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Deployant favourites: Six of the best lots from Only Watch 2023
Only Watch revealed 62 lots for the 2023 season, This is the 10th edition of this biennial charity auction. We pick six of the best.
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Deployant
Only Watch revealed 62 lots for the 2023 season, This is the 10th edition of this biennial charity auction. We pick six of the best.
Teddy Baldassarre
Barely more than two decades in existence, Richard Mille is one of the luxury watch industry’s most compelling modern success stories and one of the most popular and recognizable brands out there - despite the fact that it makes timepieces that are wildly inaccessible to all but the most deep-pocketed and well-connected aficionados. To many who follow the industry, the brand’s stratospheric prices are the story: In 2022, for example, Richard Mille did $487 million in sales, despite the fact that it only made 5,400 watches that year. Yes, that averages out to more than $90,000 per watch, and even that rather stunning stat doesn’t represent the big picture, as many of Richard Mille’s most coveted models come in at an MSRP in the neighborhood of half a million dollars or more. In its 2023 analysis of the Swiss watch market, Morgan Stanley reports that Richard Mille is now the sixth largest Swiss watch brand in the world in terms of sales, right behind Rolex, Cartier, Omega, Audemars Piguet, and Patek Philippe. So why are Richard Mille watches so expensive and what factors set them apart from every other watchmaker in the highest echelons of horology? Read on. Origins: The Man Behind Richard Mille Watches The foundations of the Richard Mille watch brand reach back to 1988, when its namesake, Richard Mille, Head of Watchmaking and CEO of Jewellery at Paris-based jewelry house Mauboussin, met Dominique Guenat, owner of Guenat SA Montres Valgine, a watchmaker in the S...
Quill & Pad
By auctioning off unique pieces explicitly made for Only Watch, Luc Pettavino has given the brands a platform to go all in and all out. Many brands seize this opportunity to take their work to an even higher level, while collectors lust over the opportunity to own a unique watch from their favorite brands. Here are Martin Green’s Top Ten, and the last one, which is his absolute favorite!
Time+Tide
The new Maurice de Mauriac Züri Date collection is inspired by the colours of Zurich tram lines Each of the watches, starting at CHF 3,200, are available on leather straps or a steel bracelet for CHF 300 more The day display at 12′ is executed in Zurich’s very own Swiss-German dialect Swiss independent microbrand Maurice … ContinuedThe post The new Maurice de Mauriac Züri Date collection offers a rainbow of 8 watches inspired by the colours of Zurich tram lines appeared first on Time+Tide Watches.
Time+Tide
Usually when we write a story involving an athlete or celebrity, it involves watch spotting. But last week the worlds of popular culture and horology intersected in a more significant and meaningful way. We have previously documented how football superstar Cristiano Ronaldo is a fully fledged watch collector, but now he takes on the role … ContinuedThe post From CR7 to C24: Cristiano Ronaldo invests in Chrono24 watch marketplace platform appeared first on Time+Tide Watches.
Hodinkee
It's an iconic new dial color for one of Lange's great chronographs – just don't call it salmon.
Time+Tide
We are bound to follow certain trends no matter which industry we look into. Whether it be fashion, cars, music and, for what concerns us the most, watches. In the past 10 years we went through an intense period during which micro and independent brands would release vintage-inspired dive watches. Then, more recently, GMTs and … ContinuedThe post MICRO MONDAYS: The Rosenbusch Quest is a truly accessible integrated-bracelet sports watch appeared first on Time+Tide Watches.
Time+Tide
Picking out my favourite references for this year’s Only Watch auctions, I was pretty shocked to realise how much my tastes have changed over the last handful of years. Some of these brands I even used to hate, although I won’t be admitting which ones. Only Watch is the perfect chance for brands to change … ContinuedThe post Buffy’s 5 favourite Only Watch 2023 lots appeared first on Time+Tide Watches.
