No products in the cart.
Best Super NEWS Watches
Hands-On: Our Technical Editor's Thoughts On The $40,000 Raymond Weil Nabucco Cello Tourbillon
When we heard that Raymond Weil, producers of well-made(ish) affordable quartz and low-end mechanical timepieces since 1976, had come out with a tourbillon, there could be heard a collective "Ugh, why?" from just about every watch collector and expert around the world. But then I took a step back and thought to myself, you know what, Raymond Weil will face so much poo-pooing by those who will look at the traditional pricing and market place of a Raymond Weil and say they have no business making a watch this expensive, that we, at HODINKEE, need to give the watch a fair shot. Because if we don't, then who will? Raymond Weil will face so many journalists and collec...
Introducing: Three New Radiomirs From Panerai
Panerai is updating their Radiomir and Radiomir 1940 collections with three new timepieces showcasing some new materials paired with the now familiar in-house calibers. For the first time, the Radiomir collection will now host Panerais P.5000, eight-day power reserve movement, and the Radiomir 1940 3 Days Automatic that we introduced to you last year has been given a titanium case. The new watches represent an expansion of Panerais Neuchatel-built manufacture movements. Lets take a closer look at each of the new watches. The Radiomir 1940 3 Days Automatic Titanio (PAM00619) The new 3 Days Automatic now...
Bring a Loupe: Top Picks From The Geneva May Auctions To More Under-The-Radar Sales
With May Geneva watch auctions (and other May auctions) nearly upon us, I have been asked several times recently what my favorite watch or watches on the block are. I thought it would be an interesting exercise to identify my favorite watch from each sale (as well as an honorable mention) and provide you with the sale details, including a link to the catalogs. So what are my criteria? It is a matter of personal preference. I prefer watches with white metal cases (particularly steel), watches that are a nice size on the wrist (not too big and not too small), watches that are unpolished (and having original dials goes without being said), and certain brands also appeal to me more than others. ...
Talking Watches: With Tony Fadell
Editors Note: In regard to Tony's thoughts on the Apple Watch, it should be noted that this episode was filmed two weeks before the actual launch of the product. The name Tony Fadell doesn't ring as loud as some others when discussing kings of Silicon Valley C Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg C but to those who know, Tony Fadell is already an icon of engineering, entrepreneurship, and product design. It was Fadell who, in the 1990s, worked diligently to build the concept of hand-held computing devices while working for General Magic. His software would power Sony's early Magic Link device, and he played a large role in Philips Electronics' Palm Pilot comp...
HODINKEE's Watch 101 Reference Section Just Got Bigger And Better
When the new HODINKEE launched in March, we included a section of the site called Watch 101. On a daily basis we get questions from readers asking how mechanical watches work. With Watch 101 our goal is to make learning about mechanical watches as simple as possible. We started with a view of a mechanical watch movement removed from its case and a series of definitions that can be embedded into articles. Today we are expanding Watch 101 with two new animated views and a ton of new definitions.The first new view shows the movement with its bridges removed, so that the gear train can be examined. The wheels rotate the way they would in a real movement, so that you can get a feeling for how gea...
Inside The Manufacture: A Visit To Seiko Japan (Video)
While "watchmaking" and "Switzerland" are at times considered to be synonymous C at least by the general public C watch aficionados are astutely aware of the rich manufacturing heritage beyond the Swiss border, in places like Germany, Britain, and Japan. A couple of months back, a few members of the HODINKEE team had the opportunity to pay a comprehensive visit to the latter, where we were given access to two of Seiko's manufacturing facilities, as well as the Seiko Museum. In this, the latest installment of our "Inside the Manufacture" series, we take a look at the watchmakers and processes behind the broad range of Seiko offerings, including mechanical, quartz, Astron GPS Solar, and Spring...
If there is one sub-sect of vintage watches that I believe is about to experience a renaissance of sorts, it's vintage Audemars Piguet. For years, I have admired the subtle elegance and incredible design found in early 20th century AP's. I believe them to be some of the most beautiful watches ever made, and based on our visit inside the vault of AP last summer, you guys agreed.There is simply so much to love in this category, and yet we simply don't hear much about it. Sure, there are way, way fewer vintage AP watches out there than any Patek, as we've mentioned, and that just makes them that much more appealing. This season, there are several fantastic vintage AP's coming up for sale, and b...
