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Best Super NEWS Watches
Interview: Jasem Al Zeraei AKA Patekaholic
Editor's Note: John Reardon is a well known expert on Patek Philippe and a HODINKEE contributor. A former international director of watches at Christie's, Reardon recently launched Collectability.com, a website devoted to information and education about vintage Patek Philippe watches. This article is an excerpt from Reardon's in-depth, wide ranging interview with Jasem Al Zeraei, the widely followed and influential Instagram commentator on Patek Philippe. The full version of the interview is available at Collectability.com.? Jasem Al Zeraei founded Patekaholic, the number one Patek Philippe fan page on Instagram, in 2015. Known as a brutally honest, fearless, and...
Introducing: The Girard-Perregaux Quasar Light
About a year ago, we had a look at the original Girard-Perregaux Quasar, an ultra-modern take on a watch design trope that Girard-Perregaux has been iterating on for well over a century. The idea behind GP's Three Golden Bridges, its best-known design, is to line up the watch's barrel, center wheel, and tourbillon and hold them in place with three visible golden bridges. It makes for a striking visual presentation with the absence of a dial, and the golden bridges themselves can become almost a work of art when polished to a mirror finish.?? You might have to strain your eyes a bit to see them here, but the Quasar Light also has ...
Introducing: The MB&F Legacy Machine FlyingT (Now Without Diamonds!)
It might be hard to believe, but it was less than a year ago that MB&F unveiled its first-ever women's watch, the Legacy Machine FlyingT. The watch met with an extremely positive reception, and for loads of good reasons. The movement, with its vertical architecture and prominently displayed flying tourbillon, is absolutely incredible; the case is lithe and elegant, even with the massive bubble-shaped crystal on top; the design language definitely feels like it leans toward the feminine, but not in the patronizing, rose-petals-and-pink way that so many watchmakers embrace. Put simply, it's a badass watch for women that's every bit as thought through and impressive as any of MB&F's mor...
Introducing: The Chanel J12 X-Ray, Sapphire On Sapphire
The Chanel J12 has been around since the year 2000, and in the last 20 years, it has managed to become, if not the iconic ceramic watch, certainly one which has been defining in the genre from a design standpoint. The evolution of the J12 has also reflected Chanel's increasing involvement, not just in watch design, but in high-end watchmaking as well. The company's better known high horology efforts have included the 2016 Monsieur de Chanel, and the J12 has been the recipient of some real-deal horological firepower as well, with the introduction of a J12 housing the caliber 3125 in 2008 (thanks to a partnership with APRP) and subsequently, in 2019, another new movement from Geneva-based manu...
Introducing: The NOMOS Tetra Symphony Collection, An Homage To Ludwig Van Beethoven
The NOMOS Glashtte Tetra collection is one which I have always felt deserved more attention. It's not the first NOMOS collection on everyone's lips, but the watches make an impression in person which is out of all proportion to both their physical dimensions, and to their footprint in the enthusiast world. I had personally never given the Tetra watches much thought until getting a chance to work with a couple of models back in 2016, and I was really astonished at how convincing they were in person.? NOMOS has just announced a new four-watch Tetra collection, which is an homage to Ludwig Van Beethoven, so the company says. The four watches have names associated w...
Friday has arrived once again, which means it's time to get down and dirty with the best of the best of the vintage world that's currently on offer around the internet, along with a couple unique curiosities of note. This week, the picks include pieces like an ultra-clean Clebar and a Breitling Premier in rose gold, along with a downright cool IWC. For those that aren't messing around, you'll want to consider the rarest Rolex you'll see all week, plus an outstanding example of the famed A-Series Royal Oak. This is a good one, folks. Clebar Alarm Ref. 685 Any true collector wi...
HODINKEE Radio: Episode 79: Budget Watch Collection Fantasy Draft 2020
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! Back in September, we held the inaugural HODINKEE Radio Watch Collection Fantasy Draft. Ben, Cara, Jack, and I sat down and each had to put together a six-watch collection that included modern sport watches, vintage dress watches, holy grail pieces, and everything in between. It generated some pretty interesting results, and it seemed like all of you really enjoyed listening and casting your votes for which collection ruled them all. So, we're doing it again! ...
