3,039 articles · 2,585 videos found · page 51 of 188
Deployant
Round up for the significant horological events for the month of August 2017. With exhibitions from Rolex and Bulgari, and the Roger Dubuis cocktail.
Revolution
As we hit auction season in Geneva this weekend, Revolution’s Ross Povey thumbs through the Christie’s catalogue for their ‘Rare Watches and a Rolex Afternoon’ sale and selects a few lots that make him smile…
Revolution
Ross Povey spells out the greatness of the Rolex Sea-Dweller using the letters in its name.
Two Broke Watch Snobs
Mike and Kaz talk shop with some of the early Baselworld 2017 releases that've been coming out... surprisingly they're quite excited about a few of them! In particular Kaz is super into the new rederique Constant Flyback Chronograph Manufacture - so much so that he even chokes on his thin mints (you heard me). On the flip side, the newest Rolex Sea-Dweller has the snobs perplexed as hell.
Deployant
Jeff Parke is a specialist engraver who cut his teeth on pocket knives, guns & now, he literally cuts Rolex watches. Is an engraved Rolex a thing of beauty?
Video
Revolution
The new movement powering Rolex’s Day-Date 40.
Revolution
Release of Rolex’s Daytona in steel with black Cerachrom bezel is a veritable bright spot, for its very existence proves that good things do last.
Revolution
Why did man pursue the deep seas? Why resort to the SEALAB? And why did Rolex create the helium release valve. Eminent Rolex scholar, James Dowling answers all.
Revolution
Phillips Watches’ Rolex Milestones: 38 Legendary Watches That Shaped History auction concludes with bargain hammer prices in Hong Kong.
Revolution
Fidel Castro, who ruled Cuba for nearly half a century, dies at the age of 90. Upon his death, among the many questions he’s left unanswered, Revolution investigates whether Castro was truly a Rolex devotee.
Video
Revolution
Born in 1905, Rolex has become the gold standard in wristwatches. Mention the leading companies in the industry and Rolex is always in the top three, if not steadfastly in the number one position. Rolex didn’t get to this lofty perch without industry-leading innovation and unparalleled excellence.
Revolution
With its mix of Roman and Arabic numerals, the so-called California dial has become one of the most sought-after Rolex watches of the modern era.
Hodinkee
What We Know Rado is a brand that's synonymous with ceramic. If I think about the brand's catalog, the weird, quirky shapes in glossy blacks and whites are what shine above the rest, both metaphorically and literally speaking. But it speaks to the brand and its long history with the material, 40 years in fact, as well as its share of the ceramic watch market around the sub-ten-thousand-dollar price point. Now, Rado is a curious brand within the Swatch Group, as it's not talked about as much in the United States compared to many of the other brands at its price point. And that's certainly due to America being the brand's smallest market by far. Its nickname of "the Rolex of India" certainly carries some weight, thanks to 42% of its business being in India, the Middle East, and Africa. In India, the most populous country in the world, the market share is a whopping 50% of watches between CHF 1,000 and 3,700 (per the brand). This year marks a big anniversary for Rado, commemorating 40 years since the debut of the Integral, the brand's first watch featuring ceramic. And so this occasion brings forth the Integral 40-Year Anniversary edition, an absolute throwback to the original that retains its very definitely 80s look. Clad in shiny black and gold, it preserves the original design's rectangular case, albeit in slightly larger dimensions each way, with a 28mm width and 39.8mm length. The new Integral 40-Year Anniversary (left) and the original (right). Thanks to the Rado R279 ...
