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Best Super NEWS Watches
Five Of The Best Microbrand Watches in 2024
In 2017, I took a train from downtown Chicago to a neighborhood about 30 minutes north to buy my first watch from a "microbrand," a new Olmsted from Oak & Oscar. It was cold and grey, as it often is in Chicago in December, and I remember sitting in Oak & Oscar's shoebox HQ, sipping a whiskey and chatting with the team of two while they sized the bracelet on my new watch.? That was a long time ago, but it still captures the attraction of small or micrbrand watches. Since then, the space has only grown and it's nearly impossible to keep up with. Hardly a day goes by that I don't come by a nicely designed and spec'd watch from one of these brands.?In the pas...
Introducing: The Glashtte Original PanoLunarInverse Limited Edition
The PanoMaticInverse from Swatch Group's Glashtte Original has always been my favorite of their lineup C it's a very clever take on the immediately recognizable off-center layout that stems from the German watchmaking town, with a very obvious twist C the movement is actually flipped over, where the back of the caliber serves as the dial, highlighting the very prominent Glashtte striping, blued screws, as well as the hand-engraved balance bridge with a duplex swan-neck adjuster. The original PanoMaticInverse from 2014. From a conceptual perspective, I adore this lineup. But in my several times of trying them on, I always had...
In-Depth: Breitling Agrees To Protect The NFL Shield Via Licensing Deal
The U.S. market is becoming increasingly important to the Swiss watch industry and, for the first time, Americans may even find the oldest brands in the world starting to cater directly to them. A few years back, at WatchTime NY, a U.S. brand president from a fairly large Swiss brand told me that roughly 20% of production was allocated to the U.S. market and they were fighting to up that number to 25%. Just two weeks ago, at the Hodinkee and UBS House of Craft, Ginny Wright, CEO of the Americas for Audemars Piguet, told our very own Malaika Crawford that the U.S. was officially AP's largest market. While these two brands do not represent an apples-to-apples compa...
Review of Tho Auffret's Tourbillon Paris and Jean-Batiste Viot's Chronomtre Paris
It's been almost four years since we last wrote about French watchmaker Tho Auffret. As Stephen Pulvirent said back in January of 2021, it's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that Switzerland is the center of watchmaking. Germany and Japan get some credit as well. Roger Smith keeps the history of British watchmaking alive as well. But from Abraham-Louis Breguet to LeRoy's creation of the then-most complicated watch in the world, the French used to reign supreme. The most notable French watchmaker in the modern era, Fran?ois-Paul Journe, is now based in Geneva. While Auffret remains at his workshop in France?C and this story will still focus on his Tourbillon Paris C he's also used th...
The Lange 1 was launched on October 24, 1994 C 30 years ago to the day. For the 30th anniversary of the brand's decidedly asymmetrical design, A. Lange & Sohne have just unveiled a quartet of limited edition models. Presented in two colorways C black onyx with a platinum case or a blue dial with a pink gold case C each version is available in either the standard Lange 1 sizing or the slightly smaller footprint of the Little Lange 1. I got a few minutes to check out these new Lange 1s while I was attending the Audrain Newport Concours d'Elegance in Newport, Rhode Island, a couple of weeks ago. Despite their continued success a...
Introducing: The Christopher Ward C1 Bel Canto Classic With Laser-Etched Guilloch Pattern
Christopher Ward has unveiled a new selection of four watches to complement their already cult-classic C1 Bel Canto lineup released in 2022. The watches, with their three-dimensional domed design reminiscent of MB&F's half-above/half-below Legacy Machine line, still have a sonnerie au passage chime that dings once an hour as the minute hand passes the top of the hour. Now, they also come with a slightly more classic dial platine in a laser-etched, barleycorn-esque guilloch pattern. Photo: courtesy Christopher Ward That is a whole heck of a lot of French watchmaking terms for a watch that clocks in at $4,225 on a strap and...
Happenings: Yusra Mardini To Lecture At The Horological Society Of New York
The Paris Olympics may be over, but athletes' stories last a lifetime. Join us for an evening with Olympian and humanitarian Yusra Mardini. Hear the incredible story of Mardini, who fled the war in Syria to Germany, made it to the Olympic Games, and is now a sustainability ambassador for Oris. Through the Yusra Mardini Foundation, she supports refugees around the world C including via a project that helps refugees return to the water, gain self-confidence, and find their place through swimming. As a UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador and two-time Olympian, Mardini has a unique story of hope, purpose, and change for the better. Join Mardini at the November 2024 lecture of ...
