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Teddy Baldassarre · Page 36

Rolex 5513 Submariner Review: The Timeless Vintage Rolex? Teddy Baldassarre
Rolex Oct 11, 2025

Rolex 5513 Submariner Review: The Timeless Vintage Rolex?

In the world of Rolex, most people’s minds go straight to rarity, unattainability, and exclusivity. And in so many cases that rings true – except (and you may find this hard to believe) for the Submariner. That’s right, Rolex’s stalwart and most ubiquitous watch is also, kind of, its most accessible on the secondary market… and I am talking vintage and neovintage here. Sure, there are rare examples like Explorer dials (we will get to that in a bit), and early ref. 1680 Red Submariners that fetch a pretty penny at auction or from a vintage dealer. But there’s a very real reason for that. Those watches in particular fall into a bucket shared by many collectible rarities: They were only produced for a very short period of time. But there were many variations of vintage Subs, some rarer than others. And some still that weren’t rare at all. And the best example of that is the Rolex 5513, a Submariner model so common that it was one of Rolex’s most popular and best selling over the course of its – wait for it – 17-year run. Rolex 5513 History The Rolex Submariner ref. 5513 was in production from 1962 until 1989, and while there are some pockets of special ref. 5513 models within that run, it is for the most part of one the brand’s longest-selling and most-produced Submariners, or even sports watches full stop (the Explorer ref. 1016 has entered the chat). In 1962, Rolex had been producing its Submariner reference 5512 for about three years. The 5512 was a n...

Cartier Panthère Review Teddy Baldassarre
Cartier Oct 10, 2025

Cartier Panthère Review

If there is such a thing as a reigning “It-Girl” watch, the title is definitely won by none other than Cartier’s Panthère. This petite heavyweight has captured the hearts, minds, and wrists of pop culture icons and the general public since its original debut in the early 1980s, and its lasting power has proven to be perennial. On a personal note, it was also the first watch I really took notice of and fell in love with when first breaking into this wild hobby, and foundational to my own taste in watches. While some out there criticize it for being more jewelry than watch, there is a richer, more interesting story to back the Cartier Panthère up. Today, we’re plunging into the deep end of this It-Girl watch’s origin story, tracing its evolution over time, and pinpointing the key ingredients of this watch’s steadfast popularity and whether or not it really is the best Cartier watch for ladies. Cartier Panthère Context and History Image: Sotheby's Before we arrive at the birth of the It-Girl watch to end all It-Girl watches in the ‘80s, we must travel in our metaphorical time machine back further, all the way to 1913, the first year that the panther symbolism and imagery appeared in the Cartier universe. Quite fittingly, the story at hand also begins with an early 20th-century It-Girl in her own right, Jeanne Toussaint. George Barbier's 1913 "Dame à la Panthère"  Born in 1887 in Belgium, Toussaint utilized her bold and vivacious personality to ascend modes...

Tritium Watches: How They Work, And How They're Still Being Made Teddy Baldassarre
Oct 10, 2025

Tritium Watches: How They Work, And How They're Still Being Made

The need to read the time in the dark has been a challenge for the makers of timepieces for hundreds of years. The first solution was not a visual but an audible one: watches that could chime the current hour and minute on demand. These types of watches, aka minute repeaters and sonneries, are quite rare and expensive today and regarded as luxuries rather than the utilitarian inventions they initially were. In the 1900s, a more practical option presented itself: treating a watch’s dial with luminous paint that made its time display visible in darkness. And while this approach proved to be much more cost-effective and practical, it also brought a new set of challenges, as the earliest substances used on the dials were discovered to be unsafe, for the people who made the watches and, to a lesser extent, those who wore them. Let There Be Light The first material applied to watch dials for nighttime luminescence was radium paint, which, thanks to radium’s half-life of 1,600 years, offered a long-lasting glow during that period before dimming - the catch being that, as its name implies, radium (specifically Radium-226, which was used as the base of the “Radiomir” substance registered by Guido Panerai ) is radioactive. In the 1920s, the mostly female factory workers who painted the watch dials with radium compounds started falling ill and dying at alarming rates, leading to lawsuits against the companies that produced the material and eventually, safer working conditio...