Worn & Wound
These are the kinds of midweek surprises I can get on board with. TAG Heuer has revealed a new Carrera Skipper chronograph in the 39mm chassis we saw (and loved) earlier this year at Watches & Wonders. This is a regular production variant of the Carrera that makes excellent use of the sublime Skipper colorway we first saw in the late ‘60s, and most recently in the 2017 limited edition Carrera Skipper for Hodinkee. The color scheme feels right at home in the modern Carrera shoes, with plenty of small details to discover along the way. Best of all, it doesn’t feel like a vintage recreation, it feels purely modern through and through, taking full advantage of the new ‘glassbox’ design of the Carrera. The latest Carrera sports a range of blue, green, and orange hues in a reflection of the original colorway which made the watch so distinctive. The base dial is a deep blue with contrasting seafoam hour totalizer at 9 o’clock, and multicolor minute totalizer at 3 o’clock, which splits the counter into 5 minute segments to more accurately find your position going into the start of a yacht race. The final five minutes, as well as the timing seconds hand, are rendered in orange, denoting their importance to the operation. There is a running seconds hand within a third, almost hidden sub dial appearing at 6 o’clock, which isn’t framed and thus is the same color as the base of the dial. Only the indexes and the hand itself give its position away. The unique new ‘gl...
Quill & Pad
In this last of the four-part series, we look at Only Watch 2023 Lots 49-62. While there are many fantastic watches here, Ian Skellern particularly likes the imaginative story of Lot 51, the Richard MilleTalisman Origine and the space-age design of Lot 60, the Urwerk Space-Time Blade.
WatchAdvice
Raymond Weil recently released their new limited edition Freelancer Pilot Flyback Chronograph, and as the official launch partner, we’ve had the pleasure of testing it out over the past couple of weeks. Here’s the results… What We Love Vintage StylingThe multi-faceted dialFlyback functionality What We Don’t Stiff strap and clasp designNo date windowOverhanging lug design Overall Rating: 8/10 Value for money: 8/10Wearability: 7/10Design: 9/10Build quality: 8/10 Initial Thoughts Sitting in a café in Sydney a few weeks ago, my colleague and I laid eyes on the the Raymond Weil Freelancer Pilot Flyback Chronograph for the first time. We knew they were releasing a new pilots watch to add to the Freelancer Chronograph line, and having only seen the press pics, in person it looked the goods, especially the dial. Playing around with it for a little while, it seemed solid and well done, and being a limited edition of just 400, with a price point of AUD $6,995 for a good-looking flyback chronograph that was well built, seemed fair to us based on the competition and price points out there now. And if you missed our article on the release of this watch, before you dive into this review, check out all the details with more live pics here. The Design The design of the new Freelancer Pilot Flyback Chronograph is quite multifaceted, to say the least. Raymond Weil has used different design cues and inspiration to craft the watch to look and feel vintage, but it is anything but. The...
Worn & Wound
Yema is fleshing out their young Traveller collection, which made its debut just last year, with a new family of integrated bracelet sport watches called the Urban Traveller. The new family is on-trend with a design that features the now familiar hallmarks of the genre, such as a flat link bracelet that integrates with the case, a flat octagonal mid case with single piece bezel, and a textured dial. Check, check, and check. The Urban Traveller does take a unique approach in a few ways, however, and more options of a good thing is, well, a good thing. Yema is a French brand that was founded in 1948, with an increasing selection of in-house labeled movements, which we’ve discussed before launched, somewhat curiously, via Kickstarter. The Traveller collection of watches have been no exception, with the template for the Urban Traveller, called the Wristmaster Traveller, hitting funded status in late 2022. That watch, which recalled Yema’s heritage with the use of the Wristmaster label, featured a colorful selection of in-house ultra-thin micro-rotor movements, a playful choice that set that watch apart from other integrated sport watches. The Urban Traveller takes a more direct approach to the design, using Yema’s YEMA2000 movement, which is around 80% in-house, instead of the colorful micro-rotor movements seen in the Wristmaster Traveller. This change means a slightly thicker case and a closed caseback, as well as a dramatic reduction in pricing. The ultra-thin Wrist...
