Best Super NEWS Watches
The Matrix Taught Me To Love Apple Watch
I recently watched The Matrix for the very first time. Late to the game, I know, but I finally witnessed every philosophy undergrad's favorite scene in person: The famous red pill vs. blue pill discussion that takes place between Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) and Neo (Keanu Reeves). If you, like me, put off watching 1999's highest-rated science fiction film for more than two decades, the concept is fairly simple. It's all about individual choice. If you embrace the unknown and take the red pill, you can potentially achieve enlightenment and change your life. Take the blue pill and your life goes on, as is, in blissful ignorance. Which one would you choo...
Birdwell And Undone's Limited-Edition Surf Watch
Birdwell was started in Santa Ana, Southern California back in '61 as a small operation selling surfwear, namely board shorts. You know, the kind of shorts you'd wear if you were loading a few longboards atop your Volkswagen van. In 2014, the brand went from super-small to medium-small, and they started making board shorts again, right here in the US of A. And now, 60 years later, there's a watch. The watch is made by UNDONE, a popular microbrand with an outsized footprint in the collecting world. Their watches a...
Christie's Single-Collection online Watch Auction
Christie's has put a good deal of its weight behind its online watch sales, providing more of a steady stream for buyers to shop for interesting watches in a convenient digital format from the comfort of home. The sales lack the high-profile and the drama of an in-person event, an auctioneer presiding, gavel in-hand, over an electric sales room. I love a traditional auction, but that doesn't mean there aren't plenty of interesting watches to vy for, online. Christie's current online sale, which started December 2 and runs through December 14, comprises some 317 lots, almost exclusively pocket watches, all hailing from one important private collection, according t...
Art Basel, Hangin' With Brooke Shields, And A Sleeper Hit From Blancpain
It's a packed episode, with Danny, Cole, and Logan joining me to chat about their recent moves in the watch world. Tune in as Danny has some behind-the-scenes stories from his Talking Watches shoot with Brooke Shields, Cole is just back from Miami's Art Basel, and Logan has picked up a sleeper from Blancpain's recent past that highlights an interesting and appealing value proposition. Show Notes 1:30 Talking Watches with Brooke Shields11:14 Cartier Seatimer17:05 Grand Seiko SLGH005 (episode sponsor)18:10 Art Basel 31:31 Blancpain Lemans 36:36 Biver and Piguet on Timezone43:40 B...
Happenings: 'Horology In Art' Exhibition Opens At The Horological Society Of New York
The Horological Society of New York (HSNY) announces the opening of its second exhibition, Horology in Art, on display at HSNYs library in Midtown Manhattan. For over seven centuries, clocks and watches have been depicted in artwork around the world. Whether theyve appeared as the major focus of a canvas or a subtle element in the backdrop, timekeepers have served as reminders of human mortality and as symbols of affluence, discipline, occupation, or technological sophistication. Now, an exhibition of over 60 examples is on display at the headquarters of Americas first watchmaking guild. Anatol Kovarsky (1919-2016), ...
Tiffany Patek Philippe Nautilus Sells For $6.5 Million
A little before 10:30 AM ET in New York, the Patek Philippe ref. 5711/1A-018, with a Tiffany & Co.-signed dial, hammered for $5,350,000, with an all-in price tag of $6,503,000. This was a last-minute addition to the auction C?announced earlier this week C with all proceeds from the sale benefitting the Nature Conservancy. This was the first live watch auction hosted by Phillips in New York in two years, and the first live watch auction in the companys new space at 432 Park Avenue. We were in the room, and here's what we saw. Aurel Bacs doing his thing. Aurel Bacs presided over the podium for precisely 14 minutes and 39 se...
A Hands-On Review Of The Zenith Defy Extreme
I have a confession. I really, really enjoy the funky, chunky sport watches that were born from the 1970s to the mid-'80s. I've asked Saori, Rich, and Sean on our vintage team to be on constant lookout for an extra-minty Heuer Kentucky. Or the Mark II Speedmaster. But what I've really been bugging them about is a 1970s vintage Zenith Defy with a ladder bracelet. I've tried them on when they've previously landed in the Shop, and on a recent visit to the Zenith Manufacture in Le Locle, while I was in Switzerland for Geneva Auction Week, I was able to handle a nearly identical example owned by Romain Mar...
