Hodinkee
Introducing: The Arken Alterum Is A Clever Titanium Travel Timer
Evolving the brand's original design to create an affordable, lightweight, and distinctive take on the GMT.
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Hodinkee
Evolving the brand's original design to create an affordable, lightweight, and distinctive take on the GMT.
Time+Tide
As I always say, I was a watch enthusiast long before I was a watch journalist. I will always first and foremost be a watch geek. So, I am no stranger to collecting watches, exploring forums, and consuming watch media. During a routine scrolling through my social media feed earlier this month, a post in … ContinuedThe post Can you ever really retire from being a watch collector or enthusiast? appeared first on Time+Tide Watches.
Teddy Baldassarre
Rolex, as always, made news at Watches & Wonders Geneva back in April with many of the new watches it will be releasing this year (we covered many of them here), but the Swiss luxury brand generated nearly as much buzz with an announcement about a watch that it won’t be making anymore. Back in March, Rolex announced that the Milgauss, a model it had been making continuously since 2007, with roots that go back even further, would cease production this year. The news was not necessarily a shock to everyone - the Milgauss was not on a par with Rolex’s most popular models, waiting-list mainstays like the Daytona, Submariner, and GMT-Master - but it was a disappointing splash of reality to the subgroup of Rolexistas who love the cult-classic antimagnetic watch, while also serving as a call to attention for watch-market speculators who rarely find a Rolex shortage that they aren’t eager to monetize. What makes the Milgauss such a niche favorite in the Rolex portfolio? Read on. Rolex founder Hans Wisdorf (above) could be described as many things: a visionary entrepreneur, a brilliant marketer, a founding father of the modern watch industry. But at his true core, Wilsdorf was essentially a problem solver. Just about every contribution that he and his company made to horological history sprang from a dedication to fixing or eliminating some issue that plagued watch wearers. Too tedious to wind your watch every day? Here’s the Perpetual movement (below). Your watch isn...
Time+Tide
The Roman Jeweler of Time is home to many wonderful creations, but, due to the success and milestone records broken within the collection, much of the Bulgari conversation these days revolves around the Octo Finissimo. This year, Bulgari decided they were not having that. It was time to give the OG Octo Roma its due … ContinuedThe post VIDEO: Andrew and Fabrizio break down the new Bulgari Octo Roma and the first-ever Octo Roma chronographs appeared first on Time+Tide Watches.
Teddy Baldassarre
We’re living in a world of seemingly almost infinite color choices when it comes to watches, particularly their dials, the faces that timepieces most prominently show to the public. Amidst the masses of silver, black, blue and various shades of green dials that proliferate today, orange dials are still something of a niche, generally assigned to a handful of diving watches, for which the earliest ones were intended more as a matter of practicality than style. However, watchmakers in recent years have slowly started to embrace the orange dial and to discover the widely appealing breadth of hues it offers. Here we showcase 15 orange-faced watches that are on the market now; as always, we start at an eminently affordable price point, slightly over $200, and top out in the high-luxury segment, at six figures. Orient Ray Raven II FAA02006M9 Price: $210, Case Size: 41.5mm, Thickness: 13mm, Lug to Lug: 47mm, Lug Width: 22mm, Crystal: Mineral, Water Resistance: 200m, Movement: Automatic Orient F6922 Orient is a Japanese watchmaker founded in 1950 but with a tangled history stretching all the way back to 1901 and a convoluted relationship with its now-parent company, Seiko Epson Corporation. Like its better-known contemporaries, Seiko (with its own complex corporate structure through Epson) and Citizen, Orient made its worldwide reputation by making affordable watches with appealing designs. Among Orient’s stable of sporty divers’ watches is this Ray Raven II model with ...
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Quill & Pad
Young independent brand Petermann Bédat has launched its second timepiece, the Reference 2941 Split-Seconds Chronograph, after its successful first model, the 1967 Deadbeat Seconds. And in Joshua Munchow's opinion, the brand is getting better with each release.
Teddy Baldassarre
Aimed at frequent travelers, watches with two timezones are among the most practical of complicated timepieces. Even in an era in which it's easier than ever to check one's current time on any mobile device, being able to read two distinct times more or less simultaneously with a simple glance at one's wrist is still a compelling argument to recommend such a watch to anyone whose work or leisure takes them far from home on a regular basis. In this article we take a look at a range of dual-time watches (also called "GMT" watches, named for the calculation of "Greenwich Mean Time," or the worldwide 24-hour timekeeping system based upon the Greenwich Meridian in London), priced from entry-level to high luxury, from a variety of watchmakers large and small. Citizen Promaster Nighthawk Price: $391, Case: 42mm, Lug Width: 26mm, Crystal: Mineral, Water-Resistance: 200m, Movement: Quartz Eco-Drive, Water-Resistance: 200m The Citizen Promaster Nighthawk Black PVD sports a highly technical dial that takes its cues from instruments in the cockpits of U.S. military helicopters. The watch’s 42-mm case is made of black PVD-coated stainless steel and its black dial is packed with scales in contrasting white type that are of particular use to aviators and navigators, including the circular slide rule printed on the ion-plated rotating bezel. Two luminous central hands display the current time, while an airplane-tipped smaller hand shows the time in another time zone on a 24-hour sc...