Worn & Wound
Vintage watches remain ever popular in the watch collector’s journey. There are serious collectors who remain focused on buying only vintage. Since the pandemic, my inbox has been flooded with auction houses and vintage dealers trying to one-up each other by selling the most curated “once in a lifetime” or most expensive vintage piece. I have nothing against the sellers and buyers, especially if they can vouch for the authenticity and pay for the repairs, they deserve my appreciation. Personally, I am apprehensive of owning vintage watches at my current point of collecting. I owned a few vintage watches in my early days as a collector, most of them were bargain finds on eBay that eventually stopped working or I ended up trading, except for one expensive Rolex Datejust that had to be serviced. Ultimately, service on the Datejust was as expensive as the watch, including Rolex replacing the dial to a different color which I hated and ended up selling for a loss. I know it was a rookie mistake, but that was the end of vintage watches for me. After that experience, I stuck to buying either new watches from retailers or pre-owned watches from other collectors. As it happened, my work took me to Germany often, and there I discovered a whole new world of neo-vintage watches. Before I get deeper into what specific “affordable” neo-vintage watches a couple of my collector friends and I recommend, I should briefly define what neo-vintage watches are and why they are easier ...
![[VIDEO] Owner’s Review: the Vertex M60 Aqualion ND](https://wornandwound.com/library/uploads/2025/02/Vertex-Owners-Review-22.jpg)
Worn & Wound
“If you’ve heard the phrase ‘one-watch guy,’ you’re likely far beyond being one.” I’ve used that line a lot the last few years. In the last decade, the collective watch community has evangelized the ‘one-watch guy,’ transforming the concept from a simple idea into a lionized ideal rooted in the days when the Don Drapers of the world would get home from work, roll up their sleeves, and mow the lawn in cordovan loafers, Oxford cloth shirts, and a 4-digit Rolex. For better or for worse (honestly, mostly for better), we don’t live in that world anymore. Start looking around, and you’ll quickly realize that the modern one-watch guy is far more likely to own an Apple Watch or Garmin than a 1016. And yet, the theory of the ‘one-watch guy’ continues to permeate, no doubt helped along by people like me who keep writing story intros like this one. There’s a romantic simplicity to the idea; a sense that, if a collector can somehow encapsulate their taste into a single watch, they have achieved the ultimate in collecting prowess, or at least some advanced level of enthusiast zen. Generally, ‘zen’ is not a word I would use to describe myself, and I’m certainly not a one-watch guy, but I can understand why the concept holds appeal. In collecting, as in so many things, constraint can be a gift, forcing our own perspective into stark relief and keeping us accountable to our taste. From that perspective, a one-watch collection is the ultimate constraint, a...
Video
I just walked out of the Rolex booth at Watches and Wonders, and I have some serious thoughts.
Worn & Wound
I’d be hard-pressed to name a watch more iterated upon in the last few years than Zodiac’s Sea Wolf. The retro-inspired diver has been at the heart of a true brand renaissance and was at the forefront of the vintage revival movement that has so characterized the watch world over the last decade. Today, Zodiac is looking back to one of its earliest dive watches with the new Zodiac Super Sea Wolf Ref. 691. There is, as with most things watch-related and pre-internet, some debate as to the initial launch date of the Zodiac Sea Wolf, but regardless of the date, there’s no doubt that Zodiac released the Sea Wolf as part of the first wave of dive watches back in the 1950s, but while watches like the Blancpain Fifty Fathoms, Rolex Submariner, and Omega Seamaster 300 soared (or dove), the Sea Wolf fell into the background - obscured to all but the most devoted watch enthusiasts alongside other early generation dive watches like the Eterna Kon-Tiki and Enicar Sherpa-Dive. By the time I got into watches in the early 2010s, the Zodiac Sea Wolf was one of the great secrets of the enthusiast world. Great examples could be had for a few hundred bucks, so for not much money, you could have a great-looking vintage dive watch with some real history. That all started to change when Zodiac, under the larger umbrella of Fossil Group, revived the Sea Wolf in 2015. The Zodiac Sea Wolf was immediately brought to the center of the horological world and has continued to stay relevant in t...
