Full show notes: https://www.unpolishedwatches.com/p/bonus-ep-collecting-the-1990s-with

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Today’s a bonus episode with Trevor Wynn, host of the Paré Paré Podcast. Trevor was in Chicago during Memorial Day weekend, so we sat down for a short chat at Huckberry after filming a YouTube video. We talk about Trevor’s brief foray into acting, leaving your passion behind, some of our favorite watches from the 1990s from Rolex, IWC, TAG Heuer, and more, and other updates to Trevor’s collection.

We’ll be back next week with a full episode featuring an interview with an independent watchmaker who recently announced his latest release. Thanks for listening!

Subscribe to the podcast to get future episodes in your feed: Spotify / Apple / RSS

Subscribers also get (1) 10% off in the Unpolished Store, (2) $50 off a service at Watchcheck, and (3) access to all comments and Q&As.

Show Notes:

• Paré Paré on Apple Podcasts

• How we all become sellouts, Decoder Ring

• The Feed is Fake, Vulture

• Benrus Type II, Analog Shift

• The Best Field Watches, Unpolished YouTube

• Cartier Santos SIHH 2002 LE, Tony’s Instagram

• Omega Seamaster Chronograph 007 ‘First Light’ (17mm thick!), Omega

• Modern two-tone Rolex GMT-Master II, Rolex

• A Guide to TAG Heuer Dive Watches, On the Dash

• Shop Unpolished Straps, Unpolished Store

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Subscribers also get (1) 10% off in the Unpolished Store, (2) $50 off a service at Watchcheck, and (3) access to all comments and Q&As.

The Roundup

A couple of quick hits before today’s throwback:

• Quick impressions of the new Tudor Black Bay Chrono 39. The 39 x 13mm case (47mm lug-to-lug) wears great, basically the same as my old Black Bay 58 (above). Yellow’s a big swing, and this one’s somewhere between traffic cone and school bus. But the matte yellow is well done: Bright, not flashy. I’ve said before that I much prefer a matte to a sunburst finish, and that’s certainly true here. It works with the black accents. That said, I would’ve liked to see Tudor introduce an all-new case with more standard and accessible colors. The Bumblebee will be part of its Daring collection, along with the blue and pink before it, and harder to get. Tudor’s an enthusiast brand and doesn’t need to lean into scarcity too much. $6,725 in 2026 is fair. Thanks to Burdeen’s for letting me check out the new Bumblebee.

• Apparently, Worn & Wound has acquired Lorier. The law firm that advised the acquisition broke the news on its press page. I reached out to W&W, and hopefully we’ll get the chance to hear more about it from their side. I’d heard the brand was getting killed by tariffs last year—surely they weren’t alone there—so I’m not sure if that has something to do with this news. I don’t cover microbrands much, but I like many of Lorier’s designs—Vintage-inspired but not too on the nose. And Lorenzo and Lauren were thoughtful brand owners, with an admirable reticence towards social media.

• Programming note: There likely won’t be a newsletter until next Sunday, but I’m going to drop a mid-week “bonus” podcast with Trevor Wynn of Pare Pare Podcast. Make sure you’re subscribed: Spotify / Apple / RSS.

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When Damage Became Tropical

The Ref is a weekly story about a sometimes-forgotten watch or moment in history. Sunday is the perfect time to step away from the feed for a few blissfully naive minutes to remember the watches that were. Ref. 04 is going back in time to discover the origins of tropical. Previous editions:

• Error Proof or California Dial

• The Cartier Watches Nobody Wanted in 1996

Tropical, like any good marketing term, is an invention of salespeople. Nowadays, it’s used to describe any dial—mostly black, though not always—that changes color when UV light reacts with its pigment or varnish.

I’ve owned a few tropical dials. By the time I came to watches, the appeal felt self-evident. But that wasn’t always the case.

When did “tropical” really become a thing that collectors would pay up for? I asked a couple of dealers:

• “I would say around 12-14 years ago,” Adam Golden of Menta Watches texted me. “If you go back and look at auctions at that time, you start to see it, and that’s when you first start seeing real premiums attached to them.”