Teddy Baldassarre
While the definition of what constitutes a unisex watch in 2023 can vary widely, it's fairly undeniable that watchmakers are putting a great deal of effort into designing and producing watches that will appeal simultaneously to prospective male and female customers alike. Decision-makers at the brands, it turns out, are becoming more and more attuned to the truism that not all men are looking for wrist-dominating titans and not all women are enticed by lilliputians encrusted in dazzling stones. Acknowledging up front that watch enthusiasts' tastes are as infinite as the styles available to them - in short, any watch can be a men's or a ladies' watch, even if it's marketed otherwise - we take a crack here at assembling a list of unisex watches based on a handful of loose criteria, including size (most under 38mm), genre elements (neither too tool-oriented or overtly jewelry-focused), and color choices (more daring hues than sober ones). As per tradition, we cover a wide range of choices in many price segments, in ascending order from under $200 to over $50,000. Timex Marlin Hand Wound 34mm Price: $139, Case Size: 34 mm, Thickness: 10 mm, Lug To Lug: 41 mm, Strap Width: 18 mm, Crystal: Acrylic, Water Resistance: 30 meters, Movement: Mechanical Hand-wind The vintage-look Timex Marlin was the first mechanical watch the company had made in over 30 years when it was rolled out in 2017. It’s based on a 1960s model and Timex’s designers were obviously not shy about s...
Time+Tide
Czapek continues to shake up the integrated bracelet watch space with stunning new versions of their 38.5mm Antarctique S The Sashiko variants feature dials in Azure or Lotus Pink, inspired by Edo-period Japanese stitching The Carte de Nuages versions are available in two cloudlike mother-of-pearl dial colours, with brilliant diamond accents I’ve never seen a … ContinuedThe post The Czapek Antarctique S is a fever dream of light and colour you won’t want to wake from appeared first on Time+Tide Watches.
Worn & Wound
Horage is a bit of an oddity in the watch world. Most brands build for years and years to be able to produce even a simple three-hand movement, should they even choose to go that route, and they tend to demand a high price. Horage has been working on theirs since its inception and has maintained a goal of industrialization over high prices starting with the K1, which had a silicon escapement and a modular complication system back at launch. Though it didn’t get the attention it deserved initially, it did inevitably ascend the horology ranks and prove its viability, as the K1 serves as the basis of Bremont’s ENG300 calibers. Eventually, Horage added the micro-rotor wound K2, featured in the Supersede. Another rarity, in addition to being thin, as micro-rotors tend to be, the K2 also featured modular design allowing for complications without increasing the base movement’s thickness by much, as well as a silicon escapement, 72-hour power reserve, and within chronometer accuracy. Another movement that would be impressive coming from a large luxury group, let alone an independent brand like Horage. While neither are small feats, today we’re looking at a watch with a movement that is perhaps even more impressive. The Lensman 1 features the K-TOU caliber, which is Horage’s in-house, Swiss-made tourbillon. Yes, you read that right. And the watch, despite featuring such a rare and exotic complication, comes in at under $10k. There’s a lot more to the watch as well, whic...
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Worn & Wound
Tudor’s recent road is a case study on how to properly revive, or reintroduce a brand to the world. Just in the last 10ish years, we’ve watched them go from a vintage fascination but a contemporary obscurity to one of the leading modern Swiss watch brands. A brand that went from unavailable in the US, to globally reinvigorating and dominating the $3-5k price point. And now, in 2023, they’ve marked another milestone, the opening of their new assembling and testing facility in Le Locle. A massive structure, it houses in a split building with entrances on either side, Tudor and the movement manufacturer they created, Kenissi. Standing on 330, 30-meter tall concrete pillars to reach sturdy bedrock below, the building is 150-meters long, 30-meters high, and consists of 8,050 cubic meters of concrete and 960 tons of metal framing. State of the art in many ways, the project took five years from start to finish, including three for construction, with some transitions and new operations finishing in April of 2023. Airey, with large, automatically tinting glass windows and an intentionally industrial interior veneer, the structure spoke to mid-century architecture, if completed and outfitted with the newest technologies one can expect in a watch-making facility. In many ways, the building suits the products that Tudor currently makes, watches with vintage aesthetic cues, but firmly up-to-date construction. Watches that despite certainly qualifying as luxury timepieces, avoid t...
