Best Super NEWS Watches
Interested in selling a pre-owned watch? Get your quote. Want to sell your vintage watch through the HODINKEE Shop? Click here. This Week's Pre-Owned Favorites HODINKEE Pre-Owned is a living, breathing beast. Since February 18 of this year, we've gotten our feet wet in the space. Every two weeks on Thursday (with the exception of the disruption that was the UNIMATIC H Series Limited Edition), a curated selection of pre-loved watches has hit the HODINKEE Shop. We have been happy to move nearly 100 timepieces to their next home. This is only the start. Over...
Hodinkee Interviews Brian Shul About Watches and the SR-71
Brian Shul is one of just 85 pilots to ever fly the SR-71, ?one of the fastest man-made machines to have ever graced the skies. He's the author of Sled Driver, a collection of personal stories from flying the world's most lauded aircraft. He's known for the legendary Speed Check story that almost every aviation enthusiast has heard by now. If you haven't read or heard the story, find it here. And now, long after retiring from the Air Force, Shul can add "watch designer" to his list of accolades and accomplishments. In collaboration with Ball Watch Co., Shul guided the creation of the Engineer Hydrocar...
Jeff Bezos Wore a Custom Omega Speedmaster Into Space
"Watch Jeff Bezos get launched into space." That's what my phone told me this morning. I have to give kudos to whoever pushed that phrasing out to all iPhone users. Bravo to them, and of course, bravo to Bezos who successfully got launched into C and subsequently returned from C space (the final frontier). At 9:15 AM, Blue Origin Mission NS-16 was a go. The New Shepard launch vehicle with its interesting design barreled out of orbit with four passengers onboard: Bezos himself, his brother Mark, former NASA hopeful Wally Funk, and 18-year-old paying passenger Oliver Daemen. This wasn't a NASA mission C actually, far from it. Rather, it's the pet project of Bezos a...
The Bremont MB Savanna With A Titanium Case
Announced this morning via an international live-stream, Bremont has just launched a new version of their MB pilot's watch C the MB Savanna C and it's the first iteration in the model's history to use a titanium case. The MB line, and more specifically the civilian-spec MBII, has long been Bremont's core technical flagship. The ejection seat-surviving model helped to establish Bremont in the brand's earliest days by offering a modern pilot's watch with a distinctive style and more than its fair share of shock resistance. The MB Savanna follows closely in the format established by the MB1 C which can only be bought by those who ha...
5 Historical Vacheron Watches On Display
So far this Summer, we've reported live from Vacheron's new flagship in New York, and spent a week with the new Historique American 1921 in white gold (on the golf course, no less). What we have to report on today is something of a confluence of the two. The brand has announced that from July through November C in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the 1921 C it will display the "Classic with a Twist" exhibit from the new Vacheron boutique. According to VC, the exhibit celebrates the "creative freedom of Vacheron Constantin at the dawn of the 20th century." The main attraction will be a sumptuous...
The Glashutte Original SeaQ With A Green Dial
Originally launched in 2019, Glashtte Original's SeaQ is a luxe dive watch with vintage styling that blends a sporty late-'60s skin diver format with GO's elegant take on German watchmaking via design inspiration from the brand's Spezimatic Typ RP TS 200 dive watch of 1969.? Forming the base of the brand's Spezialist line, the SeaQ line has been expanded via a handful of versions and, as is the move in 2021, Glashtte Original recently launched a green dial version. With a matching green ceramic bezel, this newly green SeaQ is available on a steel bracelet, a rubber strap, or a synthetic nylon strap. ...
Hey, HODINKEE answers weekly reader questions on watches and watchmaking.
Hi everyone! It gives us great pleasure to introduce a new HODINKEE video series C Hey, HODINKEE! is where you send us questions about absolutely anything watch-related and we give our best answers, as quickly and accurately as possible. You'll be able to find us here regularly, and also on our YouTube channel. We're very excited to share this debut episode, hosted by HODINKEE Editor-in-Chief Jack Forster. In addition, we'd like to thank HODINKEE Team Video, including our own David Aujero and Will Holloway, behind the camera, and Nora Taylor on voice-over, pitching the questions. Also the debut of Hey, HODINKEE! mascot Drinking Bird, as seen in the opening sequen...