• Matt Bain agreed: He said the term was used in the early 2000s, but the premiums didn’t start until ~2010.

William Massena gave me the most detailed answer:

“In the late 1990s, [tropical dials] were still considered damaged, then the rise of quality pictures on forums started to make us realize that it was a very similar and specific mark within Rolex and Omega. Gradually with digital camera pic quality improving, we saw that it really was a phenomenon across a wide range of brands. I think the term Tropical was invented by dealers because brown sounded bad.

Auctions

Old auction catalogs are the most publicly available source of information, so that’s where I turned. When something gains enough momentum with collectors and dealers, auctions ride the wave.

The first “tropical dial” I could find at auction came in 2007, when a Red Submariner 1680 sold for Chf 50k, 2x its high estimate:

Looking at the numbers, this feels like the tropical dial’s Ed Sullivan Show moment. By 2008, Rolex GMT-Masters, Subs, Explorers, and Speedmasters were all being described as tropical:

Tropical dials are most commonly associated with sports watches with black dials baked in equatorial heat to a brown that’d make Willy Wonka jealous. But as tropical became trendy, it expanded its reach.

The first Royal Oak I found with a “tropical dial” came in 2011. Unlike the black dials of those mid-century sports watches, a tropical 5402 looks more clearly like damage to the galvanic color and varnish on the Royal Oak’s petite tapesserie.

While it’s the same degradation process that occurs to an old Rolex dial, the raised portions of the Royal Oak dial turn brown more quickly, causing a less even patina.

William’s answer offered another hint: Look at the forums. There, the tropical dial’s big bang moment came in April 2005, a couple of years before the term appeared in auction catalogs. Within days of each other, we see the first mention on TimeZone and Vintage Rolex Forum, two of the largest collecting communities at the time. Both also reference watches from Italian dealers or collectors as the source of their curiosity.

On both sites, the discussion was the same: Collectors still weren’t sure if these were originally brown dials, or black dials that had turned brown. One thread even points out that a prominent dealer at the time listed a brown-dial Submariner 5512, stating Rolex originally made the dial in that color.

William said many collectors also assumed foul play:

“Many collectors, including me, thought that a lot of these dials were too even in coloring to be original (and we were proven wrong later). I came late to tropical collecting, only after serious dealers (Eric Ku, etc.) had sold a lot…I thought it was an Italian job (and sometimes I was right!).”

At first, the term tropical was simply about naming something that happened most commonly to watches that had lived under the sun and palm trees. It wasn’t about adding an adjective to entice another bid or two.

Eventually, dealers picked it up, auctions formalized it, and the market ran with it. Somewhere along the way, the word got stretched beyond its original meaning to capture all kinds of things. Take even the faintest brown out in the sun, crank up the saturation, and a watch is “going tropical.”

In those days, the watch world was also much smaller, and distinctions were readily drawn to give collecting a gotta catch ‘em all feel.

By the time tropical appeared in auction catalogs in 2007, it had a premium associated with it. As soon as that happens, less-savory types find ways to take advantage. People start baking or faking tropical dials.

This bubbled to the surface in 2021 when a tropical Omega Speedmaster became the most infamous tropical dial ever sold, for $3.1 million.

“The tropical dial is the coolest dial. However, I think its collectibility has cooled off since that Speedy at Phillips. That scandal had two victims, the Speedy and the tropical dial, and many people forget that.”

He’s right. I still think about this Rolex Milgauss ref. 6541 from a couple of years ago:

It was one of my favorite watches I saw that auction season, but it passed in the sale. The dial was slightly tropical, and there was obvious wear on the case and rust on the hands. But the entire package felt honest, the type of thing no one would bother to fake. It even came from a former CIA officer.