How the Vulcain Cricket Helped Me Find My Voice
In Watch of the Week, we invite HODINKEE staffers and friends to explain why they love a certain piece. This week's columnist is the enthusiast behind the Instagram account @books_on_time, which showcases an armload of gorgeous and offbeat vintage wristwatches. Hes a contributor for Rescapement, and has also been published in various outlets including Collectability, Revolution, WatchTime India, and now HODINKEE. You can find his writing on StrictlyVintageWatches.com. I tend to shy away from watches that attract attention. Perhaps in some way this is related to my personality C which is, let us say, not outgoing.??Since childhood Ive struggled with communicatio...
Hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of Hey, HODINKEE! where you ask, and we do our very best to answer. Your hosts, as usual, are HODINKEE Editor in Chief Jack Forster, with HODINKEE Deputy Editor Nora Taylor as the voice of the audience. We're answering four of your finest questions today, drawn from far and wide across the horological world. We have a reader writing in to ask what rare and unusual complications are our favorites and another who wants to know what exactly the purpose of a helium release valve might be (and whether or not you can have your watch refilled with helium at your local watch service center!). And another reader asks just what "...
New Vintage Watches In The HODINKEE Shop
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? Click?here. This Week's Vintage Watches Stop us if you've heard this one before: This week's vintage selection is headlined by Tudor, Omega, Heuer, and Rolex. This collection is a reminder that sometimes the most obvious and clich choices really do live up to the hype, proving time and time again where their reputation comes from. A Rolex GMT-Master is just as good as everyo...
How The Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso Hidden Treasures Collection Came To Be
For 90 years, the Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso has been seducing fans with a hidden secret C the watchs unmistakable art-deco dial flips over to reveal something unexpected on the reverse. There have been personal messages, family crests, and portraits of ones beloved (weve seen anonymous paramours, pets, the family castle, you name it ). And this year, to mark the Reversos 90th birthday, Jaeger-LeCoultre celebrates three works of modern art masters C Gustave Courbet, Vincent Van Gogh, and Gustav Klimt C that, fittingly, were believed to be lost and hidden away forever, only to be recently rediscovered. Gustave Courbets View o...
The Patek Philippe Advanced Research Projects Minute Repeater
The Patek Philippe Advanced Research Projects workshop (if you can call it that) is to Patek as the Skunk Works is to Lockheed Martin C a think tank that occasionally produces paradigm-shifting technology that challenges the received wisdom about How Things Should Be Done. The ARP has been in business since 2005 and most of what they've done since then has been about folding silicon tech into fine watchmaking. This is a divisive thing to do C ?let's face it, we don't look to traditional fine watchmaking and traditional fine watchmaking companies because we want more of what we can get from the semiconductor industry.? However, it's an interesting space in which t...
Making Sense Of The Tiffany Patek Philippe 5711
Did you think we were going to ignore the Tiffany-blue elephant in the room? I always like to follow my own curiosity, especially when it's deeply informed by my own knee-jerk reaction to this latest evolution of the 5711. With the hopes of getting closer to the pastel blue core of the topic, I called in a few experienced co-hosts. To sort out a macro view of the Tiffany-blue 5711, I got Ben, Logan, and Jon on a zoom call to chat all about the final form of the 5711.? From the meteoric rise of the 5711 within the collector mind-share to the perspective of a qualified Tiffany-signed Patek collector and a play-by-play from the auction fl...
