Hodinkee
Business News: Richemont Sells Baume & Mercier
Does the deal to sell the storied Swiss brand to Italian jeweler and watch retailer Damiani herald a new era of deconsolidation in the watch industry?
3,975 articles · 45 videos found · page 48 of 134
Hodinkee
Does the deal to sell the storied Swiss brand to Italian jeweler and watch retailer Damiani herald a new era of deconsolidation in the watch industry?
Teddy Baldassarre
"Made in America" is a label that is much rarer to find on products now than it was 100 years ago, and that is especially true when it comes to watches. Once a bustling industry in the U.S.A., watchmaking largely migrated away from its traditional American hubs in the early 20th Century to countries like Switzerland and Japan, which still import oodles of watches to the States every year. However, American watchmaking has been seeing a slow, somewhat quiet renaissance over the past couple decades as a new generation of trailblazing entrepreneurs, from all across the U.S., strive to bring the horological trade back to these shores. Each of them takes a slightly different approach; some, like RGM, make nearly the entirety of their watch, including the movement, in the U.S., while others, like Shinola, import the majority of components but assemble the watches in an American factory, providing dozens or hundreds of local jobs. Here we take a look at 25 notable American watch brands, spotlight their leading models, and briefly examine how "Made in America" each one really is. [toc-section heading="RGM"] Founder: Roland G. Murphy Headquarters: Mount Joy, PA Notable Models: Pennsylvania Series 801, Pennsylvania Tourbillon, 801-A “Aircraft” “RGM” are the initials of Roland G. Murphy, the trained watchmaker and former Hamilton Watch Company technical manager who founded his own watch brand in Lancaster County, PA, one of America’s ancestral watchmaking centers, in 1992...
Monochrome
Swiss-based conglomerate Richemont, owner of multiple jewellery and watch brands such as Cartier, IWC, Piaget, A. Lange & Söhne or Vacheron Constantin, to name a few, has agreed to sell Swiss watch brand Baume & Mercier, which it acquired in 1988, to the Italian, family-run Damiani Group, concluding a strategic review of the long-time Richemont […]
Fratello
In the case of this trio of new Louis Vuitton watches, it’s good to know what the name means. Escale, in French, means “stopover.” LV made a name for itself by producing luxury luggage and steamer trunks. And the art of travel is what served as inspiration for the relaunched Escale models that debuted in […] Visit Introducing: Three Complicated Louis Vuitton Escale Watches - The Escale Minute Repeater, Worldtime Flying Tourbillon, And Twin Zone to read the full article.
Monochrome
British watchmaking company Bremont has made some key changes in the last couple of years, not least bringing on a new CEO in 2023, Davide Cerrato (well known for releasing the Tudor Black Bay in 2012 and for working at Montblanc and Panerai). A new direction was revealed at Watches & Wonders 2024 with an updated logo and a broader […]
Monochrome
The Oris Aquis Date collection made a splash in 2011 as a new generation of dive watches catering to professional divers and landlubbers looking for a resilient sports watch. Characterised by its competent diving credentials and robust architecture, the Aquis Date represents Oris’ more technical, contemporary side, compared to the vintage-inspired Divers Sixty-Five line. Redesigned over […]
Fratello
Oris is on a roll in 2026. We’re only three weeks into the new year, and the popular Swiss independent already presents its third novelty. After an Artelier model dedicated to the Chinese Year of the Horse and a new tuxedo-dial Big Crown Pointer Date, here comes the limited-edition Oris Aquis Date Yangtze Jiangtun. It […] Visit Introducing: The Oris Aquis Date Yangtze Jiangtun Limited Edition - Featuring An Engraved Blue-Green Mother-Of-Pearl Dial to read the full article.
SJX Watches
A. Lange & Söhne launched the Odysseus Honeygold last year and it’s easily the brand’s most luxe sports watch. Presented end to end in 18k Honeygold, this Odysseus is impressively well made, impressively heavy, and impressively expensive. I recently got the chance to spend some time with one of the 100 pieces made, and it was certainly a good experience. Initial thoughts The Odysseus was never a pretty watch, and this isn’t more visually appealing than the titanium or steel version. The design doesn’t have the finesse of its rivals, most notably the Royal Oak or Nautilus. But the Odysseus does have tactile and intellectual appeal, and that translates into physical attraction. The Odysseus is impressive like many Lange watches are thanks to its build quality. In Honeygold it looks and feels even more luxurious. The warmth and weight of the metal give it greater appeal, in fact Honeygold gives this a large-yacht-on-the-Mediterranean type of feel that its counterparts in more common metals lack. Look and feel aside, this has all of the strengths and weakness of the earlier versions. Strengths include the quality of course, as well as good ergonomics, which matter more here because of the weight. One of the weaknesses is the clasp, which is practical and easy to operate, but a little too large for a sports watch that is also supposed to be elegant. With a price tag of US$110,000, the Odysseus Honeygold is very expensive for what it is, even by Lange standards. But wha...