Here we go again. Today, IWC made the announcement of a new accessory called IWC Connect. This digital device fits onto the strap of mechanical IWC watches C at first just the Big Pilot C and provides full activity tracking. Further, IWC claims it will be able to control certain devices connected to the "Internet of things," the buzzword du jour.? Very, very few details are provided on IWC Connect, or how it will compare to Montblanc's e-strap that you will remember launched in January to much buzz.?We'll be following this one closely and we'll report back as soon as more information is provided. Further info available here....
Weekend Report: My Thoughts After Taking Watchmaking 101
Earlier this year, the Horological Society Of New York introduced Watchmaking 101, a public class sponsored by The HODINKEE Fund. It was the organizers' intent to offer it once a month, but after HODINKEE announced it online, enough readers enrolled to fill up several years worth of classes within a couple of days (the decision was then made to make it almost weekly). I was one of the lucky ones who signed up early, drove a few hours and attended the course. My field notes and conclusions follow.When I try to identify the genesis of my obsession with horology, I come up with this adolescent notion that the mechanical watch represented adulthood. It was something not only fine, but also compl...
Seven Years Ago Today HODINKEE Was Born, And You Won't Believe What Our First Post Was About
It's hard to believe it, but on today's date, May 13th, seven years ago, the very first story on www.HODINKEE.com went live. Published over my lunch break, my browser hidden behind countless Excel spreadsheets, the topic was, fittingly, something that actually resurfaced on HODINKEE this very week. Yup, my very first story on HODINKEE was about Eric Clapton's Albino Daytona. The one that just sold three days ago for $1.4 million in the Phillips auction. In 2008, the watch had just sold at Christie's for $505,000 at Christie's, and my story didn't have much to say really C just that it had happened. It's amazing that seven yea...
Bring a Loupe: More Of My Top Picks From The Upcoming Geneva Auctions
Tomorrow (Saturday) marks the beginning of the Geneva auctions. The four auction houses included a total of 1,374 watches in their catalogs (Antiquorum with 504, Christies with 314, Phillips with 224, and Sothebys with 332), and there are many incredible pieces, as you have seen on the site in the past few weeks. When trying to cover and write about these auctions it can feel a bit like trying to drink from a fire hose, as there are so many watches and only a limited amount of time from when the catalogs are published to the auction date. Many watches are so good it can feel a bit disappointing to not have time to highlight them all, as you never know if or when they will come to auction a...
A Technical Discussion With Stephen Forsey Of Greubel Forsey
On a beautiful Spring morning in New York City, HODINKEE sat down with Stephen Forsey of Greubel Forsey to take a look at the brand's impressive collection of wristwatches. With millions of dollars worth of watches on the table, it was easy to be a bit cautious when handling them. I put on a silk glove, and carefully examined the movement of a Quadruple Tourbillon Secret. The tourbillon carriages were impeccably finished, and seemed to delicately float in mid-air with their 30-degree inclination. Seeing these quadruple tourbillons doing their job was a thing of beauty, and I was mesmerized. Then to my surprise, Stephen Forsey asked for the watch back and proceeded to knock on it very hard wi...
A Brief History Of Ladies' Complicated Watches: Old Technology, New Innovations
Is that a moon-phase?After the sold-out New York City premiere of David Armstrongs documentary The Watchmakers Apprentice, a group of watch enthusiasts gathered at Distilled in TriBeCa. A fellow collector grabbed my wrist. She turned it around to look at the dial of my watch.I thought you were wearing a moon-phase, she said.I was not. It was a 1949 Bulova Walton, with a small seconds subsidiary dial at 6 oclock, easily mistaken for a moon-phase in the low light of the bar. But her assumption that it was a moon-phase only proves how familiar ladies' complicated watches are becoming. Were in the age of the smartwatch. Yet complex mechanical watches still ho...