Just Because: Why Cut-Off Dial Numbers Exist (And Why They're Not Going Anywhere)
An interesting feature of any domain of connoisseurship is that people have pet peeves, about which they can (and do) wax wrathful to a degree mysterious to anyone not part of the same tribe. Horology certainly has its share: date windows and movements noticeably smaller than the case among them. However, what we now regard as objectionable was not necessarily always a deal-breaker.? An excellent example is the presence, on the dials of many watches, of numbers cut off to some extent by the presence of a subdial or subdials. The most common examples are the cut-off number six which you often seen in time-only watches with a seconds subdial, although you can also ...
Sunday Rewind: With The Cartier ID Two Concept, Less Is Way More
With transparent watches on the brain after this week's announcement of the Chanel J12 X-Ray, we thought it would be fun to look back at a truly incredible statement of the form C 2012's Cartier ID Two Concept. An example of cutting edge Haute Horology and class-defining micro-engineering, while never intended as a commercial product, the ID Two remains an undeniably special creation and a strong statement of capability from Cartier.? From its vacuum-sealed transparent one-piece ceramic case to its next-gen lubrication-free gearing, click into this write up from Ben to take a thorough look at the wonderful ID Two. With the goal o...
The New Zenith Chronomaster Open
Zenith has spent quite a bit of time over the past few years streamlining its core collections, making sure every one of its watches offers something different, to a different set of customers. The Defy, for instance, has a hyper-modern design to reflect its cutting-edge high-frequency movement, while the flagship Chronomaster line now focuses exclusively on Zenith's expertise in the chronograph category. As part of this streamlining process, Zenith has entirely reworked the Chronomaster line over the past 16 months, centering it around the introduction of the El Primero caliber 3600, an updated version of the OG El Primero caliber 400 from 1969 that enables elap...
The New Parmigiani Fleurier Tonda PF Skeleton
In addition to the new GMT Rattrapante, Parmigiani Fleurier is updating its flagship Tonda PF line with a skeletonized wristwatch in stainless steel and rose gold. In traditional Parmigiani fashion, the new Tonda PF Skeleton is full of subtle detailing and impressive watchmaking ability that hammer home the company's leading vertical manufacturing capabilities. Starting with the Tonda PF form factor that we're getting to know extremely well around these parts, the Tonda PF Skeleton strips away the dial to reveal the PF777 caliber inside, featuring a 60-hour power reserve and operating at 4 Hz. The movement bridges have been dress...
The Parmigiani Tonda PF GMT Rattrapante Is A World First
Parmigiani Fleurier has just unveiled an interesting take on a dual-time watch as part of its still-fresh Tonda PF collection, first released last August. The Tonda PF line, featuring new design codes and an aesthetic influenced by the greater popularity of integrated bracelets, has been an unequivocal success since its debut. So much so that CEO Guido Terreni, who was hired away from Bulgari nearly one year ago, indicated that the entirety of the line's 2022 production run is already spoken for, and the company will begin accepting new orders in Q1 of 2023. "We cannot serve everybody immediately because it takes time to accelerate production," Terreni said, whe...
Introducing The H. Moser Pioneer Cylindrical Tourbillon Skeleton
One of the most exciting technical releases at Watches & Wonders Geneva 2022 comes courtesy of our friends at H. Moser & Cie, who have just introduced their impressive cylindrical hairspring and one-minute flying tourbillon combination into regular production for the very first time. The in-house caliber HMC 811 has additionally been open-worked in an attractive manner, extending the already three-dimensional movement architecture even further, and in the process establishing a new skeletonized design language for the Schaffhausen-based watchmaker. On the heels of 2020's well-received collaboration with MB&F, which f...
