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Best Super NEWS Watches
Whenever I want to learn about an obscure-yet-intriguing watch brand, I talk to Rich Reichbach. Hes the man behind Time Titans, a site that sells under-appreciated watches with fascinating backstories.?And now he has another brand to tell me about C Welsbro C which he happens to own. It wasn't always his brand. Welsbro was founded way back in 1926 by the Weissman Watch Company on 47th Street in New York City. Weissman imported watch components from Switzerland and assembled the watches stateside under the Welsbro label. Like many, the brand folded during the quartz crisis, and as a relatively small-time watch producer it would have certainly remained gone and fo...
What to buy? A Seiko or a Breitling
Why not have your cake and eat it, too? As someone who almost always eats his cake, I bring you the horological equivalent of cake-having-and-eating (I really like cake). I am talking about ana-digi watches, short for analog-digital. These are the watches that don't make you choose. Do you like telling the time the old-fashioned way, like you learned in preschool? It has hands for that. Prefer the lazier and more convenient style of a digital readout? It has screens for that, too. There are plenty of ana-digi watches on the market, but today we're comparing two of the best-known versions from two powerhouse brands. On the steal side, we'll be looking at the Seiko...
Two Audemars Piguet High-Complications
Hot on the heels of last week's titanium Royal Oak Perpetual Calendar release, AP has just added two more high-complications to its lineup. There's an all-titanium Royal Oak Minute Repeater Supersonnerie with smoked grey dial and a two-tone CODE 11:59 by Audemars Piguet Openworked Tourbillon. Royal Oak Minute Repeater Supersonnerie The new Minute Repeater Supersonnerie joins two earlier all-titanium Royal Oak variations currently listed on the AP site, one with blue Grande Tapisserie and the other in salmon. The Supersonnerie name is fitting, because it is one heck of a chiming watch with a ton of R&D behind it. ...
Apple announces the launch of Apple Watch Series 7, running WatchOS 8
The Apple Watch first launched in 2015 (just a few months before I started at HODINKEE) and since then, it's become?the most successful smartwatch on the planet. While it's not the only game in town, it brings to the table a combination of features and an operating system that provide a very well-integrated experience C so much so that a lot of the time, when you're using it, you're not aware of the considerable amount of gee-whiz technical stuff going on behind the scenes at all, which is the hallmark of any really good user interface. Today, Apple announced the Apple Watch Series 7. The Series 7 brings a number of incremental changes to the familiar Watch form ...
Can you spot these watches from New York Fashion Week?
New York City in September is synonymous with two things: Fashion Week and perfect weather. After nearly two strange years away, it was a pleasure to see both hold true. The unofficial sartorial showdown that surrounds the bi-annual fashion event held the same frantic energy C half first-day-of-school, half spring-break. Setting out this past week to photograph the streets of New York during Fashion Week one question was at the forefront of my mind: How would the dreams, anxieties, triumphs, and challenges of a global pandemic play out in style? Two camps seem to have formed in fashion C one of restrained minimalism, another of maximal, colorful experimentation, ...
The Hottest Watches From the Met Gala 2021
Last night, it seemed that every single celebrity in the known universe took to the beige carpet for the Met Gala in Manhattan. There's nothing particularly shocking about that fact C it does take place basically every year (global pandemics excepted), although usually on the first Monday in May. This year, we tuned in, hoping to see a light smattering of horological delight, when instead we were faced with an onslaught of heavy-hitting timepieces C everything from vintage tool watches to diamond-encrusted luxury fare from the likes of Patek and AP. Nearly every brand was represented in the night's theme of "In America: A Lexicon of Fashion." It's quite possible that we, here at HODINKEE, we...
Talking Watches With Ronny Chieng, Shang-Chi Actor And Daily Show Correspondent
Ronny Chieng is having a moment. The already busy stand-up comic, Crazy Rich Asians cast member, and Daily Show correspondent, appears in Marvel's Shang-Chi, which premiered earlier this month and has settled in comfortably at the top of the box-office rankings. Ronny can also currently be seen on Disney+ in Doogie Kamealoha, M.D. While Chieng is a laugh a minute, he's serious about his watch choices C with a collection focused mainly on Rolex, Omega, and Seiko. Some of the watches came from his late father, while others were sought out as part of an enthusiast's path he credits to watching videos right here on HODINKEE. ...
