One of my earliest articles was a think piece on the phrase “in-house movement”. Reading this article back, it’s clear that I did my research, but it’s also clear (to me, at least) that I hadn’t sat with the concept for more than a week or two. Today, my perspective on watch movement manufacturing – not just semantics, but mechanics – is much better-informed. I’ve been looking forward to revisiting the topic for some time. Before looking at two microcosms of modern movement manufacturing (say that five times fast), I’d like to touch on “in-house” for just a moment more. “In-House Watch Movemen ..read more

The world of luxury watches is as much about brand perception as it is about craftsmanship and precision engineering. While you may look elsewhere for show-stopping complications, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a brand with stronger marketing than Rolex. Over the past century, Rolex has employed and evolved marketing efforts to align with the times, and today, I’d like to examine three of the most successful. Rolex Ambassadors Rolex’s history of ambassadorship goes back to 1927 when Mercedes Gleitze swam the English channel wearing a Rolex Oyster. Early Rolex ambassadors like Gleitze and moun ..read more

Tudor just released their second carbon Pelagos FXD Chronograph, this time in partnership with the Tudor Pro Cycling Team. The road bike racing team competes in the UCI Europe Tour, and today, embarks on their first-ever Grand Tour: the Giro d’Italia. The Tudor Pelagos FXD Chrono ‘Cycling Edition’ The Pelagos FXD Chrono ‘Cycling Edition’ measures 43mm in diameter, 13.2mm thick, and 53mm lug-to-lug. The case is made of a carbon composite and the crown and pushers are titanium. Notably, this is the first Tudor Pelagos without a rotating bezel, and therefore the first Pelagos not ..read more

As someone who has seen and handled some version of every active Rolex model but never personally owned one, the idea of a “first Rolex” interests me. During Watches and Wonders 2023, I said something to the tune of, “I wonder what my first Rolex will be”, to which my colleague quickly responded, “probably a Datejust”. The speed of his answer startled me and got me thinking (for more than a year now), is there a best Rolex for a first-time buyer? Are there even right or wrong answers to that question? A better question might be: what factors should you consider before ..read more

Should you polish your Rolex? You may already have an answer in mind. This nuanced question — disguised as a yes or no — can be taken in many directions. To keep things simple, I’ll argue both sides of the binary. Two quick notes before we get started — ‘polishing’ and ‘refinishing’ are effectively interchangeable in the context of this debate. All images are courtesy of Wind Vintage: Eric Wind's award-winning secondhand watch marketplace.  You Should Not Polish Your Rolex If you’ve spent any amount of time shopping for Rolex watches online, particularly vin ..read more

Watches and Wonders may be over, but like many of you, I’m still obsessing over the countless releases that have been flooding my Instagram feed these last two weeks. While many comments I’ve seen and heard have been that this year seemed quite “dull” or “quiet”, there’s one brand that really stood apart in my opinion as a clear winner for this year’s show. While the answer most are expecting may be Rolex or Tudor based on the flooding of coverage for both brands. For me, this year’s winner was Cartier. If I’m being honest, I’ve been pretty biased towards Cartier for a few years now, ever sinc ..read more

Leading up to Watches and Wonders 2024, we made quite a few predictions (many of which being closer to wishes) surrounding Rolex releases. As per usual, most of these predictions did not come true, but luckily, we didn’t strike out. Let’s quickly go over the Rolex predictions we got wrong before diving into the ones we got right. Most importantly at the end, we’ll discuss what we learned about Rolex’s actual release strategy from Watches and Wonders 2024. Every Prediction That We Got Wrong I’ll go through these quickly; if you’re interested in the reasoning behind any one prediction, each one ..read more

For this installment of Hidden Gems – our bimonthly series highlighting undervalued picks from the preowned Rolex market – we have an Explorer doppelgänger, a 5-digit Day-Date, and a historically significant Rolex diver under $10k. Fully-authenticated listings for each watch are included courtesy of Hidden Gems’ sponsor, Bezel. More on Bezel and their in-house authentication after this week’s preowned picks. Rolex Oyster Perpetual 36 Silver Arabic Dial (Ref. 11600) Much to our dismay, Rolex did not release a white-dial ‘Polar’ Explorer at Watches and Wonders this year. If you had your fingers ..read more

Last year Tudor completely overhauled the Black Bay. In addition to the its new movement and METAS certification (more on that later), the new Black Bay introduced a slimmer case with improved finishing and ditched the coin-edged bezel, coin-edged crown, and color-matched crown tube. I’m frankly just scratching the surface – this was a true overhaul of the model. The new mechanical and aesthetic take on their Heritage Black Bay (2012) made me so excited that I went out and bought one immediately. I absolutely love it. However, Tudor restricted this overhaul to just one colorway: the ..read more

I think it’s safe to say that Tudor’s Watches and Wonders 2024 release slate was better received than Rolex’s. They unveiled a Black Bay 58 GMT: the long-awaited answer to Tudor’s perpetually chunky dual-time offerings. They released the Black Bay ‘Monochrome’: an all-black non-gilt iteration of their now-METAS-certified diver. And finally (aside from a new Clair de Rose dial), Tudor unveiled a solid 18k yellow gold Black Bay 58 with an MSRP of $32,100. One of these watches is not like the others. With the common perception that modern Rolex is moving upmarket and keeping Tudor as a strong sub ..read more