Monochrome
Hublot‘s partnership with Novak Djokovic has always felt more than a simple ambassador deal; it is a meeting of champions. The Greatest of All Times, the 24-time Grand Slam winner and 2024 Olympic gold medallist, joined the brand’s family in 2021, and in 2024, the Big Bang Unico Novak Djokovic, made from recycled tennis racquets […]
Monochrome
For the 32nd time in its (long) history and since 1932, Omega will be the Official Timekeeper of the Olympics. Indeed, the 2026 Olympic Winter Games will be held from February 6th to 22nd in Milano Cortina, Italy, and the Swiss watch brand will record all 116 events across 16 sporting disciplines. To celebrate its […]
Fratello
The platinum Tiffany Timer commemorates 160 years of chronographic heritage. This 40mm platinum chronograph, featuring a dial color that has a special effect on many people, is available in a limited run of 60 pieces. The watch is an exclusive homage to one of America’s first stopwatches made by the famous jeweler. The new chronograph […] Visit Introducing: The El Primero-Equipped Tiffany & Co. Tiffany Timer to read the full article.
Time+Tide
British designer Oliver Gallaugher's Deep Space makes a full orbit, re-emerging in a new shade of blue with a new Swiss movement.The post Oliver Gallaugher downsizes the starry-dialled Deep Space, introducing a new all-blue dial finish appeared first on Time+Tide Watches.
Hodinkee
The indie Swiss brand wraps up its tennis-themed collab with Racquet and designer Carlton DeWoody with a black and neon offering that completes the Grand Slam.
Fratello
Hamilton is more than a steady provider of Hollywood movies. The once-American, now-Swiss brand is also active in the video game industry. It started with the Khaki Field Titanium Automatic in Far Cry 6, and later, the American Classic Boulton appeared in Death Stranding 2: On the Beach. Then, last year, the 38mm Hamilton Khaki […] Visit Introducing: Two Hamilton Resident Evil Requiem Limited Editions to read the full article.
Time+Tide
Sporting an Italian-made movement and hand-engraved guilloché dial, this upscale offering from Venezianico celebrates Italian craftsmanship.The post Venezianico’s new Rendentore Utopia II limited edition is a horological expression of Italian pride appeared first on Time+Tide Watches.
Monochrome
RGM Watch Company is part of a small and exclusive club of American watchmakers that are truly vertically integrated. Based in Mount Joy, Pennsylvania, Roland G. Murphy’s atelier produces multiple in-house calibres and complex, hand-made Guilloché dials via antique rose engine lathes. Teddy Baldassarre is a huge figure in the watch community with over 1.3 […]
SJX Watches
A rare Breguet pocket watch with retrograde perpetual calendar and equation of time illustrates the evolution of the house from its founder’s era to the early 20th century, blending historical motifs with modern concessions. Made in 1932, Breguet No. 2492 is one of just four known examples from a series of equation of time movements produced over nearly five decades by the legendary workshops of Victorin Piguet. In short, it’s a watch with one foot in the 19th century and one in the early 20th. The transitional nature of the watch evidently resonated with collectors, as the watch recently sold for CHF241,300 at Phillips’ Geneva auction in November, some 20% above its high estimate. Context It might be surprising, but Abraham-Louis Breguet’s unexpected death in 1823 had no immediate effect on the firm’s output. The firm produced well over a hundred watches each year, which required a staff of skilled workers, as well as A.-L. Breguet’s family, who understood what a Breguet watch was, and could build one without being managed by the man himself. However, with the old guard’s retirement, and general decline of Parisian watchmaking, things slowly changed. After the Breguet family sold the firm in the late 19th century, turning instead to the more lucrative business of aviation, the firm’s output strayed from A.-L. Breguet’s vision, abandoning Breguet’s signature design language for a medley of styles catering to specific markets. During this time, the brand...