Time+Tide
Only Watch is probably my favourite endeavour within the watch industry. It is the ultimate horological win-win-win scenario. First and foremost, the charity auction raises a ton of money for a great cause. Only Watch was founded in 2005 by Luc Pettavino to raise funds for research on Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (a genetic disease that … ContinuedThe post Zach’s 5 favourite Only Watch 2023 lots appeared first on Time+Tide Watches.
Deployant
‘Tis the season for retrograde date displays here at Vacheron Constantin, a functionality that has been in the family since the 1920s. This year, no fewer than three new models were introduced at Watches & Wonders celebrating the spritely complication, one of which was the Traditionnelle Tourbillon Retrograde Date Openface. Review: VC Traditionnelle Tourbillon RetrogradeRead More
Time+Tide
The epicentre for German watchmaking prestige for nearly two centuries has had a tumultuous history.The post The history of the Glashütte watch region appeared first on Time+Tide Watches.
Time+Tide
Watchmaking is a source of pride for various regions. Of course the most famous are the Swiss, but Japan, Britain, Germany also proudly boast high quality watchmaking – where each region has their own personal stamp on the art form. The USA, once home to a burgeoning watch industry, finds itself working back towards prestige, … ContinuedThe post Australian independent watchmaker Reuben Schoots’ watch is on Loupe This – but I am the highest bidder so BACK OFF! appeared first on Time+Tide Watches.
SJX Watches
Hublot has once again partnered with its favourite contemporary artist for Only Watch 2023: the MP-15 Takashi Murakami Only Watch Sapphire is a one-of-a-kind creation for the biennial charity auction that is entirely unique from case to movement. Not only it is the brand’s first-ever central tourbillon, the watch has a sapphire crystal case in the shape of a flower with a bezel set with rainbow gemstones. Initial thoughts While Hublot is sometimes made fun of for its often repetitive limited editions that are colour facelifts, the creation for Only Watch is entirely new and entirely unique. Hublot and the Japanese artist have collaborated in the past, but on watches that were variants of standard models. In contrast, the Murakami Only Watch pushes boundaries even by Hublot’s extravagant standards with a case entirely in sapphire, and flower-shaped no less. The Murakami Only Watch is also interesting mechanically. The calibre inside has a 150-hour power reserve along with a large, central tourbillon on the front. And the movement is unique to the Murakami Only Watch, at least for now. The aesthetic and mechanical novelty of the Murakami Only Watch are impressive and certainly makes this one of the highlights of Only Watch 2023. While Hublot will almost certainly create variations of this in the future, the effort expended in creating Murakami Only Watch is commendable. The Murakami Only Watch has an estimate of CHF350,000 to CHF400,000, with the high estimate being a ...
Worn & Wound
How many times can you go back to the well? If you’re Seiko, and the well is the 62MAS, the answer, apparently, is as many times as you’d like. Or, six. By my rough count, that’s how many re-editions of the historically important Seiko diver we’ve seen since 2017, when they began to really lean into the iconography of their first professional dive watch with the SLA017 along with the SPB051, setting a template for both limited edition, higher priced versions of the 62MAS reedition for collectors, and a more value oriented approach for everyday watch enthusiasts, an approach that was arguably perfected with the SPB143 and its many, many variants. Now, just announced, Seiko has revealed a new re-edition of the 62MAS that might be the closest yet to the aesthetic of the original, with a higher end movement that brings the watch into luxury territory. The headline here is that the case size of the new SJE093 is the closest approximation yet to the original watch from 1965. It gets the diameter exactly right at 38mm, and, crucially, comes in at just 12.5mm thick. Those are nearly identical measurements to the original 62MAS, and a whole lot more slender than the reissues, and it’s thanks to a new caliber making its debut in this very watch. The new caliber is the 6L37, which shares an architecture with the 6L35, but has been upgraded to be more durable and resistant to shocks. Seiko says this caliber was made expressly for divers. The “L” series movements are ...