Worn & Wound
This month I had the pleasure of speaking with Nathan Bobinchak, Head of Watchmaking for the independent brand Oak & Oscar. Nathan is a former journalist and TV news writer turned watchmaker, with an obsession for finding the best way to experience sound through home audio setups. Watches “I had my midlife crisis at 26.” Nathan delivers a dry joke as he recounts his career shift from local TV news, to his decision to go to watchmaking school. Specifically, Nathan attended The Litiz Watch Technicum, a watchmaking school outside Lancaster, PA that was founded in 2001 by Rolex. After graduating from Litiz, Nathan worked for a shop in Connecticut, eventually moving to Chicago at the beginning of 2020 and landing the job at Oak & Oscar. “I first got into Oak & Oscar with the Jackson. The Jackson is a very cool chronograph with the Eterna 3916 movement in it. It’s a very neat, super complicated, pretty movement. It has a column wheel and flyback chrono…just very cool.” Nathan explained to me that in modern watchmaking you do a lot of the same things, but said he was fortunately certified to work on watches like the Rolex Daytona, as he has a lot of fun servicing chronographs. “I can go on all day about the art of lubricating a chronograph. That is some nerdy stuff. It’s like paint drying.” I was interested, so I asked him to expound. “The only thing that makes watches hard to work on is the user. We knock them, move them around, a movement will run grea...
![[VIDEO] Hands-On: the Havid Nagan HN00](https://wornandwound.com/library/uploads/2024/01/HAVID_NAGAN_03.jpg)
Worn & Wound
I think there’s a certain trajectory to watch collecting that the vast majority of enthusiasts will be familiar with. It’s been discussed at length, and might even represent something of a self fulfilling prophecy at this point. It goes something like this: you start out with the fan favorite affordables, dabble in big Swiss brands that take a depreciation hit and can be found readily on enthusiast buy/sell/trade platforms, discover the insane variety and value of microbrands, and then eventually, if it’s a brand that has meant something to you before you even knew that watch collecting was a thing, you wind up at Rolex. This is vastly oversimplified of course, but a version of this has happened to me and many collectors I know personally. Muy own observation though is that it’s what happens next that really determines where you go in the hobby. Because there’s a path where you just keep acquiring Rolex sports watches like Pokemon. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that – they are objectively excellent watches to own. But I think a certain number of collectors have a Tony Soprano, late season 6 moment sometime after picking up that GMT-Master or Submariner, and ask themselves: is this all there is? $8000 Hands-On: the Havid Nagan HN00 Case Titanium Movement Schwarz-Etienne ASE200 Dial Plum Lume Yes, hands and markers Lens Sapphire Strap Leather Water Resistance 100 meters Dimensions 40.7 x 49mm Thickness 11.6mm Lug Width 22mm Crown Push/pull Warranty Ye...
SJX Watches
Having covered the notable from independent watchmaking and complications at Sotheby’s Hong Kong auction on April 5, we turn to timepieces that are all about artisanal crafts, ranging from cloisonné and marquetry. Amongst the highlight is a Patek Philippe Dome Clock depicting the African savannah in cloisonné and another is the Cartier Tortue ref. 2496 with the jeweller’s signature panther motif. Important Watches I takes place on April 5, 2023. Registration for bidding and the catalogue can be accessed here. Lot 2101: Cartier Tortue LM Panthere This wristwatch two enduring elements of Cartier design, a form case and the panther motif. It’s a large-size Tortue – French for “turtle” – with a panther on the dial in champleve enamel. The large variant of the Tortue (instead of the oversized “XL”), this measures 34 mm in diameter, giving the dial ample real estate for the panther. The panther’s visage is executed in champlevé, where the dial base is first engraved with the motif before being painted and fired. This is powered by the cal. 430 MC, an ultra-thin manual mechanical movement that is actually the Piaget cal. 430P. Accompanied by its box and papers, this has an estimate of HK$200,000-300,000, or about US$25,000-38,200. You can find out more in the catalogue. Lot 2131: Audemars Piguet “Rolls Royce Phantom II” Before becoming synonyms with the Royal Oak, Audemars Piguet (AP) produced a diversity of elaborately decorated wrist- and pocket watc...
