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Monochrome
La Fabrique du Temps Louis Vuitton continues to expand the Gérald Genta collection with the introduction of the Geneva Time Only, a new pair of 38mm timepieces. Following the Geneva Minute Repeater, this new model carries forward the same design, with fluid geometry, architectural precision, and attention to proportion, now presented in a simpler, time-only […]
SJX Watches
To celebrate founder Jacob Arabo’s 60th birthday, Jacob & Co. has upped the ante for the tourbillon with the God of Time that’s styled on the Greek myth of time, but more importantly features the world’s fastest turning tourbillon that completes one revolution every four seconds – making it 15 times quicker than a conventional one-minute tourbillon. Initial thoughts The God of Time watch is a true showpiece of modern, extravagant high horology, blending both striking visual decoration and engineering prowess. The theme of time and its associated deity is built around the record setting tourbillon, the fastest of its kind. While we’re familiar with the perpetual quest for the thinnest watch, apparently the race towards the fastest tourbillon is also a thing. Much like most Jacob & Co. watches, the God of Time is loud and a large 44.5 mm in diameter. The leitmotif of Greek mythology is present in the thick case as well, which is modelled on an Ionic pillar. The size is a consequence of the movement, which is enormous – inside are four mainsprings – due to the energy requirements of the tourbillon. The hand-crafted figure of Chronos is remarkably detailed - truly in the spirit of ancient Greek statues. The dial is interesting, as the eye is drawn to both the Chronos figure and the unusually fast tourbillon, but falls short in legibility, though that’s clearly not the point here. The God of Time is one of those watches where time-telling is less important tha...
Monochrome
A watch packed with history and pivotal in Oris’ destiny, the Big Crown Pointer Date saw the light in 1938. As the brand’s first dedicated pilot’s watch, the oversized crown was designed so pilots could operate the watch while wearing gloves in their unheated cockpits. With its legible Arabic numerals, graphic railway track, cathedral hands […]
Teddy Baldassarre
One of the first hurdles to clear for newcomers to watch appreciation is the clarification of two very common horological categories: chronograph vs. chronometer. Quite simply, a chronometer (from the Greek chronos, meaning time, and meter, meaning measure) is any watch or clock that keeps reliably accurate time, usually as determined by an outside independent testing agency, whereas a chronograph (from chronos and graph, i.e., to “write time”) is any watch or clock with the ability to track and record intervals of time, aka a stopwatch. This is, again, the simplest way to look at it. But there’s a bit more to both chronometers and chronographs that a knowledge-hungry watch enthusiast might want to digest - including the fact that the terms are not interchangeable but also not mutually exclusive. [toc-section heading="Chronometers Defined"] Our original, classical definition of a chronometer can be traced back to the golden age of seafaring exploration in the 18th Century, when ships required the use of a highly accurate onboard clock that enabled their navigators to determine longitude in order to avoid the perils of running aground or veering hopelessly off course. The man credited with developing the first of these “marine chronometers” was legendary British watchmaker John Harrison; his invention facilitated the celestial navigation used at the time by navigators at sea to determine their ship’s position in coordination with a sextant. Marine chronome...
SJX Watches
Episode 22 of the SJX Podcast looks back at the complicated watches that emerged in 2025, a banner year that saw major brands deliver ambitious and record-setting complications. Several anniversaries, including Vacheron Constantin’s 270th and Audemars Piguet’s 150th, resulted in inspired releases. Big brands delivered big hits, from Lange’s black enamel minute repeater perpetual calendar to Blancpain’s Grande Double Sonnerie, which feature a four-note melody composed by Kiss drummer Eric Singer. For its part, Chopard finally gave its sapphire gongs the platform they always deserved with the Grand Strike, the brand’s first-ever grande sonnerie. And while Audemars Piguet’s big anniversary was headlined by the RD#5, the brand’s crown-operated perpetual calendar was another important addition to the field of complications this year. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Youtube.
