pursuing shortly, I’ve just decided) with the Peep Show. When the Ming team first showed us a prototype of the Peep Show at Geneva Watch Days last year, we were led to believe it was a working name, or a code word for a product that was not fully fleshed out. Obviously we all thought it was pretty amusing at the time. But just last month, during Watches & Wonders week, when I learned that Peep Show was indeed the official name of the watch, well, let’s just say I was surprised and delighted, because it’s honestly perfect.  What is the Peep Show, you might be asking yourself at this ...

What We Know Want to see a magic trick? No, not the kind the Joker pulls in "The Dark Knight," but instead something pretty cool that Ming has cooked up with their new 29.06 "Peep Show." The watches below look markedly different, but the only thing that's changed is the direction the hands point. When Ming Thein showed me this watch last fall, I immediately got what was going on as he turned the crown. If you were doing the same, you'd see that the guilloché dial with a multiphase color-shifting coating (like on the 57.04 "Iris") slowly fades in and out of visibility, turning from a dazzling view to pitch black as the hands move. Any guesses on how it works? Well, it's kind of a trick question, because the hands aren't actually hands. Instead, they're polarized sapphire discs with a hands made of Super-LumiNova X1 fill. The two pieces of sapphire are linearly polarized, so when they're aligned (on top of each other or directly opposite each other), the polarizer lets light in, and you can see that metal disc with color-shifting treatment. As the hands rotate, you see less and less of the dial until it turns black when the two discs are at 90º to each other. When you learn the effect, it's pretty simple, but it's certainly effective in person. All this is in a 29-series case, which is a bit more reserved than the 57-series case. It's made in lightweight Grade 5 titanium, measuring 40mm by 11.8mm, with a 22mm lug width. The case has a 50-meter water resistance. Inside the ...

How do you capture 100 years of the Oyster? That's the question at the center of Rolex's new 23-minute film celebrating the anniversary of one of the most important watches ever made. The film opens with incredible archival footage of Mercedes Gleitze swimming across the English Channel, then moves on to archival footage of many defining moments tied to the Oyster's history—speed records, Everest expeditions, deep-sea exploration, and much more. Most will know these stories, but seeing them presented together really captures the full breadth of what the Oyster has represented over the last century. One of the film's most impressive qualities is its sense of scale. Even something like the Daytona—one of the most iconic watches ever made and a subject that could easily support an entire film on its own—is only one small part of the larger story being told here. More than anything, it underscores just how broad and far-reaching Rolex's history with the Oyster really is. From there, the film transitions into the modern era, highlighting Rolex's ongoing ties to sport, the arts, and scientific exploration. It closes with a look at the brand's Perpetual Planet initiative and Rolex's environmental efforts, both in the field and within its own manufacturing operations, including a closer look at how the company is approaching sustainability in watchmaking.  There are also a few fun details throughout. At one point, the film references precision down to "a fraction of a billi...

Cheap dive watches can be great, but too many start to feel the same. These 6 tested divers show what value, compromise, and upgrading really look like.

A little over two years ago, Seiko introduced the first Astron GPS Solar Dual-Time Chronographs. Following that, the brand gradually launched slightly updated versions featuring new materials and colors. For its 145th anniversary, Seiko revamped its Astron GPS Solar Dual-Time Chronographs. With a new case and caliber, the series gets a proper update. The brand […] Visit Hands-On With The New Seiko Astron GPS Solar Dual-Time Chronographs HAB001, HAB002, HAB003, And Limited HAB004 to read the full article.

Our British Watchmaker's Weekender event finally came to NY, with 400 ticket holders coming to check out some of the best in British watches.

Urwerk bids farewell to the Spacemeter with UR-10 Spacemeter Blue Final Edition. As the final series of the UR-10, the 25-piece limited edition features a dark blue dial that differentiates it from the black and silver editions released previously. The watch is otherwise identical to its predecessors, and features an instrument panel-like display that tracks the progress of the Earth around both the sun and its own axis. Initial thoughts The ‘almost conventional’ display of the UR-10 represents a departure for Urwerk, which made its name in satellite wandering hours complications. Like the quirky and impressive EMC, the UR-10 proves Urwerk’s space-age aesthetic works in a variety of formats. But the Spacemeter’s time on Earth was relatively short, having been launched less than a year ago. The limited production of just 75 pieces (25 in each of three colours) should reward collectors, but I’m hopeful the ergonomic case and bracelet will come out of retirement to house different complications in the future. The UR-10 borrows a number of stylistic cues from the UR-100, but the case construction is entirely novel. The 45.4 mm case is essentially a bi-level construction — stainless steel on the bottom for a stable weight balance, and titanium on top for a continuous look from case to bracelet. The two materials contrast slightly on the winglets on either side of the case, where they are fastened with bolts. This construction is similar to that of the original Pate...