Phillips 2021 New York Watch Auction Pictures
The last major watch auction of the year took place this past weekend in Manhattan. Headlined by a certain collaboration and a literary legend's Speedmaster, the 2021 Phillips New York Watch Auction started Saturday morning and sailed smoothly through Sunday afternoon.?Every single lot C?all 166 of 'em! C?found a buyer, achieving a total sum of $35,919,052, the highest-value watch auction in U.S. history. I was there all weekend with our photographer (James K./ @waitlisted) to take in the sights, the sounds, and the experience inside the underground auction venue at Phillips' recently unveiled flagship headquarters on Park Avenue. The below-ground space was dress...
Genevieve Walker On The "Literary Clock"
Christian Marclays 2010 film, The Clock, is 24 hours of spliced movie snippets that reference time. After years of assembling the footage, Marclays completed work was shown in art galleries. When audiences sat down to watch, the movies clock cycle began C if it was 9:00 PM in the real world, it was 9:00 PM in The Clock. Critics called it a masterpiece, a meditation on the abstraction of the clocks grip on our lives; of aging, and dying. It was also a captivating history of cinema that, like any good movie, had the power to erase time. Who would watch a clock for hours on end? asked one BBC reporter. I mean, how boring. Not...
How Does A Cicada Know When It's Time To Come out?
You might not see them at first, but you sure as hell can hear them. Cicadas spend most of their lives underground, and through the years, their existence is all darkness and silence. But when they do finally emerge C usually, after 13 or 17 years, depending on the population C they seem determined to make up for lost time. Male cicadas produce their song by vibrating special organs in their abdomens called tymbals, which are layered plates made of a springy, elastic protein called resilin. The sound the tymbals make when they vibrate is amplified by the cicada's hollow abdomen, and can reach a volume of over 100 decibels C that's about as loud as movie theater l...
Talking Watches: With Greg Selch, Father To An 'Orphan' Watch Collection
Who's Greg Selch? Well, you won't find him belting out this summer's hottest hit on Spotify, nor will he be sinking threes in the NBA. He works in the furniture business and once invested in a company hoping to revive the use of airships in commercial aviation. What he lacks in name recognition he makes up for in an all-star collection of vintage watches that most enthusiasts typically overlook. And he isn't just collecting C he's done quite a bit of scholarship around the watches, too. I first met Selch at a dimly lit bar in SoHo, hovering over a table full of divers with Scotchlite dials, elegant gi...
A Week On The Wrist: The A. Lange & Sohne 1815 Rattrapante Honeygold 'Homage to F. A. Lange'
Glashtte, Germany is a small town with a big emphasis on watchmaking. Located in the pastoral Mglitz valley just 45 minutes outside Dresden, there are barely any hints a capital of the watch world could be hidden among the green Saxon hills. It requires a genuine effort C?and the helping hand of Google Maps C?to visit the city. Maybe that's how the Germans like it. If it were up to me, I'd place a sign on the autobahn leading up to Glashtte proclaiming how special this town of just 7,000 people is: "Exit now to discover Germany's horological heartland." With a photo of a watch beside it.And it wouldn't be just any watch. It wo...
What Watch Did Jennifer Lopez Give To Ben Affleck?
Like everyone else who enjoys the occasional voyeuristic thrill, we have watched with interest as Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez apparently rekindled their relationship C but we never expected to write about it. Then a watch became a part of the story.Earlier this month, a 2003 photo of Bennifer 1.0 began circulating on Instagram. There they are, Ben and Jen, young and in love and courtside at a Lakers game, nuzzled shoulder to shoulder as she leans in to say something only he can hear. (We imagine it to be: Derek Fisher is so money in the clutch.) Anyway, on Bens left wrist is a very confusing, very small watch with a bracelet and case that do not seem to match. ...
A Week On The Wrist: The 43mm IWC Big Pilot Automatic
The best way to think through a watch is putting in the context it's made for. In the case of the IWC Big Pilot Automatic, that's in the cockpit. Anyone can read off the specifications from a press release. I'm not here to do that. If a brand is telling me it's made for flying, then the only way to understand C and judge C the watch is to take it flying. That said, I understand that most of these watches will never see the inside of a cockpit. There are roughly 665,000 pilots in the United States and 329 million people, and the US is one of the most popular countries in the world to earn a pilot's lic...