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SJX Watches
AP House Singapore is staging its first exhibition, making full use of the expansive space inside Singapore’s iconic colonial-era Raffles Hotel. 150 Years of Refined Elegance is a showcase of miniaturisation, covering Audemars Piguet’s smallest and thinnest movements, including an 18 mm-wide minute repeating calibre from the late 19th century. Taking place in the basement of the “house”, the exhibition starts with watches from the 1920s and ends in the current day that includes the Royal Oak Mini and the recently launched 38 mm perpetual calendar models. The Royal Oak Mini in “Frosted” gold Although not described as such, the exhibition naturally focuses a great deal on ladies’ watches, one of the recent themes of AP’s marketing. Unsurprisingly, one of the prominent figures in the exhibition is Jacqueline Dimier, chief designer at AP from 1975 to 1999 who conceived of the 29 mm Royal Oak for ladies shortly after the launch of the original “Jumbo” ref. 5402ST in 1972. Exhibition details The exhibition is open daily from 11 am to 8 pm and takes place at AP House Singapore located in the Raffles Hotel Singapore. Entry is free but registration is required; visits can be scheduled at Audemarspiguet.com.
SJX Watches
The Répétition Souveraine is one of the more unusual minute repeaters on the market, combining classical inspiration with an idiosyncratic technical approach that is unmistakably F.P. Journe. Based on the familiar architecture of the Chronomètre Souverain yet fundamentally reworked to accommodate a striking mechanism, it is neither a conventional integrated repeater nor a simple modular add-on. Launched in 2008 with a conventional dial and briefly the thinnest contemporary minute repeater on the market, the latest iteration of the Répétition Souveraine reveals its workings through a smoked sapphire dial, offering a direct view of its flat gongs and strike train while underscoring François-Paul Journe’s distinctive philosophy of clarity, compactness, and mechanical logic. This is our third encounter with the Répétition Souveraine, having already covered the silver-dial variant and the elusive “Black Label” edition. Almost modular Most independents – and many large brands – rely on a handful of external specialists like Le Cercle des Horlogers or decades-old ebauche stocks for their repeaters. As a result, most repeaters take the same, time-tested, approach with only a few exceptions. Most are integrated designs that put the repeater train, hammers, and gongs on the same level as the rest of the movement. The rejuvenation of mechanical matchmaking during the 1980s and 1990s brought with it demand for systems that brands could add to existing movements. Amo...
Worn & Wound
The last few weeks of the year are usually pretty quiet on the new release front, but there have been a handful of last minute limited editions come across the wires recently that are definitely of at least some interest. We just brought you news of a new Doxa LE from our friends at Topper Jewelers in Burlingame, CA, and in what amounts to an insanely quick turnaround, they’re back again with what surely has to be their final release of the year, a new collaboration with Zenith. This watch does one of my favorite things a watch can do, which is to completely hide its coolest feature most of the time, only allowing it to be visible under very specific conditions. It’s the same reason I love the less obvious and more subtle Grand Seiko dial textures – it’s the watch equivalent of a secret handshake. The Defy Extreme Diver Topper Edition is built on Zenith’s contemporary diver platform, an overengineered, 600 meter diver in the Defy line. Zenith has done a nice job of building out their diver selections in the last year or so, almost to the point where it’s hard to believe that they went so long without a true diver in the collection. At the moment, enthusiasts have the choice between the Defy Extreme Diver like the one seen here, or an only slightly more sedate “Revival” diver that’s essentially a one to one recreation of a vintage reference. The shared DNA between the two is obvious, and the way Zenith has positioned these watches within their own cata...
SJX Watches
The 30th anniversary of the Chopard L.U.C. manufacture was one anniversary among many this year, but it will likely be remembered thanks to the Grand Strike, the most complicated watch in Chopard’s history and its first grande sonnerie. Building on the successful Full Strike minute repeater architecture and making full use of the brand’s patented sapphire gongs, the Grand Strike is a chronometer-certified two-train clock watch with a push-button minute repeater. In this context, the presence of the tourbillon is almost a footnote. Initial thoughts I can count on one hand the number of brands that have created their own grande sonnerie wristwatch. It’s one of the few things in watchmaking that’s proven challenging enough to still be rare, even in the days of computer-aided design (CAD) and advanced manufacturing technology like wire erosion. For this reason, the grande sonnerie has a towering cultural presence among watchmakers and collectors, looming above all other complications. For Chopard, the Grand Strike represents the culmination of 30 years of the L.U.C. manufacture, the brand’s haute horlogerie division. The first impression of the Grand Strike is one of extraordinary depth. There’s not much of a dial, save for the minutes scale etched on the inside of the sapphire crystal, and the small concentric sub-dials for the dual power reserve displays. This depth shrinks the watch visually, and it feels dense and compact despite its rather large 43 mm size and...
