No products in the cart.
Best Super NEWS Watches
A Very Cool Virtual Tour Of The National Watch And Clock Museum, Courtesy Google Street View
There's no substitute for going someplace in person, but over the years Google Street View has made it possible to come pretty close, and now, Street View lets you walk through the National Watch and Clock Museum even if you can't make it to Columbia, Pennsylvania in person. Fuse and chain pocket watch movement with verge escapement, "pillar and plate" construction, about 1715. As regular HODINKEE readers are probably aware, the National Watch And Clock Museum is the only museum of its kind in the United States, with a collection of watches and clocks spanning centuries. ?This is a chance to look through some of the amazing o...
Business News: Swatch Is Going To Make Car Batteries To Compete With Tesla (Seriously)
In what sounds like a move out of left field, watchmaking mega conglomerate Swatch Group is moving ahead with its plans to develop and sell high-tech batteries for electric vehicles. The strategy actually has deeper roots at Swatch than you'd expect and the seemingly banal story has enough twists and intrigue to make it rather interesting. On the heels of some new reports around the web, here's a look at what we know now, what we're still trying to figure out, and why any of us should care. Starting back in 2015, Swatch Group CEO Nick Hayek started dropping hints in interviews that its Renata battery company?and Belenos Clean Power (a research company in wh...
Introducing: The TAG Heuer Carrera Heuer-01 Full Black Matte Ceramic
TAG Heuer's Carrera Heuer-01 Full Black Matte Ceramic is the latest iteration of the Carrera 01 family, first introduced in March of 2015. These are Carrera watches intended to showcase the in-house TAG caliber 01, which is a 13 ligne (29.3mm) selfwinding chronograph movement with a 50-hour power reserve, running in 39 jewels at 28,800 vph. The idea behind these large (45mm) watches is to give the in-house movement a distinctive and instantly recognizable case. This latest version is officially launching in 2017 and is a departure from the original modular case construction concept used in the first Carrera Heuer-01. On the occasion of the launch of that wa...
Business News: Richard Mille To Open First NYC Boutique In Fall 2017
As Jack recently reported, just because a company may be Swiss and may be in the the watch business, that does not necessarily mean it is all doom and gloom. Richard Mille is one bright spot, and it's recently reported significant growth. As such, we've just been informed that RM will be opening its very first NYC-based boutique in Fall of 2017. The $1,050,000 RM50-02 ACJ collaboration with Airbus Corporate Jets. The 5,000 square foot boutique will reside at?46 East 57th Street, which is the retail side of the 432 Park Avenue. 432 Park Avenue is quite a building, and holds the title for the single tallest residential building ...
Some might use today's Bring A Loupe to find a holiday gift at the last minute, so we made sure to feature a bit of everything, from the great classics to more under-the-radar picks. Among the obvious candidates, you will find two very coveted vintage wristwatches: the Rolex Explorer 1016 and the Heuer Carrera 3147N, with its peculiar date at 9 o'clock. We will also cover an interesting iteration of the Olimpico line from Girard-Perregaux, and a sexy blue-dialed Eterna. This is your Bring A Loupe for December 23, 2016. A Rolex Explorer 1016, With Late Matte Dial The reference 1016 is one that vi...
An original owner vintage chronograph is the type of thing we're all looking for on Ebay C and Louis always does a wonderful job at finding them for you in our weekly Bring A Loupe column. Today, though Louis's Bring A Loupe is queued up for later in the day, I thought I'd call attention to an original owner automatic Autavia listed on Ebay in Germany. An original watch like this always has a lot of interest in it, but few, if any that I can recall, have also survived the tragedy of the most dramatic of human occurrences C a moped accident.? Indeed, this ...
The Untold Story Of Watchmaking's Most Iconic Advertising Campaign
Talk to someone who knows nothing about watches and within 60 seconds youll no doubt be asked about "that brand" with the "you know you look after it for the next generation" advertising campaign. Patek Philippe has been using the so-called Generations campaign to sell watches since 1996 without interruption, and the sentimental pairings of sweet family photographs and seemingly timeless watches is still going strong. On the occasion of the campaigns 20th anniversary, I spoke with a few of the people instrumental in its creation and evolution over the decades, to get the real story behind watchmaking's most iconic advertisements. Jasmina Steele, now Patek Phi...