That’s the appeal of any of these tropical dials, whether today or 20 years ago:

If you’re enjoying these throwbacks:

• Email me: tony[at]unpolishedwatches.com

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• My favorite, tap the heart or leave a comment:

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Before today’s Real Review: We just published the latest YouTube video on field watches, which you can watch here—and please subscribe to the channel! This post may be too long for email, so click the headline to view it in your browser.

For the second year running, A. Lange & Söhne has surprised with a well-proportioned release. The new Saxonia Annual Calendar measures 36 x 9.8mm, offered in 18kt white or pink gold. It’s not a limited edition and costs $63k.

The Saxonia Annual Calendar isn’t perfect and makes some compromises to achieve its wearable size, but it’s one of my favorite releases of 2026. After we take a look at the new pair, we’ll compare to a few competitors, new and vintage, but the Lange does more than enough to stand out.

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What Is the Saxonia Annual Calendar?

The gold Saxonia Annual Calendar (~43mm lug-to-lug) is paired with either an argenté or grey dial, both made from 925 silver.

An annual calendar needs one manual adjustment every year at the end of February. Invented by Patek Philippe in 1996 as a “useful complication” priced between its Calatravas and high-priced complications like a perpetual, it debuted in the ref. 5035.1

Lange introduced the first-gen Saxonia Annual Calendar in 2010, measuring 38.5mm and featuring its Sax-0-Mat micro-rotor movement. A bit of a slept-on watch nowadays, especially the slick grey U.S. boutique edition.

As for the updated Saxonia Annual Calendar, let’s start on the outside and work our way in:

Dial: The Saxonia Annual Calendar looks kinda flat in press images, but it’s not: The three subdials for month, running seconds, and day, are slightly recessed, and circular graining contrasts against the main surface. In keeping with the Saxonia collection, decoration is sparse: big date, applied gold hour markers, gold hands. The applied markers have an additional faceted pyramid on the tip, a thoughtful detail and nod to the previous annual calendar. The vibrant moonphase disc provides the only color needed.

Case: The case uses Lange’s familiar construction: Three parts, with a polished bezel, brushed midcase, and Lange’s distinctive notched lugs.

The bezel is noticeably slimmer than many other models, giving the compact calendar as much dial real estate as possible. The case adds a pusher at 10 o’clock, which advances the calendar with a click—an update that makes the annual calendar easier to use. The additional calendar correctors sit flush in the midcase.

The grey and rose gold is the winner, a combo we’ve seen before from Lange, but one that almost always hits. The white gold, with its matching silver dial, white gold hands and markers, is either boring or tastefully subdued, depending on who’s looking.

I prefer yellow gold watches, but the rose- and white-gold Annual Calendar pair and many, many other releases seem to indicate “the market” disagrees with me; proof, as if we needed more, that the market is not always right.

Movement: Inside is the new automatic caliber L207.1, with 60-hour power reserve. It uses the same foundation as the automatic movement seen in the Saxonia Automatic and Outsize Date (L086.1), which has been around since 2011.

There are the hallmarks of a Lange movement: German silver plates, anglage, black polish, hand-engraved balance cock, an in-house hairspring. Unlike the standard L086.1, there are even some gold chatons!2

It has a full winding rotor, in contrast to the previous Annual Calendar. Let’s look at a couple key differences between the old and new movement.

What the new annual calendar doesn’t have: The previous Annual Calendar used the Sax-0-Mat, Lange’s excellent micro-rotor, and had a couple of features the updated version doesn’t:

• Zero reset: Long a calling card of Lange, its patented zero reset snaps the seconds hand to zero when the crown is pulled out, allowing for accurate time setting.

• Gold rotor: The micro-rotor in the previous Saxonia Annual Cal is solid gold, while the full rotor in the new calendar is gold-plated.

I’ve seen these mentioned as shortcomings, but I think both are basically fine:

• There’s discussion about Lange’s decision to use a gold-plated rotor dating back to 2011, when it introduced its new automatic movement. Back then, Lange said the choice wasn’t about cost savings, but about technical considerations: Gold is soft, and especially when that thin (and winding rapidly), prone to stretching. So, it uses ARCAP for its full rotors, an alloy similar to German silver (e.g., it’s also used on the Odysseus’ Datomatic).