Fratello
You would be forgiven for thinking this new Seiko SPB537 looks somewhat familiar. After all, Seiko made numerous Presage models in this tonneau form factor in the past. However, all of them were discontinued, and no new ones were introduced to the collection. Well, until today, that is! This is the new Seiko Presage SPB537 […] Visit Seiko Brings Back The Tonneau Case To The Presage Line With The New SPB537 to read the full article.
SJX Watches
Foreshadowing Credor’s Watches & Wonders debut in April (located alongside sister brand Grand Seiko), the Goldfeather GCBY991 Imari Nabeshima Porcelain is the brand’s first launch of the year. It pairs an ultra-thin hand-wound movement with a dial made using a traditional – and reputedly highly secretive – Japanese porcelain technique. But now the secret is out, cased in steel and limited to 60 pieces worldwide. Initial thoughts Originally envisioned in the 1970s as a vehicle for precious metal quartz watches, Credor later expanded into a catch-all brand for Seiko’s high-end offerings that didn’t fit the Grand Seiko aesthetic. Over the last few years, however, Credor has refocused and shrunk its catalogue from over 200 references in 2021 to fewer than 70 today, shedding legions of ladies’ quartz models while redoubling emphasis on artisanal crafts. The porcelain-dialed GCBY999 embodies this tighter focus and exemplifies the brand’s new motto: “the creativity of artisans”. Despite the Goldfeather branding – and Credor’s original purpose – the GCBY999 is cased in stainless steel. This is a welcome concession given the current price of gold, which is near all-time highs, especially since Seiko generally charges a higher premium for precious metal models than is typical for Swiss brands. As a result, the GCBY999 is good value within the Goldfeather lineup, despite its artisanal dial. The watch retails for JPY1.98 million in Japan, equivalent to about ...
Worn & Wound
I’m not going to lie to you, I love a bit of intrigue. When I was a child, I would write notes to my mother in invisible ink made of lemon juice. When someone tells me to keep a secret (which is always a surprise, given my big mouth), I can hardly contain my excitement. And, even now, I fancy myself a real James Bond type when I hide the Amazon boxes from my husband before he comes home from work. Luckily for me, Bernhardt Watch Company just announced their Cipher Diver, which sits right at the cross-section of two of my hobbies: watches and subterfuge. Inspired by Thomas Jefferson (and, impressively, made in partnership with Monticello), the watch nods more to the third president’s inventive streak than his political career – including the rotating wheel cipher, a mechanical concept designed to encode messages through a specific alignment of letters across a series of discs. The result is a diver that cleverly allows you to keep a secret message right on your wrist. Beneath the bezel, Bernhardt has included the alphabet printed on UV-reactive ink. By aligning the bezel to a designated hour key and referencing minute markers on the dial, one is able to use the clock’s timekeeping functionality to decode the message. If that’s not some National Treasure type of ingenuity, I don’t know what is. Each diver comes with a UV decoding torch and an initial cipher card, with new encrypted messages released weekly through July 4, 2026 (the 250th anniversary of the Unit...
SJX Watches
Vacheron Constantin kept its team busy during its 270th anniversary year. Having put a tremendous amount of effort into the most complicated wristwatch ever made and a few other genuine novelties, many of the brand’s other releases, including several one-off Métiers d’art creations, were new versions of existing models. The Les Cabinotiers Minute Repeater Ultra-Thin Homage to Epic Warriors is an example of the latter, introducing four one-of-a-kind grand feu enamel references to its otherwise simple (and thin) minute repeater platform. Heroic subject matter The ‘warriors’ set celebrates four famous warriors from across time. The series begins with the Homage to Alexander the Great, a pupil of Aristotle who conquered much of the eastern Mediterranean region (and beyond) in the fourth century BCE. From there, the inspiration gradually moves east, making its first stop in what is now Saudi Arabia, where a warrior poet named Antarah ibn Shaddad, now often known simply as Antar, made his mark about 1,500 years ago. The Antar reference was not available to photograph. No set of warrior-themed watches would be complete without an homage to the most legendary conquerer of all time, Ghengis Khan. That name is actually a title he adopted in 1206, and translates as ‘universal ruler’. The series concludes by looking east, to the land of the rising sun. Sasaki Moritsuna was technically a contemporary of Ghengis Khan, though he died when the future Mongolian ruler was just ...