A Week On The Wrist: The New 38mm Zenith Chronomaster Original
Nineteen sixty-nine was a busy year. Astronauts took watches to the moon, Richard Nixon was elected the 37th President, and the first-ever Woodstock rocked the socks off of some 350,000 hippies. Over in the watch world, Zenith released its now-iconic El Primero A386, a horologically significant, automatic chronograph with a colorful design that couldn't be more '60s if it tried. Since then, Zenith has had something of a wild trajectory. It suffered, badly, during the quartz crisis, but was fortunately one of the brands able to emerge from the ashes. Why? Well, because it made pretty much the best self-winding chronograph caliber out there, and when you're the bes...
To view the entire current selection of vintage watches available in the HODINKEE Shop, click here.?Questions? Send us a note, or let us know in the comments. Want to sell your vintage watch through the HODINKEE Shop? Click here. Want to sell your pre-owned watch through Crown & Caliber? Click here. This Week's Vintage Watches Another use of the word hobnail, outside of watches, is in shoes, particularly leather-soled boots. Dating all the way back to Roman caligae and most often seen in WWI style trench boots (if ever), today short metal nails are pounded into the sole of a shoe or boot for additional traction. Although Esquire d...
We Talk to Bethenny Frankel About The Rolex She Added To Her Collection
Roughly two months and two weeks before the godawful never-ending coronavirus shut down the world, Bethenny Frankel made HODINKEE history as the first female guest on Talking Watches. She has a killer collection with the kind of backstories that are compulsively listenable C a reminder that she's a reality-TV legend for a reason. "I liked how it was about the stories behind the pieces," she says of her moment in the Talking Watches hot seat. "I was able to express how I feel, that I don't find things just because they're in style, or because they're expensive." I recently caught up with Frankel to see how she's been, and what she...
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 Picks It's time to restock the pre-owned selection in the HODINKEE Shop once again. Today we have a smaller collection of eight watches being added to our already stout inventory of nearly 20 in-stock watches. Joining favorites like a Breitling Colt Skyracer and an IWC Portugieser Chronograph are newer favorites like a Tudor Black Bay 58 925 and a Grand Seiko Divers Limited Edition. An OMEGA Speedmaster Snoopy LE looms over the selection like a late-summer full moon. In terms of variety, ...
The Dietrich Skin Diver SD-1 Hands On
Dietrich is a small brand based in Zurich, Switzerland that's been around since 2010. Having shown their first watch in 2012, the brand has been on my radar for some time but, while the general aesthetic was both interesting and highly distinctive, many of their watches were simply too avant-garde for my taste. Given my love of microbrands and of exciting new designs, I continued to casually follow Dietrich's development, and back in April of this year, they announced their first dive watch C the Skin Diver SD-1 C and I could feel the hook as it set in place. I had to see one in person. Available in e...
What's New With The Seiko Alpinist?
Nobody celebrates an anniversary quite like Seiko. In fact, it makes us all look bad when we just show up with flowers and a reservation to our favorite restaurant. We can't all produce watches with ornate dials evocative of our home city. I feel like I'm really mixing metaphors at this point. This is all to say that a couple weeks ago, Seiko announced two new watches in celebration of its 140th Anniversary. Using two model ranges, the Prospex and the Presage, the brand showcased its ability to manufacture truly special dials C so special in fact, that it makes the entire watch feel brand new. The watches pay particular homage to...