• The zero-reset takes up space, and the new caliber is 30 x 5.7mm. So what, you’re Lange, figure it out! you might say. I guess this is fair, but other technical improvements to the Annual Calendar make the zero-reset less necessary: The power reserve is up to 60 hours (compared to 46 on the previous Annual), and that new pusher at 10 o’clock makes it easier to advance the calendar without interrupting the business of timekeeping.

My biggest critique of the movement is aesthetic:

[Also below: A collector’s tip on the Langematik, the calendar competition, and on wrist impressions of the Saxonia Annual Calendar.]

The wide outer track for the rotor makes the movement appear smaller, leaving less room for Lange’s best-in-class finishing to shine. That said, Lange’s automatic caliber still stacks up favorably to competitors like the Patek caliber 240.

A Brief History of the Langematik (and Why You Should Care)

Lange introduced the Langematik, featuring the base Sax-0-Mat movement, in 1997, retiring it in 2011 for the full-rotor automatic. Today, it persists only in the Langematik Perpetual. Langepedia has said of the Sax-0-Mat:

“To this day, it remains the finest self-winding movement Lange has ever created. Given its craftsmanship, aesthetics, technical ingenuity, and historical mark on the brand, it will be quite hard to surpass.”

Some will mourn the Sax-0-Mat’s final departure from the Annual Calendar, but the smaller version’s size and other improvements ultimately make it difficult to compare the two.

Collector’s tip: Meanwhile, if you’re looking for an early Lange that isn’t being hyped up by Instagram dealers, look at the original Langematiks. This was Lange’s original sporty effort, the Sax-0-Mat is excellent, and the 37mm size is just right.

On the Wrist

The updated Annual Calendar comes on a padded alligator strap. It feels too dressed up for a watch in 2026, but I work from home, so what do I know, except that it’d probably (definitely!) look better on a Matte Calfskin Strap from the Unpolished Store (stone grey for white gold, chestnut for rose, I’d say).

The Saxonia Annual Calendar is wearable but substantial on the wrist. The lugs are also slimmed down, giving it less visual weight. Slightly thicker than an ultra-thin 90s perpetual calendar or Lange’s old time-only 36mm watches, but I want a little oomph from my Lange.

There’s just enough heft to give it that I want the owner to feel like they’re closing the door of a Mercedes, as Günther Blümlein famously put it—but it’s more SL than G-Wagon.

The Calendar Competition

I struggle to think of any true, direct competition for the Saxonia Annual Calendar—a good sign for any new release. The previous Annual Calendar measures 38.5mm, more like a traditional Lange. That said, you can also find them for like $30k.

For a 36mm calendar, natural comps are the ultra-thin perpetual calendars from the 1990s: the Patek Philippe 3940 and its round competitors from AP and Vacheron (I don’t really consider the 5035 and other Patek annual cals as competitors). You could get a later 3940J for around the same price, but (1) the Lange’s case construction is much better and (2) Lange’s movement offers superior performance and finishing.

There are also the modern annual calendars from Patek Philippe: the ref. 5396R is the best comp, but it measures 38.5 x 11.2mm and costs about $4k more. Meanwhile, Patek Philippe itself doesn’t seem to take seriously the rest of its annual calendar offerings, so I won’t either:

Concluding on a Good Annual Calendar

The Saxonia Annual Calendar, along with last year’s 1815 34mm, shows that Lange takes watchmaking for smaller sizes seriously in a way that many other watchmakers don’t.

Here I am comparing a new watch (and a less complicated one at that) to a 3940, one of the most in-demand vintage watches around.

But six weeks removed from the beige halls and fluorescent lights of its Watches and Wonders release, and after spending some more time with it, the Saxonia Annual Calendar holds up:

• Compared to vintage watches: Modern quality, movement finishing, and performance in a compact size the watches of a generation ago can’t match;

• Compared to new competitors: A form factor that most modern complicated watches don’t even try to execute.