Teddy Baldassarre
In the watch enthusiast community, we often find ourselves wading deep into the weeds of the most minute details. Typically, this concerns the mechanical inner workings of watches, whether a date window throws off visual harmony, or if the price of a watch is really justified. But as much nuance as there is in choosing a watch to add to your collection, so too is there nuance in getting that just-right fit on your own wrist. We’ve recently dove into the deep end on the subject of how to actually wear a watch, and today, I’m charting a similar, yet deceptively simpler path: how to decide how tight your watch should be. This is more geared towards those folks out there who are just getting their hands on their first watch and need a little guidance before making any rash, link-related decisions. God forbid you’re facing a rubber strap that you’ll be cutting yourself. Down below, I’ll be sharing some quick and fast tips for finding the right fit for the watches in your collection, and some less obvious tips to consider before you go on your merry way. [toc-section heading="Telltale Signs Your Watch Is Too Tight"] First and foremost, your watch is not a tourniquet. If you feel any lightheadedness, numbness, or tingling, remove the offending piece from your wrist expeditiously. Image: WatchUSeek Forum On a less dramatic note, comfort is your guiding light. Ideally, we want our watches to feel like an extension of ourselves, not an uncomfortable obtrusion. The...
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SJX Watches
Sotheby’s upcoming auction in New York brings to light a pair of remarkable Patek Philippe pocket watches with double movements once owned by John Motley Morehead III (1870-1965), an American patron of the brand with exotic taste. Unknown even to Patek Philippe until now, the two watches each include a primary minute repeating base movement with a secondary movement under charismatic doré dials. Beyond their intrinsic rarity, the golden duo are significant from a historical perspective in offering a portal into early 20th-century American watch collecting, when interest began to shift from decorative to technical. The who A chemist who helped form Union Carbide, Morehead seems to have had a penchant for unusual, highly complicated watches. He also owned a triple complication with upside down “American” perpetual calendar, carillon minute repeater, and a double chronograph (as in, two separate chronographs) as well as a rattrapante but with only two seconds hands. The excellent research by Sotheby’s uncovered record of another of Morehead’s watches that was a carillon repeater with two sets of hands, like these watches, but powered by only one movement. Both double-movement watches going on the block at Sotheby’s have a primary movement with minute repeating on the back and a secondary simple movement on the front. The smaller of the two makes do with just a minute repeating base movement, while the larger watch also has a split-seconds chronograph with a minut...
Time+Tide
We're pretty proud of these and so we wanted them all to be in one place for you to see and track our progression.The post Every Time+Tide collaboration ever appeared first on Time+Tide Watches.
Monochrome
For those of us over 20 years old who can read an analogue watch (you might be shocked at how many Generation Alpha kids can’t), we all know what the central hour, minute and seconds hands do. A small seconds sub-dial won’t trip us up, either. Different complications bring different hands, however, and some can […]
SJX Watches
Blancpain has just unveiled its most complex modern-day watch, the Grande Double Sonnerie, to mark its 190th anniversary. This CHF1.7 million grand complication signals Blancpain’s return to the highest tier of haute horlogerie. One of the most technically ambitious chiming wristwatches ever made, the Grande Double Sonnerie incorporates traditional complications: grande and petite sonnerie, minute repeater, flying tourbillon, and retrograde perpetual calendar, but also offers an unexpected twist with two distinct chiming melodies, a Westminster chime plus a a bespoke sequence composed for Blancpain by Eric Singer of rock band Kiss. Initial thoughts It has been some time since Blancpain unveiled a truly headline-grabbing complication. The manufacture made its name in this arena with the 1735 of 1991, but in the decades since, its output has leaned toward more conventional high-end offerings - perpetual calendars, tourbillons, carrousels, and chiming watches - while its commercial momentum has come largely from the Fifty Fathoms and Villeret triple calendar. The unexpected Grande Double Sonnerie is therefore a reminder of what Blancpain can do at the very top level of watchmaking. The Le Brassus-based manufacture tends to be overlooked when speaking of high horology today, but the Grande Double Sonnerie should remind enthusiasts how sure-footed Blancpain is in this regard. Even before considering the many complexities of the timepiece, the watch impresses from the fir...