Worn & Wound
The industrial designs of ochs und junior watches have an immense impact allowed by their near brutalistic design codes, but the sheer simplicity of their approach to complications is what really draws us in. Their perpetual calendar being the penultimate example, requiring just 9 new components within the movement to operate. Ochs und junior are bringing this level of thinking to their line collection, which we’ve covered since its inception, with the introduction of a new moonphase capable of remaining accurate for 3,478.27 years before being off by a single day. In true ochs und junior fashion, they’ve accomplished this with the addition of just 5 additional parts to the ETA 2824-2 movement. The new line watch is called the moon phase / selene, and it brings the moon to the dial in a unique manner, as you may have guessed when it comes to ochs und junior. There is a large moon phase aperture cut through through the bottom portion of the dial, with a monochromatic representation of the moon at opposing ends of a rotating disc. Dots underneath the dial represent each day, and each phase that the moon passes through. The remainder of the dial is rendered almost entirely in ochs blue, creating a rather serene experience of the romantic complication, save for the silver hour markers at each even hour. The total aesthetic here is classic ochs und junior, with minimal representation of the core components, and an untouched, raw experience of the materials at use. The two...
Time+Tide
Australia has the highest rate of mammal extinction in the world with nearly one in three of our unique mammals at risk of dying out. The Foundation for National Parks & Wildlife are the charity partner of Australia’s national parks, ensuring that our wildlife and wilderness are conserved for future generations. What’s all this got to do … ContinuedThe post Grand Seiko auctions off last “Pink Flannel Flower” watch to help Australian wildlife appeared first on Time+Tide Watches.
Deployant
Yema extends their Urban Traveller collection with three new references priced below the launch edition called The Wristmaster which has been sold out.
Quill & Pad
The theme for Only Watch 2023 is rainbows: some brands ran with that superbly, while others took a different path. One brand that nailed the theme created Ian Skellern's favorite watch of the whole auction: Lot 27. The Grönefeld 1941 Principia Mandala
Quill & Pad
Launched in 1969, the Catena/Zeno Spaceman is special thanks to its funky design as well as its its fiberglass and chrome case. The Spaceman’s blend of ovals, curves, and straight lines was just right for that groovy time in fashion, touching a nerve in a hip watch-buying public. It was a polarizing watch: people generally either hated it or loved it at first sight, and remains so today. Here is the brief history of this fun vintage watch.
Time+Tide
The ‘60s were an important era for Seiko, as it saw the introduction of both the Grand Seiko and King Seiko lines. Originally launched to promote healthy inter-company competition with Grand Seiko, the King Seiko name made its debut in 1961, and in 1965, the iconic KSK model was released. The luxe-leaning Grand Seiko of … ContinuedThe post The slender new King Seiko collection channels the retro elegance of the 1965 original appeared first on Time+Tide Watches.
Worn & Wound
We’ll have a lot more on our favorite lots from this year’s Only Watch sale next week, but on this day of big Tudor news, we’d be remiss not to mention their contribution to the 2023 edition of the charity auction, a solid gold chronograph inspired by their very first automatic chronograph. The Tudor Prince Chronograph One brings some luxury flair to the auction from the tool watch specialist, in a format that the brand had all but abandoned by the time they relaunched in the US over a decade ago. In addition to being a literal unique piece (as all watches in the Only Watch sale are) this one sports a new caliber that is honestly kind of hard to believe even exists in 2023. The 12, 6, 9 chronograph display here is a familiar sight to anyone who has dabbled in enthusiast centric chronos – it’s the hallmark layout of the vaunted Valjoux 7750, an ubiquitous caliber if there ever was one, used by more brands than we can possibly count over the years, including, of course, Tudor. The Tudor Prince Chronograph line that made use of these movements as well as the earlier “Big Blocks” dating to the late 1970s have always been collector favorites, coming in a variety of colorways over the years. It differs sharply from modern Tudor chronographs that use their in-house caliber with a 3,6 9 layout that seems to beg for comparisons to the Daytona, which of course is made by Rolex, Tudor’s sister brand. Now that classic layout is back, sort of, with what Tudor describe...