Time+Tide
Grand Seiko has attracted a wide base of watch enthusiasts to their products. Previously an underdog trying to break through in regions outside of Japan, there has to be some special quality to the DNA of their watches to garner attention away from usual suspects like Rolex and Omega. Irrefutably the special ingredient in the … ContinuedThe post Understanding Grand Seiko design at a deeper level with GS designer Akira Yoshida appeared first on Time+Tide Watches.
Worn & Wound
Grand Seiko had several noisy releases at Watches & Wonders this year, the Tentagraph chief among them. But there was a quiet drop in Geneva this year that might be of even more interest to some Grand Seiko collectors and enthusiasts, and is almost certainly a window into what the brand is planning for the future. Grand Seiko has released a total of five watches in their Heritage Collection that effectively serve as upgrades to existing models in, but are now available in Ever-Brilliant Steel. This marks only the second time the brand has used Ever-Brilliant Steel in non-limited references, following up on last year’s SLGH013, which we covered here. A total of three GMTs and two time and date models have just been introduced in Grand Seiko’s most iconic case shape using the proprietary alloy, and they’re at once totally familiar and offer something new for the most dedicated Grand Seiko collectors. Before we break down the watches, a quick review of the Ever-Brilliant Steel material is in order. Aesthetically, Ever-Brilliant Steel distinguishes itself from standard steel with its bright white color. It’s tough to capture in photos, but in person it has a luster that makes it look and feel like something approaching a precious metal. It’s also significantly more corrosion resistant than standard steel, promoting increased longevity, which Grand Seiko reminds us is a key component of their watchmaking philosophy. The 44GS case, with its wide facets and unique geo...
Time+Tide
The new Grand Seiko Heritage Collection features a 44GS case in Ever-Brilliant Steel. The material boasts a whiter lustre and better corrosion resistance than regular steel. The “Mt. Iwate” dial is available in silver, black, or blue across three-handed or GMT models. Lovers of Grand Seiko are most often won over by a myriad of … ContinuedThe post The Grand Seiko Heritage Collection in Ever-Brilliant Steel appeared first on Time+Tide Watches.
Time+Tide
Four years after its introduction, the A. Lange & Söhne Odysseus is now presented in a chronograph format First-ever automatic chronograph calibre for A. Lange & Söhne – the new L156.1 DATOMATIC® calibre Boutique exclusive limited edition of 100 pcs. I hesitate to use the phrase ‘alternative’ here. Upon its introduction four years ago, the A. Lange … ContinuedThe post The new Odysseus Chronograph is the first-ever automatic chronograph from A. Lange & Söhne appeared first on Time+Tide Watches.
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SJX Watches
After several consecutive hit collaborations, Louis Erard debuts its first with a wood marquetry dial. Arguably its most ambitious release yet in terms of craftsmanship, the Excellence Marqueterie features a dial inlaid with tiny pieces of wood to form an M.C. Escher-like motif. For the dial, the brand tapped Bastien Chevalier, a Swiss artisan who specialises the art of creating designs and patterns out of intricately cut pieces of wood, although other materials like stone, silicon, straw, and even leather can be used for the technique. Initial thoughts In my view, most watchmakers tend to collaborate only as a last resort, when they’ve run out of ideas. What sets Louis Erard apart is its coherent strategy for collaborations. Whether created by industrial designer atelier oï, or a watchmaker like Vianney Halter, its collaboration editions are still recognisable as Louis Erard thanks to the use of the same steel case. And they are uniformly produced in small runs and priced below CHF4,000. The new Excellence Marqueterie continues this successful formula, bringing wood marquetry to the sub-US$10,000 category for the first time. While brands like anOrdain are doing something similar with affordably priced enamel dials that are designed for modern tastes, there’s never been a marquetry dial at this price point. Not only does the dial look good, it is impressively constructed from dozens of hand-made elements that require careful finishing. Despite the more complex dial...
Time+Tide
It’s another knock-down, drag-out street fight here on Versus, and this match-up pits two classic divers, the current version of the venerable Seiko Turtle against the bomb-proof Citizen Eco-Drive Promaster Dive. Once again, we match up two comparable watches in similar styles and price points, and compare their shared qualities, and the ones that set … ContinuedThe post VERSUS: The Seiko Prospex Turtle takes on the Citizen Promaster Dive for entry-level underwater supremacy appeared first on Time+Tide Watches.