Hodinkee
The ultimate evolution of Chopard's chiming complications incorporates a minute repeater, grande sonnerie, petite sonnerie, and more in a brand-new caliber with dual certifications.
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SJX Watches
Chopard marks 30 years of the Chopard Manufacture with the L.U.C Grand Strike – its most ambitious complication to date, a minute repeating clock watch with grande et petite sonnerie striking on a pair of sapphire gongs. This comes on the heels of Chopard’s sister brand, Ferdinand Berthoud’s Naissance d’une Montre 3, making 2025 arguably the most significant year for Chopard, product wise, since the 1997 launch of L.U.C. Initial Thoughts For hundreds of years the sound of clocks coordinated human society. In fact, the very word “clock” comes from the Latin word clocca, meaning bell. Before the noise pollution of the modern day, the bells of clock towers could disseminate accurate time over several miles. It is only that many first complicated the first watches, which were made by clock makers during the 16th century, were equipped with strikes. In 2016 Chopard launched its first self-developed chiming watch, the L.U.C Full Strike, a two-train trip repeater with sapphire gongs. It is not much of a surprise, I’ve multiple people speculate that a grande sonnerie was the next step given the design depictions Chopard made with the Full Strike. Even the name, “Full Strike” sounds like the name of a grande sonnerie, not just a repeater. The Grand Strike is class leading technically, it’s only weakness, the middling strike work power reserve is easily forgiven when considering its size. Aesthetically, however, the watch struggles, at least for me, though the si...
SJX Watches
Matching sets are a motif of Phillips’ upcoming Hong Kong auction, with the most spectacular being the Concord Saratoga Splendour, a set of four minute repeating, high jewellery wristwatches representing the four precious stones – diamond, sapphire, ruby and emerald – each with a distinct movement made by Christophe Claret. Also on offer is a set of three watches from Glashütte Original with Meissen porcelain dials, and a Patek Philippe Pagoda quartet. Lot 857, a matching pair of Bovets depicting Hong Kong harbour by day and by night. Image – Phillips Such sets enjoyed popularity at the top end of the market during the 1980s and 1990s, often centred around the four precious coloured stones, diamonds, emeralds, rubies, and sapphires. Perhaps the ultimate example of the matched set is the most complicated Patek Philippe watch, the Calibre 89, that was originally launched as a set of four in yellow, rose, and white gold, and platinum. Unfortunately, many of these sets have since been split up. Can these three escape that fate? Lots 858 to 862 – Concord Saratoga Splendour Set Concord was one of a few brands that saw great, but ephemeral, success during the 1980s and 1990s, in the same vein as Gerald Genta, Ebel, and Corum. In 1995 Concord launched the Saratoga Exor, a minute repeating tourbillon with perpetual calendar and bimetallic thermometer, set with 15.85 carats of baguette diamonds. With a price tag of CHF2 million, it was probably the second most expensive w...