Urwerk, the indie brand founded by Martin Frei and Felix Baumgartner in 1997, is renowned for its futuristic, aerodynamic vessels with kinetic satellite hour displays.  In 2025, Urwerk released the UR-10 SpaceMeter, a watch that initially stumped fans with its round dial and conventional hour and minute hands. However, closer inspection revealed Urwerk’s fascination with […]

Today, I’ll take a look at an object that blends two of my favorite subjects — cars and watches! I’m not unique with those interests, but this watch takes it a step further. You see, it’s inspired by one of the greatest sports cars in history, the Porsche 911. The brand behind this creation is […] Visit Hands-On With The Stewart Dawson SD 911 Black to read the full article.

Rado’s foray into the world of dive watches in 1962 resulted in the Captain Cook, a somewhat quirky watch that didn’t emulate the rugged tool watches populating the underwater scene. Defined by its less utilitarian character, the Captain Cook had a compact 35mm case, an inward-sloping bezel, a domed acrylic crystal, a pivoting anchor at […]

When discussing super-affordable entry-level watches with enthusiasts, the name Citizen Tsuyosa is likely to come up. Since the Japanese brand first unveiled the Tsuyosa in 2022, the line has become incredibly popular. Over the past four years, we have seen striking new dial variations of the inaugural 40mm versions, smaller 37mm variations, and a series […] Visit Hands-On With The New Citizen Tsuyosa Shore Series to read the full article.

This year Audemars Piguet (AP) walked into Watches & Wonders Geneva for the first time in seven years, and it did so carrying a word it had not used in public for the better part of a century. The brand had departed the predecessor of the fair, the Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie (SIHH), in 2019 alongside Richard Mille, declaring its intention to forge direct relationships with collectors through its own channels and AP Houses rather than through the shared theatre of a trade fair. The return to Geneva in 2026, under CEO Ilaria Resta, was already a signal of strategic realignment, but the word it brought with it made the move more interesting: établisseur. The watches it presented — three of them — each made in very limited numbers by a network of named artisans working within and around the Musée Atelier in Le Brassus, were introduced under the name Atelier des Établisseurs, a project AP described in its launch communications as a revival of the collaborative spirit that had driven the watchmaking industry for generations. The établissage system The framing was historically accurate, as far as it went. The établissage system did shape the Vallée de Joux from the late 18th century onward. Farmers working through the long alpine winters crafted individual components like wheels, bridges, and screws in home workshops, coordinated by an établisseur who assembled the finished watch and brought it to market. The Audemars Piguet Établisseurs Gallets hand-w...

Ahead of the 110th running of the Indy 500, the TAG Heuer Formula 1 Solargraph x Indy 500 Limited Edition makes its debut.

Swatch is planning a collaboration with Audemars Piguet, expected to be one of the most significant and talked-about watch releases of the year. Swatch began teasing the tie-up last week with social media posts featuring the distinctive font associated with AP's iconic Royal Oak model and the words 'Royal' and 'Pop.' That led to hordes of speculation online that the brand was preparing a collaboration with AP. And then, over the weekend, the two marques confirmed that indeed they would be releasing the new product on May 16.  Many Swatch boutiques, including its main store in Geneva, are displaying boxes or chests (presumably holding the watch models) promoting the new Royal Pop collab, in much the same way they did with the Omega and Blancpain collaborations ahead of the launches.  An Audemars Piguet X Swatch chest in the window at a Swatch boutique in Geneva. So, what will the Audemars Piguet x Swatch watch be? Well, we simply don't know at this point, but there are plenty of clues suggesting what it could be. The 'Pop' model line from Swatch has been around for decades and has served as a fashion-forward way to reimagine timekeeping and watches. First introduced around 1986, the Swatch 'Pop' watches could be removed from their straps and 'popped' into various accessory holders. These ranged from pocket watch holders, chains, and lanyards to refrigerator magnets and even a RECCO-branded accessory holder/transmitter for avalanche safety.  A current, Swatch 'Pop' pocke...

One of my most vivid childhood memories is sitting on my grandmother’s lap reading the comics, or “funnies,” as we called them. I grew up in Atlanta, but both of my parents are from Kansas City, and all our extended family remains there. We took at least two trips back each year for as long as I could remember: one over summer vacation and then every Christmas. Each morning during those stays, I would run from my bed in mom’s childhood room to the “new room,” a small sunroom my grandparents added to the modest 1950s ranch home. Here, my grandmother had what I consider to be the most quintessential grandmother’s chair: oversized, plush, pink, floral, spacious for one, and the perfect fit for her and me to cuddle up – it was made for us. On a small ottoman nearby, the day’s Kansas City Star would be neatly folded until I b-lined toward the paper, tossing away the superfluous sections until I extracted the comics from the bunch. We had several favorites, but the one that rose above the rest was undeniably Peanuts. I couldn’t tell you the last time I picked up a physical newspaper or read the “funnies” like we used to do. As I grew older, and went off to college, my grandmother would mail me clips, and I’ve since framed some of those and tucked them around my New York City apartment. Today, I perpetuate this memory in a way my grandmother would never understand or consider a comparable replacement for the comics section – I follow an Instagram accou...