Worn & Wound
The personalization of high end watches will probably always be a hot topic in the watch community. As long as wealthy collectors are buying watches, some will have an urge to completely revamp them to make them their own. By the same token, the collecting community will always have a segment of purists who find that any tinkering with a brand’s original design amounts to a crime against horology itself. Regardless of your personal feelings and taste, however, I think it’s hard to argue that there are a handful of firms offering custom work at an extremely high level, and Artisans de Genève is certainly at or near the top of a very small list. If gaudy and out of control diamond and gem setting is what comes to mind when you think of custom watches, Artisans de Genève is worth a look, as their house style is rooted in traditional aesthetics executed at a very high level. Because Artisans de Genève doesn’t actually produce and sell their own watches (when browsing their website, you’re reminded at every turn that they aren’t affiliated with Rolex or any other brand, and that they offer custom work for individual clients who provide their own watches), it’s a little hard to get your arms around what they’re working on. That’s largely intentional on their part, of course, but from time to time they will highlight a custom job that is particularly unique or visually beautiful. The Honey Green Project, recently unveiled to the public, is one such example of a...
Video
What can we expect tomorrow at Watches and Wonders 2026? Kai and I take a deep dive into all of Rolex’s announcements in this podcast. Enjoy!
Hodinkee
I'd like to buy the world a...Rolex GMT-Master II Pepsi.
Hodinkee
I can't stop wearing my Explorer 124270, and I don't know why.
SJX Watches
I’m pleased to reveal the very first 10th anniversary edition, the Habring² Erwin “Star”. Inspired by uncommon 1950s wristwatches that have long been a favourite of mine, the Erwin “Star” was almost three years in the making – my first email to Habring² was dated February 2019. It took longer than expected to realise, but I am proud of the result. Update August 5, 2021: Sold out, thank you for the interest. The genesis of the idea came to me a decade ago, when I first encountered the 36 mm “Japan Limited” that Habring² created for Shellman, a storied retailer of vintage timepieces and independent watchmaking in Tokyo. More recently, Habring² applied a similar formula to the Erwin LAB02 for Massena Lab. In the time since, I got to know Richard and Maria Habring, the husband-and-wife team behind Habring², and gained a deep appreciation of the brand uncommon approach to making quality watches accessible while emphasising practical-minded engineering. The foundation of the Erwin “Star” is Habring²’s trademark time-only wristwatch. Its proportions are almost ideal at 38.5 mm by 10.5 mm, while the A11s movement within features a jumping, or deadbeat, seconds. What makes it special – and instantly distinctive – is the “star” dial in a blue that varies with the light. The inspiration Watches from the 1950s with star hour markers have long appealed to me. Specifically, it is the Rolex ref. 6088 “Galaxy” that stands out in my memory. Produc...
SJX Watches
Established in 2014, Cramain recently unveiled its first wristwatch, the Mark II Constant Force. Technically the brand’s second model – the Mark I was never commercialised – the Mark II is a hand-wound, time-only wristwatch equipped with a 20-second remontoir, and produced almost entirely by Kilian Leschnik, one half of the founding duo, the other being Dr Julian M. Stiels, a Swiss medical doctor with a keen interest in watches. Just 28 years old, Mr Leschnik completed his watchmaking studies in 2016. But the German watchmaker was already working on his own wristwatch in 2014, a timepiece that evolved out of his school watch. Cramain is a means to “live his dream as a mechanical artist”, says Mr Leschnik. Mr Leschnik and Dr Stiels developed the Mark II together, with Dr Stiels having taught himself computer-aided design, allowing him to construct do the construction of the watch and its movement. Starting two years ago, Dr Stiels has made Cramain his full-time calling. The pair are the sole owners of the brand, which is entirely self-funded. Part of it was made possible by prototyping work Mr Leschnik has done for various Swiss watch brands. Initial thoughts Impressive in both function and fabrication, the Mark II is evidently a wristwatch of extremely high quality, and one created by a watchmaker with a dedication to quality in form and finish. The Mark II’s design is a contemporary techno-mechanical style that is reminiscent of Greubel Forsey, which works i...
Two Broke Watch Snobs
I mean why own one or two Rolexes when you could have several dozen-” His voice trailed off before reaching back in the box, “...Kenneth Cole Reactions.” Read The Balance Cock Bugle for balanced horological news (probably).
Video
The Rolex Submariner has been dissected, debated, and celebrated more than any other. I want to look at it as an icon in 2025: How it has held up in an era when smartwatches dominate wrists, independents push the limi...
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