Monochrome
On the occasion of Dubai Watch Week 2025, Chopard unveils the L.U.C Grand Strike, the brand’s most complex watch to date, with a Grande Sonnerie, a Petite Sonnerie, a Minute Repeater and a tourbillon regulator. Just like the brand’s Full Strike minute repeater, its acoustic merits are nothing short of extraordinary, in particular thanks to […]
SJX Watches
The just-concluded Geneva auction season was mostly a plateau with several striking peaks and a few lows. The peaks were marked by desirable timepieces that outperformed by far, yet shared little in common with one another in terms of style or period. The peaks ranged from multiple F.P. Journe watches to a diamond-set Patek Philippe ref. 3424/1 “Gilbert Albert” to the Breguet four-minute tourbillon pocket watch from 1809 to the Instagram-ready Patek Philippe ref. 3970 in “salmon” with Breguet numerals. Despite such diverse taste, the small pool of bidders seemed to have one thing in common: they were all focused on a “trophy” watch. The Christie’s saleroom in the Four Seasons. Image – Christie’s With few exceptions, contemporary watches from mainstream brands were cold, while vintage watches were mostly lukewarm – but as always there were exceptions. An Patek Philippe ref. 570 with a black dial signed “E. Gubelin” sold for an impressive CHF419,100 including fees, or US$523,000, at Christie’s, while Phillips sold a Rolex Daytona ref. 6263 “RCO” (or “Oyster Sotto”) for an equally impressive CHF1.39 million, or US$1.73 million – close to the historical peak for the model. A vintage watch that surprised on the downside was the 1927 Rolex Oyster worn by Mercedes Gleitze when she became the first woman to swim the English Channel in 1927 – a landmark in Rolex lore. Though it sold for CHF1.39 million, or US$1.74 million, there was just one bi...
Time+Tide
The Les Cabinotiers Homage to Epic Warriors Minute Repeater and The Labours of Heracles unite grand feu enamel and hand‑engraving.The post These Vacheron Constantin Les Cabinotiers La Quête métiers d’art pieces tell centuries-old stories appeared first on Time+Tide Watches.
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Monochrome
After its comeback in 2022, Hautlence (an anagram of Neuchâtel) doubled down on unconventional time displays with the Sphere Series 1, followed by the darker Sphere Series 2, both pairing a multi-axis spherical jumping hour with a retrograde minute. Those watches reintroduced the brand’s TV-screen silhouette and reminded collectors why Hautlence sits in the front […]
Worn & Wound
By now the Bamford name shouldn’t be unfamiliar to you. Having just taken a breath from launching their latest collaboration with Oris, the British brand has turned its sights towards Seiko with the release of their Seiko 5 Sports BAMFORD Limited Edition. With Bamford’s track record of highlighting versus cannibalizing its collaborators, the result between the two brands has resulted in a vibrant, eye-catching release that takes inspiration from a variety of sources: Seiko’s archival collage techniques, anime, retrofuturism, and the pursuit of paradise. To best understand this collab, Bamford and Seiko produced a short anime for the release. In it, we see a salaryman at his desk, late at night. Suddenly, his Seiko 5 BAMFORD Limited Edition transports him to a verdant landscape, a sort of Eden outside of the office. While the message behind this video is fairly straightforward, it’s the creative liberty in which the two brands have taken to marry this partnership and solidifying what I have long suspected: Bamford is a concept brand versus a brand who occasionally builds products around a concept. And, as such, Seiko is all the better for it. In terms of the watch’s design, the blue skeleton dial is, of course, what one notices first, and is inspired by George Bamford’s vision of duality, attempting to capture two worlds in one design. Underneath, we see the inner mechanics of the day-date display. Further design choices which highlight Bamford’s imaginations ...
Monochrome
Kari Voutilainen is regarded as one of the greatest independent watchmakers on the scene today. Working from his atelier in Môtiers, Switzerland, the Finnish master watchmaker produces some of the most coveted complications, drawing collectors from near and far to admire his minute repeaters, tourbillons and other in-house delicacies. The latest marvel to emerge from […]
Monochrome
Sometimes in life, as in watchmaking, less is very much more. Boiling things down to the essence can be a very rewarding thing. Who needs tourbillons, chronographs or minute repeaters, when sometimes all you need is a simple two-handed display? But does that mean you also have to take away all creativity? Not at all, […]
Monochrome
Girard-Perregaux has an extensive track record in watchmaking and is one of the most enduring integrated manufactures of the Swiss watch industry. In the 1980s, at a time when the quartz crisis had crippled mechanical watchmaking, the brand was among the first to champion the renaissance of traditional movements. Today, Girard-Perregaux announces the launch of […]
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