Worn & Wound
Kurono Tokyo, Hajime Asaoka’s approachable watch brand, has introduced their first new release of 2026 on the very first workday of the year. Nothing like getting right back into the swing of things. The new piece, part of the brand’s “Special Projects” series, introduces meteorite to the collection for the first time. The Inseki features many of the Kurono hallmarks that have made the brand a favorite among enthusiasts over these last several years, while riding a trend in watchmaking in a rather elegant way that still feels appropriate for the brand. The centerpiece of the watch is the gray meteorite dial, taken from the Muonionalusta meteorite which fell in what is now Sweden about one million years ago. The small slab of meteorite, with the familiar striations that make the material so interesting, is surrounded by a white lacquered outer ring where you’ll find Asaoka’s custom “Calligra” typeface numerals, which have been painted in high relief. It’s a really spare execution, accented by hand bent, high polish steel hands, a design detail that has become a Kurono signature. Kurono notes that, as with all meteorite dials, no two are exactly the same. Asaoka, in the press materials for the Inseki, further explains that sometimes the variance in this material results in a piece of meteorite that is not particularly visually interesting. For this release, Asaoka has personally selected each piece of meteorite for inclusion in the Inseki’s run, and t...
Monochrome
One of Johannes Dürrstein’s objectives when he founded Glashütter Uhrenfabrik Union in 1893 was to produce high-quality watches at affordable prices to cater to a broader range of customers. His philosophy of keeping movements simple and cutting down on superlative frills made Dürrstein an early champion of “affordable luxury.” Following the company’s demise in the […]
Monochrome
Perpetual calendar watches are extraordinary mechanisms capable of compressing the idiosyncrasies of our Gregorian calendar, tricky leap years included, into a remarkably small area. Luckily, calendar watches of all denominations have been well represented this year, and we’ve put together a list of six watches that made an impression. Ranging from an unusual yet super-legible […]
SJX Watches
Episode 23 of the SJX Podcast looks at value propositions under US$10,000. It was a mixed year for affordable watches, but the highlights include Tudor, which continued to refine its sports watch formula with the well-received Ranger 36, and several micro-brands that made compelling cases for themselves with distinctive designs and upgraded movements. Key releases from Christopher Ward, Albishorn, and Kollokium demonstrated there’s still room for creativity and innovation at accessible price points, even as some established players moved upmarket. The Grand Seiko UFA, which is priced just on the other side of the five-figure mark, is also compelling and may be worth a splurge. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Youtube.
Time+Tide
Plenty of dive watches made a splash in 2025, but here's what we thought were the best - and we've put our money where our mouths are!The post Going swimmingly: our favourite dive watches of 2025 appeared first on Time+Tide Watches.
Fratello
It’s hard to believe that we’re already looking back on the best watches of 2025. This year flew by! Still, there were a lot of releases, and, frankly, some were great. I stepped back from purchasing vintage watches this year and focused more on new pieces. The reason was clear: modern pieces made an impact […] Visit Fratello Favorites: The Best Watches Of 2025 - Mike’s Picks From Ming, Parmigiani Fleurier, Aquastar, And More to read the full article.
SJX Watches
It was a mixed year for affordable watches, led by segment stalwart Tudor. While appealing offerings from brands like Grand Seiko moved up beyond the US$10,000 mark, the gap was filled by a slate of interesting releases from so-called micro-brands. Here is a selection of affordable releases under US$10,000 that stood out this year. Tudor Ranger 36 - SJX I’m a fan of Tudor – I own several – because its watches are well made and priced even better. But the brand is increasingly appealing because of its gradual evolution towards enthusiast-friendly designs. The Ranger 36 illustrates that. The original Ranger was a little bit too large for this vintage-inspired design. Tudor doubtlessly received feedback to that effect. It took the brand a while, but now the 36 mm version is pretty much spot-on. The compact size fits the design well and the watch also feels good on the wrist. And because the case and bracelet are both entirely brushed, the Ranger 36 also has a low-key look that makes it a practical watch in almost any situation. The “dune white” dial is also a nice touch; it’s a nod to the “albino” dials found on some vintage sports watches (from Rolex rather than Tudor, but that’s a distinction without a difference for most of the brands’ histories). And importantly, the Ranger 36 is the most affordable Tudor with an in-house movement. It’s a solid entry into Tudor’s world of sports watches with high-spec movements. As an aside, Tudor clearly excels ...
Time+Tide
Strictly speaking, this is the least mysterious 'Mystery' watch Franck Muller has ever made - but it's no less impressive.The post Franck Muller ditches subtlety for high jewellery with the Round Triple Mystery appeared first on Time+Tide Watches.
Hodinkee
A data-driven deep dive into the most collectible Rolex ever made.
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