Hands-On: The Swatch & Keith Haring 'From The Archive'
Last Thursday evening, fellow watch writer Griffin Bartsch and I were leaving one of the many events happening before the highly-anticipated weekend of WindUp and WatchTime, and we passed through Times Square on our way to the subway. Long jaded by the MoonSwatches sitting in a briefcase behind the towering glass windows of the Swatch boutique reflecting the bright lights of the most touristy square in Manhattan, I didn't even turn my head until a display of neon pink and green caught the corner of my eye. The three bioceramic tributes to the 1984 Swatch World Breakdance Championship. I remember us stopping by the window, and ...
Review Of The Chopard L.U.C 1860 Flying Tourbillion
In 1996, Chopard presented its first in-house manufacture caliber 1.96. Introduced a year later in the L.U.C 1860, it's a Geneva Seal and COSC-certified micro-rotor caliber produced at Chopard's Fleurier manufacturer. Chopard L.U.C 1860 Flying Tourbillon As I wrote in my collector's guide to the original L.U.C collection, one of the criteria that Chopard owner Karl-Friedrich Scheufele set for the brand's first in-house caliber was that it be "strong enough to power complications later on, with a larger than average power reserve." Twenty-eight years later, his insistence on this technical criteria has resulted in one of the mo...
Video: Talking Universal Genve With Collector Alessandro Fanciulli
We recently had the pleasure of sitting down to chat with Italian dealer and collector Alessandro Fanciulli C better known as "mr.a" on Instagram. Alessandro is a dealer of all types of vintage watches, but his first love was Universal Genve. So when he visited New York a few weeks ago, he brought along a few of his favorite UGs for a special conversation about the history and future of this influential brand.? His selection shows the incredible breadth of Universal Genve's vintage catalog. From the Polerouter to the Compax and everything in between, there's still so much to be discovered from the brand. Alessandro even brought...
It's Friday, welcome back to Bring A Loupe! The vintage watch world eagerly awaits Geneva's November auctions, set to start in just two weeks. In the meantime, let's stick to eBay, ShopGoodwill.com, and smaller auction houses in the UK for Bring A Loupe picks to hold us over. To report on results from previous BAL columns, we saw the two privately listed picks find new homes C both the Van Cleef-signed Rolex Explorer II and the pre-acquisition Cartier Paris Tank L.C. have seemingly found new wrists; congrats to the new owners! Our Tiffany & Co.-signed Movado sold over on Everything But The House for the solid price of $2,650, and the Patek Philippe reference ...
Dispatch: Channeling Science In The Wild Pacific
Science seems like one of those pursuits that consists of, to paraphrase a well-worn aphorism, "long periods of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer excitement." This thought occurred to me while hovering at a depth of 50 feet in the kelp forest near Santa Barbara Island, off the coast of California. I was watching Dr. Adrian Munguia Vega perform a sort of underwater interpretative dance above me. He was neutrally buoyant and backlit by the distant sun, a mesh bag clipped to his belt and what looked like a hydration bladder in one hand, which he was swinging up and down in a slow arc. If I hadn't known what he was up to, I might have been concerned that he'd fallen victim to nitrogen narco...
Hands-On: MB&F's LM Sequential Flyback C Does More Complication Make For A Better Watch?
To answer the question and save you some time, yes. Better is always better. Unless it's not. The movement on the MB&F LM Sequential Flyback is objectively better than an already GPHG-winning masterpiece by one of the brightest minds in modern watchmaking. But that's not all that MB&F changed about the follow-up to the LM Sequential. And that opens up a door to a whole other interesting conversation about what makes a watch good, successful, interesting, or just right for you?C a conversation that is applicable even beyond the lofty realm of a $218,000 watch like this. If this all sounds like a bunch of confusing mumbo-ju...