Watching Movies: Keanu Reeves Wears A Casio G-Shock On A Runaway Bus in 'Speed'
Imagine you're a movie executive and someone walks in with a pitch that goes something like this; "So there's a Los Angeles city bus rigged with a bomb, but the bomb will only go off if the bus goes below 50 mph. The guy from Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure plays an LAPD officer who boards the bus to try and save the day. We call it . Speed." Who could deny this simple-minded genius??Speed (1994) is an absolutely rip-roaring thriller that could only have been released in the '90s. It stars Keanu Reeves, Sandra Bullock, Dennis Hopper, and Jeff Daniels. It's one of the rare films that gets the watch right for the character, pairing a cult-classic digital timepiece with the wrist of the h...
We Visit Tudor's First Boutique In America
The arrival of the Tudor Black Bay Fifty-Eight?Bronze, back in June, came with a catch: It would only be available at Tudor Boutiques. There was a catch within the catch, as well; as of the launch, Tudor hadn't opened a boutique anywhere in the United States. At the time, Tudor told us that one was coming and that the newest bronze number would be available in a boutique located in New York's Meatpacking District, a downtown Manhattan neighborhood known for its stylishness and luxury shopping. In late July, Tudor and retail partner Tourneau opened the doors of its first-and-only Tudor boutique in this country. I stopped by earlie...
What's The Deal With Clowns And Watches?
I am about as neutral as you can be on the topic of clowns. I wasn't traumatized by one as a child, nor do I find them particularly frightening (or funny) as an adult. Honestly, I've really never understood the prevalence of clowns in our culture, particularly the presence and popularity of the "evil clown" motif that's best represented by the Joker character from the Batman franchise. The second-generation Konstantin Chaykin Joker watch, cased in titanium. You can imagine, then, how the past few years have been unsettling for me as more and more character watches have been released that specifically highlight either the Joker...
Is wearing a watch used by real life or fictional heroes a kind of cosplaying?
Above, Rolex Big Crown Ref. 6538, Rolex Submariner Reference Points, and worn by Sean Connery's James Bond. Way back in 1999, William Gibson C one of the founding fathers of the sci-fi genre called cyberpunk C wrote a story for Wired which I've read many times over the years, not because it's an exercise in nostalgia, but because it's still eerily apropos if you're a watch enthusiast. The story's called, pithily enough, "My Obsession," but among watch enthusiasts, it's best known for Gibson's notion of "The Tamagotchi Gesture." William Gibson in 2008. Image, Wikipedia. "Obsession" is apt. The story...
Want to see inside the Cartier Mansion?
On this lazy Sunday at home, we thought we'd take a little trip C hit the rewind button C back to 2016. Almost five years ago, to the day, Cartier re-opened the doors to its iconic mansion on Fifth Avenue in New York City C and HODINKEE was there, with cameras, to document the entire experience. As Ben Clymer said in the original story, "there is no retail experience more special than that found at Cartier's home in New York City." The piece goes on to detail how Cartier came to possess to this now landmark location. Spoiler alert: It was through a trade in 1917 between Louis Cartier and Morton Plant, a Manhattan businessman. Wha...
The NOMOS Tangente and Junghans Max Bill are cut from the same cloth. The companies are both based in Germany, and both watches preach minimalist design principles that reference the Bauhaus. The two companies are well-regarded for offering serious value and serious design heritage, but they do operate at different levels on the value proposition scale. To see which one is the better buy, we're cross-shopping a Junghans Max Bill Automatic with a NOMOS Tangente Neomatik today C?two self-winding, three-handed dress watches with no-date white/silver dials in stainless steel cases between 36mm and 40mm in diameter. Which one have you got? Steal ...
Hodinkee Radio Podcast Apple Watch And Zenith El Primero
Old cars, vintage chronographs, brand new smartwatches, and the philosophy of the 4:30 date C this episode has a little bit of everything. Jack and Danny join James to chat about the latest in the lineage of the Apple Watch, Danny's recent spin with a darling new El Primero from Zenith, watch-spotting at the Met Gala, the latest in titanium from Audemars Piguet, and the merits of a (hypothetical) automatic chronograph movement from Seiko. Thanks so much for listening.? Show Notes 2:37 Apple Watch 7?13:25 Jack's story inspired by William Gibson's essay15:13 Breitling with UTC module?...