HODINKEE Radio: George Bamford & Customized Watches
Subscribe to the show: (Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, TuneIn). Already heard it once or twice? Please leave a short review, and tell us which guests we should have on! When you hear the name George Bamford, I'm willing to bet that you immediately start thinking about customized, blacked-out Rolex watches and the controversy that comes with them. But there is so much more to the British collector, enthusiast, and designer than just that. George is one of my oldest friends in the watch world and I can't even type his name without smiling. You'll hear it in the episode, but George loves watches and watch people. He loves talking abou...
Patek Philippe CEO Thierry Stern Talks Nautilus Madness
Every time we think Nautilus-related insanity has hit its peak, something happens that keeps us guessing. This past week, Antiquorum sold a sealed green-dial ref. 5711 Nautilus for more than $400,000. Sure, it's the first one to come up for sale publicly, and everyone expected a silly result, but that's a ton of coin for a watch priced a hair under $35,000 at retail. Why so much madness? Good question. Even better: We've got some answers directly from the man in charge of Patek Philippe itself. Patek Philippe's Thierry Stern Steel sport watches are the hottest topic at Patek Philippe, which is a bit funny given the company's h...
How The Olympics Are Really Timed
It's 2021, and the 2020 Olympics are finally upon us. You've no doubt noticed the prominence of the Omega logo at the Games, both Summer and Winter, and this year is no different. That's because Omega has served as the Official Timekeeper of the Olympics for almost 100 years. This means it has been responsible for creating the equipment and technology necessary to time the many sporting events that comprise the games. As you might imagine, that equipment has changed quite a bit over the last near-century. Timing is essential to pretty much every sport that takes place at the Games, in one way or another. But there are real nuances to how things are timed from eve...
Natalie Portman's Omega X-33 in 'Lucy in the Sky'
Lucy in the Sky (2019) has) a 21% rating on the film review site Rotten Tomatoes. My taste has never jived with the numbers on that site, so the low rating combined with director Noah Hawleys pedigree C he's the man behind such FX shows as Fargo and Legion C only served to boost my curiosity.?So I watched the movie and I liked it. I didn't love it, but I liked it. The story follows Lucy Cola (played by Natalie Portman), an astronaut who went to space and returned only to find herself entirely unable to adjust to earthly life. While the film features an appearance by the Omega Speedmaster Moonwatch C it's Cola's watch choice that really shoots for the stars. ...
Leon Bridges On His First Vintage Watch
Texas soul singer Leon Bridges broke into the mainstream back in 2016 with his debut album, Coming Home, which made retro rhythm and blues modern all over again. Since then he's won a Grammy, become a fashion icon, and dipped into the world of watches. Today, on the occasion of his new album, Gold-Diggers Sound, the man himself tells us how his love of gold led to his love of watches. Here's the story, in Bridges' own words, as told to Danny Milton. My knowledge of watches is pretty minuscule, but I was first put onto them through a friend of mine. He has the Bulova Accutron SpaceView. I saw it once and I was like, "This is clean." No...
Murder, Mystery, and Clockmaking
The warm light catches the lazy drift of cigarette smoke; a group of men shout and laugh, sitting around a cafe table laid with wine, cut bread in wire baskets. The conversation is old-boy banter C comfortable, middle-class working men in the south of France, 1974, discussing the results of an election that wont affect their lifestyle, no matter their politics. Cut to the clockmaker, in the kitchen. He closes the door of a timepiece hanging on the wall, then joins his friends in the dining room, now discussing the inanity of televising the death penalty. Who would host that show? They laugh. It would have to be someone respectable, the clockmaker says. Quiet. With a spark of humor in his ey...