All The 2022 Minerva Monopusher Newness You Can Ask For
Montblanc released its first wristwatches in 1997 and never looked back. Twenty-five years later, the multi-hyphenate maker of luxury goods has solidified its place in the luxury watch industry through a multi-level manufacturing approach that includes attractive entry-level vintage-inspired watches powered by Sellita movements, as well as ultra-high-end complicated watchmaking, with a speciality in chronographs. Montblanc is assisted in its diverse approach by the consolidation of the historic Minerva manufacture under the Montblanc corporate banner in 2006. Minerva's expertise in traditional watchmaking allows Montblanc to create certain watches like the three...
You'll Want To See Jake Gyllenhaal's The Guilty For Wristwatch Alone
One of cinema's greatest assets is its ability to convey time in whatever manner it pleases. Some movies span years within their runtime, while others take place over the course of a single day. Antoine Fuqua's 2021 film, The Guilty (based on a Danish film called Den Skyldige), starring Jake Gyllenhaal, shrinks time down even further. This propulsive officer drama set in a 9-1-1 call center (and only a 9-1-1 call center) takes place during one officer's night shift, with all of the action taking place off-camera, over the phone. Basically, you spend the entire 90 minutes of the film staring at Gyllenhaal's face (which, for some, might not be the worst way to spend an evening). ...
Prized for its scratch-resistance and colorfastness, high-tech ceramic is used to make watches that will look as fresh as the day they were born for years to come. As one of the early innovators in ceramic watchmaking, IWC has persisted with the material since the launch of the white and black Da Vinci Perpetual calendars, dating to the mid-'80s. Though the Da Vinci is where IWC first used ceramic, it's the Pilot line where the material really took off, first and most famously with the legendary (and now quite collectible) ref. 3705 of 1994, a watch IWC paid tribute to recently and which we spent a week with. This year at Watches...
The New Haven Chilluminati Watch
A secret society shrouded in mystery and tradition since its founding by Bavarian professor Adam Weishaupt in 1776, the Illuminati C wait, sorry, wrong story. This, right here, is the Chilluminati, and yes that's its real name. The watch follows Haven's vintage-inspired but relatively standard manually wound Chilton chronograph, bringing something new in design C all in the same case. The Chilluminati takes inspiration from the Omega De Ville Chronograph ref. 146.017, one of the rare watches where the designers put a date window at 9:00 and walked away like they hadn't just offended half the commenter...
The Cartier Santos Dumont Is Not Just Another Santos
In 2019, Cartier released the Santos Dumont line of watches with quartz movements C then followed that up one year later with a string of mechanical, limited variations. This year, the brand has added more limited goodness to the line (but don't worry, there's one non-limited model, too). The 2022 Santos Dumont collection comprises three watches meant to invoke the spirit and style of the watch once worn by the eponymous Alberto Santos-Dumont. But ol' Alberto never had options like these.? Each of the limited watches brings together a mixture of color and metal. The variations are burgundy and platinu...
This week we're digging into a recent Point/Counterpoint concerning the application of the ever-divisive display caseback. Do you want to see inside your new watch? Or do you prefer some mystery? I asked Jack and Danny C who both recently argued opposite sides of this perspective C to come on the show and elaborate upon the wide world of casebacks.? Open. Closed. Hunter. Etched, and more. The caseback has, within the modern scope, become something of a prestigious bit of watch real estate and each brand approaches its caseback strategy in a slightly different manner. While it may not be a question of right vs. wrong, there is a delicat...
Bill Self Wears A Watch You'll Never Expect WHILE Coaching The Game
We're in the throes of March Madness. Brackets are being busted, games won and lost, and watches are being worn by the coaches on the sidelines. Last year, we rounded up some NCAA Head Coaches and their timepieces. Today we have our sights set on a single wrist, and a single watch as we continue celebrating Tudor Black Bay's 10th Anniversary. The coach is Bill Self of Kansas, and the watch is a burgundy bezel Tudor Black Bay ref. 79220R. The photo here is from a March 10 game against West Virginia. But if you turn on the game right now you'll see Self wearing it again while coaching against Creighton. Image courtesy,...