Worn & Wound
Only Watch, the biennial charity auction that finds an increasingly diverse set of brands offering one-off watches to the highest bidder, is back this year, and we’re starting to get word of the sale’s participants and the watches they’ll have on offer. You might recall that in 2021, we saw Baltic participate for the first time, which, in our opinion, not only elevated their status considerably, but the entire microbrand scene as well. For those of us who have followed and supported small, enthusiast driven brands for years, there was a certain amount of gratification in seeing one of our favorites getting worldwide, mainstream attention alongside the likes of Tudor and Patek Philippe. It was even better when we saw that Only Watch didn’t fundamentally change what Baltic stands for as a brand – they still make reasonably priced and attractive watches for hardcore collector and enthusiast types. This year’s slate of Only Watch participants features another small brand that we’ve been paying very close attention to since they first came on the scene just two years ago. Furlan Marri’s Only Watch debut caps what can only be described as a meteoric rise for the brand, and the somewhat mind blowing watch they’ve unveiled is genuinely unexpected and exciting. Before we get into the weeds on the new Furlan Marri perpetual calendar – yes, their perpetual calendar – let’s back up a minute, because it’s important to understand the short history of the bran...
Deployant
ArtyA extends their AquaSaphir collection of sapphire watches with four new references in a new cyan colour-way. Available in a gradient dial or meteorite.
SJX Watches
The Chronomètre Bleu has taken on somewhat of a cult status among the followers of F.P. Journe. So much so that it has leaked out beyond the brand’s group of core supporters to become one of the most sought after watches on the primary and secondary market today. This year, for Only Watch, F.P. Journe has decided to revisit this popular design and reimagine it as the Chronomètre Bleu Furtif Bleu, which is also a debut for an entirely new calibre. Initial thoughts While the Chronomètre Bleu is known for being popular among the wider watch community, F.P. Journe’s LineSport models still divide opinion, so combining the sport watch case with the eye-catching dial of the Chronomètre Bleu is a bold choice. Of course, as with everything that F.P. Journe does it is never completely straight forward, the dial on the Furtif Bleu is not a copy of what you see in the Chronomètre Bleu, instead it is translucent enamel with the numbers laser engraved for a matte finish. The one fault I can see with the design of these numerals is the oddly small “6” so as to accommodate “émail”. This feels like it throws the balance off ever so slightly. The aim of this watch appears to be to make it hard to read, with the very name of it making reference to it being difficult to read unless the dial is directly facing you. While the romantic view of this being that it makes telling time an entirely personal activity, it could also just lead to difficulty whenever in low light set...
SJX Watches
Audemars Piguet (AP) is taking part in Only Watch for the fourth time with the Royal Oak Selfwinding Flying Tourbillon Openworked 41 mm “Only Watch”. In contrast to the low-key Royal Oak “Jumbo” made for the 2021 instalment of the charity auction, this year’s one-off creation is exceptionally striking in blue and white. The latest Royal Oak “Only Watch” is based on the regular-production Royal Oak skeleton tourbillon but made unique with a white ceramic case and bracelet along with a movement featuring blued titanium bridges and plates. The case and bracelet material is notably uncommon for AP. While the brand has a fair number of Royal Oak models in black ceramic, there are fewer in white ceramic. In fact, there is only one regular production model in white ceramic, the perpetual calendar. In the past, there were also a handful of Royal Oak Offshore models in white ceramic, including a chronograph and Diver. According to AP, one of the notable features of the bracelet is not only the material, but also that fact that is secured with “invisible pins”. This presumably means the pins holding the bracelet together are concealed with ceramic caps. The cal. 2972 inside is open worked in an angular, stylised manner that is very much AP’s house style. The bridges and base plate are blued titanium, while the bevels of the movement retain the natural grey colour of titanium for contrast, giving each of the bridges a pronounced outline. The rotor is 22k gold but ...
Time+Tide
A gradient of 11 new “Summer Blue” configurations for the 75th anniversary of the Seamaster that darken as the depth rating increases Each model has a commemorative caseback with the signature Poseidon, trident, and two seahorses motif The previously discontinued Ploprof returns to the catalogue with a new resized monobloc case There are countless brands … ContinuedThe post Omega celebrates 75 years of the Seamaster with 11 new “Summer Blue” models across the collection (Live Video & Pics!) appeared first on Time+Tide Watches.
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