Photo Report: A Visit To Nomos Glashtte
Last month, I had the opportunity to hop on a plane (then a train, then a car) to Glashtte, Germany to spend a few days with the Nomos team at the 2024 Nomos Forum. The team presented several novelties, including the controversial Tangente 2date and the Orion and Tangente neomatik dor series, and some more stuff to be released.?What I was most looking forward to, however, was the opportunity to take a look behind the scenes of the manufacture.Now, before we get to the meat and potatoes of this photo report, just a few takeaways:1) The team is small. Now, that shouldn't necessarily be a surprise, but Nomos has always said that they are the largest manufacturer of mechanical wristwatches in ...
Reading Time At HSNY: Our Original Library
This post is part of a series, Reading Time at HSNY, written HSNY's head librarian, Dr. Miranda Marraccini. Regular readers of this column probably know all about our library at the Horological Society of New York (HSNY), which we officially opened only two years ago. We unveiled a gilded sign! We cut a ribbon with giant scissors! It was a big deal. But did you know that HSNY has always had a library? Early members viewed books as essential to their work and made the book collection a priority from the start. As with watchmaking, library practices of the 19th century have a lot in common with those of today. Image 1 ...
Review of the F.P. Journe Restaurant lgante Watch
Finding a good restaurant is like discovering a good secret. You don't want to share it with too many people, but part of the fun is keeping the secret alive by making it worth knowing. It's also how F.P. Journe (which made some news last week) and its fans operate. Often, clients find out about upcoming releases well before they technically should become public. So, for Journe lovers, this might be one of the worst-kept secrets in watches, but I get to be the first to bring you the official story of one that was quietly released and already delivered but never officially announced.? This is an F.P. Journe lgante that you can't...
HODINKEE Radio: Collecting Porsche Design With Andres Nicholls
Today, we're presenting a special episode of Hodinkee Radio. In addition to the podcast feed, each episode also has video, so swing by Hodinkee's YouTube channel (or watch below). Only want the audio? It's being published to the same old Hodinkee Radio feed, so check your feeds or subscribe wherever you find podcasts (try Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, or TuneIn). For this special episode, we're joined by Andres Nicholls. Andres is a dedicated collector of all things Porsche and Porsche Design. Andres' passion for the brand runs deep C?he bought his first Porsche Design Chronograph 1 way back in 2000. As a trained designer and arch...
Introducing: Swatch Keeps It On The Home Planet With The MoonSwatch Mission To EarthPhase
MoonSwatch, MoonSwatch, MoonSwatch. That was a Brady Bunch reference for those of you old enough to remember that show (I'm definitely not). It sure feels as though there's a MoonSwatch for every occasion and a lot for no occasions at all, but today, Swatch has released a new one and this one is novel for more than just the color they've chosen. The new Mission to Moonphase release isn't just a moonphase chronograph, it's got a newCto-Swatch "Earth Phase Indicator." The new release, available in select Swatch stores (not online, sorry) on November 2nd, looks a bit like the original Mission to Mercury and Mission to Moon releases ...
The Horological Society of New York (HSNY), America's oldest watchmaking guild, founded in 1866, will hold its 159th anniversary Gala on Saturday, March 22, 2025, at the iconic Plaza Hotel in New York City. This milestone event will bring together top watch brands, horology enthusiasts, industry leaders, and collectors to celebrate the Society's rich history and its ongoing mission to advance the art and science of horology.HSNY's annual Gala is a glamorous evening filled with fine dining, scholarships for watchmaking students, and a live auction showcasing exceptional timepieces. The Plaza Hotel's Grand Ballroom, where dinner will take place. ...
Introducing: Tudor And The Marine Nationale Go Worldwide With The Pelagos FXD GMT 'Zulu Time'
At 12:00 Zulu Time, Tudor went hot with a new Pelagos FXD, a watch originally developed with the French Naval special forces unit Commando Hubert as a purpose-built tool for underwater navigation and buddy diving. That watch became a platform for a variety of releases, including sailing chronographs, cycling chronographs, and a bunch of others. Tudor has now gone back to the core inspiration for another watch built for the rigors of the Ae?ronautique Navale with a new GMT version of the Pelagos FXD. Cased in Grade 2 titanium, measuring 42mm by 12.7mm with a 52mm lug-to-lug fixed strap-bar design, the watch looks and feels similar...