This Ebay find was only supposed to be an interesting piece of memorabilia, another of those old catalogs that vintage enthusiasts cherish as they feature the watches exactly as they were initially made, with the original dial and strap. Yet, as soon as I opened this 28-page booklet from 1936, I knew it was a very special document. The hundreds of cool items displayed told a different story: Kirby, Beard & Co. was absolutely not your average watch retailer for Rolex, Omega and Jaeger-LeCoultre. In fact, it was one of the coolest department stores you could go to in Paris, if not in the world. And everything I could find out about it since, more than confirms how important this forgotten ...
F. P. Journe has just introduced a new dial, dubbed "Havana," for the Octa Automatique Rserve And The Octa Automatique Lune. The color is a result of mixing ruthenium (a platinum group metal) with gold, to produced a dial with a rich, warm brown color that shifts in apparent depth of color and saturation as the light changes.? "Havana" is an obvious reference to the brown hue of the dials, although depending on how the light hits them they can seem anywhere from a darker coffee hue, to a lighter, almost milk chocolate tone. Right now, the new dial color...
In-Depth: The Greubel Forsey 24 Secondes Contemporain In White Gold
It's been more than 10 years since I first met Stephen Forsey, one half of the horological duo known as Greubel Forsey (Robert Greubel being the other half, of course). Our first long talk C which come to think of it was also our first talk, period C was at a dinner in Manhattan, and I remember it very vividly for several reasons. For one thing, it was the first time I'd had a chance to see one of the brand's exotic and much-talked about tourbillons in person. That's not something one easily forgets.? Probably the most memorable part of the night, however, was being able to ask Stephen a lot of questions, and to get a better idea what had inspired him and his par...
The Five Stories Of 2016 That I Enjoyed Writing The Most
2016 was an amazing year for us, with several new products hitting our newly redesigned shop and often, to great response. The goal of all this was and is to fund even more original editorial content such as our amazing Road Through Britain series. And that series was an important one for me because it was, frankly, the first major editorial product in which I wasn't directly involved.? It might sound silly, but that was a big moment for me and for the site. This year, I wasn't able to do as much writing as I would've liked C though with Cara, Louis, Stephen, Arthur, and of course Jack, you were in amazing hands. Still, writing is what I love and this year,...
The Year In Review: The Top 20 Most Popular HODINKEE Posts Of 2016
Well, it's that time again. The end of the year. To say that 2016 has been a big one for HODINKEE would be something of an understatement. We launched two limited edition watches, one with Zenith and one with NOMOS Glashtte, we ventured The Road Through Britain, and we brought you countless hands-on looks at watches, continued analysis of the watch industry, and offered insight into the future of horology. Here is a countdown of the 20 most popular posts from this year, including some obvious appearances and a handful of welcome surprises. 20. Editors' Picks: A Sub-$5,000 Mechanical Watch To Buy Now, And The Watch It Will Make You Want To Save For ...
The Watch I Wore The Most In 2016, By Members Of The HODINKEE Team
As the end of 2016 fast approaches, it's time for one of HODINKEE's most time-honored traditions: The Watch I Wore Most. We've already told you which watches we liked best at SIHH?and?which sub-$5,000 watches you should spring for, not to mention the dozens of A Week On The Wrist?and?The Value Proposition?stories we've brought you over the year. So now it's time for us to tell you what watches actually got the most HODINKEE wrist time. Some of the answers might be surprising, and most most certainly are not, but each tells you something about the wearer and why these little mechanical objects continue to be so much fun for us every day. Enjoy. Cara Barrett ...