Casio MRW 200H Review: The Allure Of The "Diet G-Shock" Teddy Baldassarre
Casio Oct 9, 2025

Casio MRW 200H Review: The Allure Of The "Diet G-Shock"

The Casio MRW 200H has been around since 2011 and stands as one of the Japanese brand's most popular analog watches. Unassuming and tough, the MRW 200H is something of a more subtle and casual cousin of sister brand G-Shock. But don’t let that fool you into thinking that it’s not up to the task. Image by AOPA In fact, I read something on the AOPA (Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association) website about NASA doing some aircraft testing at Johnson Space Center in Houston, and what watch did I happen to notice strapped on the arm of the person wearing the suit cover? Yep, it was a Casio MRW 200H. Obviously, this isn’t the official watch NASA uses (you know which one that is) but it’s a cool endorsement nonetheless. Casio MRW 200H Case The specs of the MRW 200H actually make it seem like it would wear larger than it does. The resin case measures 44.6mm wide and 11.6mm thick (with 100 meters of water resistance) but the 47.9mm lug-to-lug measurement ensures that it’s actually not so much of a presence on the wrist that one would mistake it for a G-Shock. There is also a bidirectional rotating bezel which does not have any satisfying clicking action but is easy enough to glide when operated while not unintentionally moving. The simple, steel, screw-down caseback has some basic specs and info stamped onto it. As you can imagine, there are no frills to be found here. The rest of the black resin case and strap are lightweight though not particularly remarkable in any way (a...

Christopher Ward C63 Sealander Review Teddy Baldassarre
Christopher Ward Oct 8, 2025

Christopher Ward C63 Sealander Review

The independent sector is where some of the most interesting, imaginative, and experimental designs are happening in the watch world, and Christopher Ward has been a standout in the category since its Bel Canto hit the scene. But today, I’m turning my attention to one of its less-hyped collections, one that is rather tame compared to the rest of the brand’s catalog, the Christopher Ward C63 Sealander. It strikes me as an outlier within the Christopher Ward universe – not that it’s without its own particular flair, but I would say that compared to the bold experiments with case architecture, haute horology level movements, and general quirky panache that I typically associate the brand with, the C63 Sealander is remarkably tame. The questions of the day are: how is this watch situated within the brand’s own offerings? What works about this watch, and what could be improved? Finally, how did we arrive at this relatively minimal watch in the first place? Christopher Ward C63 Sealander Context While other watchmakers have centuries-long histories, the Christopher Ward origin story is comparatively contemporary, officially founded in 2004. In that relatively short scope of time, the brand has evolved into one of the most successful independent brands out there, and the Christopher Ward of today has expanded its scope to include just about every flavor of watch utility, aesthetic, and functionality one could dream of, all while keeping its price point extremely competi...

Seiko SARB033: Why This JDM Watch Has A Cult Following Teddy Baldassarre
Seiko Oct 8, 2025

Seiko SARB033: Why This JDM Watch Has A Cult Following

The Seiko SARB033 has joined the ranks of Seiko watches that are more popular and coveted than ever - despite never having been sold outside Seiko's home country of Japan and also despite exiting the market entirely back in 2018. In this article, we explore the SARB033 and its closest siblings from the elegant collection and try to uncover what makes these hard-to-find timepieces so appealing.  Seiko SARB Collection History: Seiko introduced its SARB collection exclusively to the Japanese market in 2006, positioning it as a more upscale alternative to the sportier 5 Sport line, which also offered watches with the brand’s own automatic movements at very approachable prices. The SARB series (no, the letters don’t stand for anything, we checked) was built around the Seiko Caliber 6R15 movement, more on which below, introduced by Seiko one year prior.  The first generation of SARB watches (SARB001, SARB002, and SARB005) appears to take inspiration from the King Seiko “Vanac” editions that made a brief but impactful splash on the market in the 1970s, with their angular cases, funky dial colors and textures, and faceted crystals. The next wave (SARB007, 009, 011) goes for more of a rounded, “Retro Modern” character, with vintage designs influencing the three-hand-date dials. On the heels of that trio came the first models in the series to really break through to widespread enthusiast acclaim outside their native Japan, the mountaineering-inspired “Alpinist” m...

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