Worn & Wound
When I think back to last year’s Watches & Wonders, there are only a handful of watches and experiences that really stand out in my memory now that time has done its thing. The one-off Streamliner that H. Moser coated entirely in Vantablack comes to mind, as does that giant purple Hublot that has become a point of personal obsession.. As I reflect back though on my first Watches & Wonders, there’s another meeting that stands out, somewhat surprisingly, from all the others, and that’s our experience with Ressence. I’ve always admired Ressence and had limited hands-on experience with them in boutiques and at meetups prior to seeing them in Geneva, but it was another thing entirely to have a whole bunch of them laid out on a table with brand founder Benoit Mintiens personally taking us through the collection. These watches are truly special, quite rare, and try them all on in rapid fire succession was just a lot of fun. The big new release at the time, the Type 8 C, made a particularly strong impression as the new entry level Ressence. It was lightweight, beautiful, and approachable in a way that no other Ressence had felt like to me. Now, just in time for Watches & Wonders ‘23, Ressence has introduced another Type 8, this one in a gorgeous shade of green. The new Type 8 S (for “sage green”) has exactly the same specs as last year’s version in blue. That means it still has a lugless 43mm case made from grade 5 titanium, that’s just 11mm tall. It has a flyi...
Time+Tide
With Zach out and about, I thought I’d jump in and cover this week’s Friday Wind Down with your regularly scheduled content – memes, wrist shots and all. Triple threat of PRX updates – icy blue, blue panda and rubber straps We start off, however, with a new Tissot PRX, this time in a gorgeous … ContinuedThe post FRIDAY WIND DOWN: MoonSwatch, plus entry-level heats up with new Tissot PRX and updated Timex Marlin appeared first on Time+Tide Watches.
Worn & Wound
When we last checked in on Garrick, the small British indie had just unveiled the S5 series of watches, their most high-end and luxurious creations to date. Coming in at nearly $20,000, many longtime admirers of the brand might have felt some sticker shock (although not too many – the initial run was pre-sold to existing clients before the embargo lifted). It will be a relief, then, to note that Garrick’s latest watch, the S6, is back to four digit territory, and a deliberate evolution of the S4, the brand’s entry-level line. There are some minor aesthetic tweaks to the S6 that give it a noticeably different character than other Garrick creations, but they allow the artisans who work on these watches to really flex their muscles when it comes to dial work. And of course they are still completely customizable, so the end result, almost by definition, is precisely what you were looking for. The key differentiating factor between the S4 and S6 is the dial layout, specifically the lack of large numerals at the perimeter that remain a defining feature of the S4. Garrick’s goal with the S6 was to achieve an aesthetic that’s more contemporary (the S4’s design language, like all of Garrick’s creations to a certain degree, is rooted in classic English pocket watch design). On the S6, time is read via a thin chapter ring at the outer edge of the dial, with small markers for the minutes and hours that have been hand filled with ink. Removing the numerals gives the dia...
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Hodinkee
Last week, TAG Heuer showed it had no intention of forgetting its racing heritage when they launched an online competition to pick out the next Autavia. And on the first day of Baselworld, they confirmed we would be seeing a lot more vintage-inspired chronographs, with a re-edition of the famous Monza.
Time+Tide
Landeron deserves more than one moment in the spotlight.The post The history of Landeron, the legendary manufacturer that never gets the recognition it deserves appeared first on Time+Tide Watches.
Time+Tide
Ulysse Nardin Blast Tourbillon Blue & Gold’s faceted case is inspired by the lines of stealth aircraft design 45mm in diameter, 18K rose gold and PVD blue titanium case. Flying Tourbillon. Hours and minutes. Escapement wheel, anchor and balance spring in silicium. When delving into the romanticism of traditional high-end watchmaking, we often discuss hand-craftsmanship. But, … ContinuedThe post The Ulysse Nardin Blast Tourbillon Blue & Gold offers exemplary in-house machined mastery appeared first on Time+Tide Watches.
Worn & Wound
Let’s not beat around the bush: Grand Seiko releases a lot of watches. As the brand has grown, their release strategy has been, well, aggressive, with new references piling up on old before we can gather our thoughts to write about them. While some might criticize Grand Seiko for flooding the market and potentially watering down their brand name, I’ve always been of the opinion that that’s a very silly take coming from a watch enthusiast. More watches are better. Choice is good. Keep them coming. But it does create something of a conundrum for those of us writing about new releases here at Worn & Wound. We can’t possibly cover everything, so how do we decide which watches to devote a post to, and which ones to skip. There are a lot of factors at play, but mostly it comes down to a combination of striving to provide readers with content we think they’ll find interesting and informative, and asking ourselves the eternal question: Do I have something interesting to say about this watch? These things don’t always come together immediately. As any watch enthusiast knows, it can take time to get your arms around something to the point where you can form a coherent opinion on it. When the SBGJ217 was announced, it didn’t immediately make its way to the editorial calendar. I thought this might be a Grand Seiko release that we skip, or maybe just discuss on a podcast. But I’ve been marinating on it over the last week, and the more I looked at that dial and conside...
Two Broke Watch Snobs
After years of reviewing watches, these are the best ones we recommend under $1000 that perfectly balance design, comfort, and reliability.
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