A Week On The Wrist: The Rado HyperChrome Ultra Light
One of the biggest surprises for me coming out of Baselworld 2016 came from Rado. I've always admired the brand's devotion to minimalism and interesting ceramic constructions, but the more horologically-focused part of my brain is usually less excited by Rado's offerings. However, the HyperChrome Ultra Light had me from the moment I first picked it up. The watch has all of Rado's restrained styling, rendered in a new matte ceramic and titanium, resulting in a ticker that's just 56 grams. Yeah, Rado isn't kidding with that name. Because of the new materials used, and the complicated production process, the Ultra Light didn't actually make its way out into the worl...
Recommended Reading: A Deep Dive Into A. Lange & Sohne's Typefaces
Sometimes you see a story and you instantly know that you and the people who put it together have something deeply rooted in common. This is one of those stories. Singapore-based designer Larry Peh and Su Jia Xian (of Watches By SJX fame) collaborated on an in-depth study of A. Lange & Sohne's use of typefaces and how the company's unique branding might have come into being. It's nerdy, it's beautiful, and it's just my kind of thing.I won't spoil the story too much, but Peh and SJX start from Lange's iconic big date complication and its roots at the Dresden Opera House and move through to historic watches, brand communication, and the current collection watches, tracing the use and modif...
For the last Bring A Loupe of 2016, we focused on the most unusual vintage watches we could find over the past week. Those include a forgotten Breitling Compass from the 1980s, and a practical Girard-Perregaux Gyrodate that boast a high-frequency chronometer movement. You will also see a military Rolex Daytona reference 6265, and a vintage-inspired and fairly unknown Grand Seiko in yellow gold, the reference SBGW004. This is your Bring A Loupe for December 30, 2016. A Girard-Perregaux Gyrodate Reference 9080, With Smart Calendar Display While we tend to shy away from gold plated cases for Bring ...
Editorial: A Reader Makes An Interesting Observation About What Is And Is Not Horology
As much as you might expect some passive-aggressive snark ?judging from the title, I am not at all implying that our readers never make interesting observations. As much as all of us here at HODINKEE never start looking through the comments without just a little trepidation, we also find them to be a great source of often useful feedback from readers, and also a great source of information. One of the nice things about watches is that it's such a huge field that whatever subject we happen to be covering, chances are there is someone out there who specializes in it. And, of course, you, our readers, make interesting philosophical observations from time to time too. ...
Found: An Original Chopard L.U.C 1860 With Caliber 1.96 From 1997
There are plenty of great watches that we tend to sort of forget about, only to suddenly rediscover them down the road with newfound amazement. This is exactly what happened to me at a dinner last month with a few French collectors when I saw an original Chopard L.U.C. While the caliber was announced in 1996, the watch was first retailed a year later and garnered immediate praise. Its movement was judged "probably the finest automatic movement being produced in Switzerland today" by Walt Odets on TimeZone?and Swiss magazine Montres Passion/Uhrenwelt awarded it the?"Watch of the Year." Some 20 years later, I had the chance to spend a bit of time with this dress watch and I fell for it, all ov...
Five Awesome Calendar Watches To Love In 2017
Hey, it's 2017! We made it. Somehow. Well, in thinking about how to kick things off for the New Year, calendar watches seem like a pretty good place to start. Luckily a number of brands came out with really great options over the last year or so and you're spoiled for choice at almost all price points. Here's a look at a few different types of calendar watches, in a number of different styles, that will get you through this year (or at least go along for the ride on your wrist). Rolex Day-Date 40mm One of the truly iconic (and I don't use that word lightly) calendar watches of all time, the Role...
For more than 2,000 years, timekeepers have appeared in art. An ancient Roman mosaic depicting Platos Academy shows a pedestal-mounted sundial, a 1285 manuscript illuminates a water clock, several sixteenth century Renaissance portraits by Titian feature small gilt mechanical table clocks, American folk and genre painters include shelf, banjo, and tall clocks in their domestic scenes, Marc Chagall often depicts a German wall clock from his Eastern European boyhood home, and Jamie Wyeths 1994 view on Monhegan Island has his teenage model Orca Bates posed next to a stately grandfather clock. Jacques-Louis David, The Emperor Napoleon in His Study at the ...