Five Minutes With ... : Michael Phelps At The Tokyo Olympics
There is no athlete in any sport whose name is more synonymous with the Olympic Games than Michael Phelps. It's funny how winning 28 medals C 23 of them gold C over five Olympics will do that, especially when bolstered by fiery competitiveness and a charming smile. It was a true privilege to connect with Phelps, fresh off an evening doing TV commentary for this year's swimming competitions, to talk about his life as an Olympian, his longtime relationship with Omega, and which athletes he's most looking forward to watching compete at this year's Games in Tokyo. "I'm a watch guy C a watch fanatic," Phelps said when I first asked what was on his wrist in Tokyo (it's...
The tropics are marked by a boundary ??23.5 degrees north of the Equator. They extend 23.5 degrees south of the Equator, too. So how on earth are there tropical fish living at 40.16 degrees north of the Equator in Utah? In a spring-fed landlocked lake in the middle of a Desert at that? No better way to answer my own queries than to head to the depths of the lake, myself. But first I needed to select my watch. I wanted to see how the Certina DS PH200M performed in the environment it was engineered for and this was the perfect opportunity. The watch was released last year as an update to the 2018 model that Jason Heaton covered at the time of its release. This time...
Our Favorite Watch Books For Summer 2021
Remember those cursed summer reading lists from high school? Designed to remind you that your freedom was merely borrowed time and that 7:00 AM bells and The Catcher In The Rye were waiting for you just on the other side of the hazy days of doing whatever you want and/or working a tedious job at the mall? This list is nothing like that. You can actually pick up one of these books and read them entirely on your own time, but isn't there something so sweet about taking a book with you to your favorite summer spot? We've chosen five books that are perfect for completely voluntary, absolutely delightful summer reading. 'Aquastar: A Dive Into Time' - Dr. Peter...
Road Trip With Nissan Skyline and Seiko SRQ029
View this post on Instagram A post shared by Cole Pennington (@cole_pennington) I remember the exact moment in 2016 when I snapped that picture on my cell phone and posted it to Instagram. I was sitting in the parking lot of a 7-Eleven just outside of ??Utsunomiya, a small Japanese city known as the birthplace of gyoza. Earlier that morning I picked up a modified Nissan Skyline R32 GT-R that I had rented for a grand tour of Japan's most famous mountain roads. Days before that I had bought a watch just for the trip: A Seiko SRP775, you know, the "Turtle". The Skyline I bought wasn't a GT-R, the tricked-out ...
HODINKEE Editor in Chief Jack Forster discusses how to evaluate a watch.
A few weeks ago, I got an interesting question from someone I work with here at HODINKEE, which was so simple and straightforward that I was kind of floored. The question was, what do I look for when I'm looking at a watch C in other words, how do I evaluate a watch that I'm getting ready to write about? The more I thought about it, the less clear the answer seemed to me and I realized that despite the number of years I've spent doing this, I'd never really thought systematically about how I approach the problem. After a lot of thought (and some embarrassment about never having considered the question before) here's what I came up with. ...
The Longines Legend Diver Bronze Green Dial
Green watches are all the rage this year C as evidenced by a literal barrage of emerald releases from almost every brand (and that's not hyperbole). We saw this in full effect during Watches & Wonders in March, and were so intrigued by the why of it all, that our own Cole Pennington penned an essay on the subject. Needless to say, the all-green trend hasn't been lost on me and I remembered a certain verde model that predated the 2021 onslaught. That would be the Longines Legend Diver in Bronze C released late last year. In fact it's on-trend in two regards, both for its bronze case material and green dial color. Now I mention...
Inside An A. Lange & Sohne Split-Seconds Chronograph
I recently spent time with the A. Lange & Sohne 1815 Rattrapante Honeygold. You might have read about it, or even watched as I nervously slaughtered the company's German name a few different times, during my A Week On The Wrist. My review of that watch marked the first time I ever truly dove deep into the realm of wearing a split-seconds chronograph (boy, are they fun). Sure, I had handled the watches during press trips and at trade shows, but I had never really lived with one of my wrist for a while. It sparked a fascination in me that went far beyond the realm of what typically goes into an A Week On The Wrist, so my editor...