The First Watches To Account For Leap Seconds, From Hoptroff London
The calendar complication is one of the more commonly seen complications in mechanical wristwatches. One thing they don't do is keep track of leap years where an extra day is added to February. To correctly show February's leap day, you would need a perpetual calendar complication in your watch, which is comparatively much more complicated, and much more expensive than a normal calendar complication. Beyond leap days and years, there are leap seconds. Leap seconds are applied to coordinated universal time on an occasional basis, to account for a small irregularity in the Earth's orbit. What if you wanted to take the accuracy of your watch one step further, and keep track of leap seconds? The...
Recapping The Glamorous Day-Date Sale At Phillips (That Time The Average Day-Date Sold For $110,580)
Have you ever seen a Day-Date sell for $500,000? I have. Or, could you imagine a 60-lot sale without a single complication more than a day or a date that could net $6,634,800? Or in other words, an average sale price of $110,580 for each Rolex Day-Date sold tonight? All of the above occurred this evening in a tent packed with 300 bidders all there to witness the return of Aurel Bacs to the watch auction world. We were not disappointed. The return of Aurel Bacs to the market place was impressive. In total honesty, tonight's Glamorous Day-Date sale exceeded all my expectations for final results, with lot no. 43 C the so-called ...
A Look At The Pierre DeRoche Collection Of Complicated Watches
Pierre Dubois did not have a typical entrance into the watchmaking industry. As a member of the Dubois watchmaking family, one may have expected him to have grown up as a watchmaker, and eventually build his own brand. Instead, Mr. Dubois started his career in the finance industry, and then entered the watchmaking industry as the chief financial officer for Audemars Piguet. Today he runs Pierre DeRoche watches with his wife Carole. Like Dubois-Depraz today, the Pierre DeRoche brand focuses on building complicated modules that are then added to existing watch movements. This allows the brand to focus on complications almost en...
What is there to say? After Aurel Bacs and the Phillips team proved that one of the least-cool watches in the world could indeed be cool on Saturday night with the Day-Date sale, expectations were high but tempered for Sunday night's Geneva Watch Auction: One, a multi-brand, multi-owner sale encompassing everything from modern, still-in-production JLC's to piece-unique vintage Pateks. The entire sale netted $25.2 million (combined with the Day-Date sale, the weekend pulled in over $31m), and four watches hammered over 1m CHF, including a stainless-steel Patek that brought down $5m on its own. Let's break the sale down for you. Stainless-Steel Patek Philippe Mono-...
F.P. Journe is one of the few modern watch manufactures that many serious collectors have any love for. Their watches are thoughtful, beautiful, wearable, and rare. Don't believe me, read this. That said, Journe watches have never exactly been auction house darlings C with modern pieces typically selling for a fraction of their current retail prices. That, of course, is no way to measure the success of a watch, but resale value is something that many collectors simply can't ignore C if you put money into something, you want to know you can get money out of it. This week, however, a few F.P. Journe pieces sold at auction well above what one might expect, and we are beginning to see that like ...
The IWC Spitfire Perpetual Calendar Digital Date-Month
IWC is adding a stainless-steel version of the Spitfire Perpetual Calendar Digital Date-Month Chronograph. Initially launched in 2012 in red gold, the reference IW379107 is the only IWC pilot watch to show the date and month digitally in the form of four large numerals. The 46-mm, stainless-steel case is a welcome modification to this reference. At first look, the watch is incredibly elegant for a modern chronograph. The hearty stainless-steel case maintains the same elegant lines as its predecessor in 18k red gold. The shimmering anthracite dial with bold Arabic numerals clearly displays the two subsidiary dials for hacking ...
Interview: A Collector's Discussion With Roger Smith
The origin of Roger Smiths watchmaking career is well known. He studied at the Manchester School of Horology and while there George Daniels visited his school C an experience which considerably shaped Smiths life. He graduated in 1989 and won the British Horological Institutes Bronze medal for the most outstanding student in his final year. Upon graduating, armed with Daniels book Watchmaking as his guide, Smith set out to build a watch by himself. After two years of hard work, Smith had created a handmade pocket watch with a tourbillon and a detent escapement. He visited Daniels to show him the watch with the hope that he could become Daniels apprentice. Daniels called it a good firs...