A. Lange & Söhne is at its best as a new-old watchmaker, taking the ideas of historic Glashütte watchmaking and bringing them to modern watches. The Saxonia Annual Calendar is proof.

More about the Saxonia Annual Calendar on Lange’s website. I’ve heard that it’s starting to be delivered, so also check out your local boutique. Lange’s new boutique just opened in Chicago, which is where I was able to see it.

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The Ref is a weekly story about a sometimes-forgotten watch or moment in history. Sunday is the perfect time to step away from the feed for a few blissfully naive minutes to remember the watches that were. Ref. 03 is about a moment in collecting that Tudor prefers we’d ignore. Previous editions:

When Tudor released the Monarch at Watches and Wonders, it insisted on referring to the dial as “Error-Proof” style, even though collectors often call the mix of Roman and Arabic numerals a California dial.

I love these little quirks of language, especially when they pit brands and enthusiasts against each other.

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Rolex applied for a patent on an “error-proof” dial in 1941. The application features Roman numerals on the top half, Arabics on the bottom, and a big triangle at 12 o’clock. Meant to be impossible to mess up reading, whether you’re in the dark, upside down, or had one too many martinis.

Some early ads also refer to the Mercedes hands as “error-proof,” presumably because the design made it so the hour and minute hands couldn’t be confused.

These Error-Proof dials can be found on Rolex Bubblebacks from the 1940s, though they’re pretty rare (maybe 1 in 20 Bubblebacks had one?). In ads, they’re described as having recessed numerals that were filled with strong radium lume. “Sports watches,” before some marketing department invented the saccharine term.

Tudor didn’t use the Error-Proof layout in the 1940s, but you can find a couple of rare 80s references that sometimes feature it, mostly the ref. 74000 Prince Date and the ref. 76200 Day-Date.1 They’re hard to find, but doggedly chased by a small group.

A fun, somewhat related bit: I originally thought the Monarch hour hand was a sort of hollowed-out snowflake hand, a nod to its divers that makes sense for the dressed-up watch. But watch sleuth @niccoloy sent the above, a 1940s Rolex with a star-inspired hand that looks a lot like the Monarch hand. Along with the 1945 design trademark, it seems like a precursor to the snowflake hand that would eventually appear in Tudor Submariners.

California Dreamin’

In the 1980s, Japan experienced an economic boom. Instead of spending their money on digital apes and Pokémon cards, they spent it on property, golf memberships, and watches. Specifically, Rolex Bubblebacks. Early Japanese collectors were drawn to its smaller size, variety, and historical importance. Bubblebacks were the first watches to smash together Rolex’s two key innovations, the water-resistant Oyster case and its “perpetual” automatic-winding movement.

For one reason or another, they had a particular affinity for the quirky layout of the Error-Proof dial.

As demand began to outstrip supply, dealers got creative.

By then, Japanese dealers or collectors were going to California to source watches, where the vintage scene was booming on Melrose Avenue in West Hollywood. Not just watches, but Levi’s, Hawaiian shirts—old Rolex watches were part of the vibe.

“Back then, people just wanted a dial that looked cool,” said dealer Ken Jacobs in my in-depth article on Bubblebacks. Ken’s an absolute L.A. legend who was selling watches back in the 80s. It was early in the popularization of vintage watches and Rolex, and the U.S. was “definitely a fashion market,” as he put it.

Los Angeles has always been more about expression and customization than other cities. Think of Tom Wolfe’s classic Kandy-Kolored essay about its custom car culture, which practically elevated hot-rod building to the status of an art.

In short supply of original Error-Proof dials, dial refinishers, especially Kirk Rich in L.A., began to copy the coveted mixed-numeral style. As the dials spread, they became known as “California” dials. At first, it was something of a shorthand for a refinished dial. Nowadays, it’s a nickname for the style that mixes Arabic and Roman numerals.

While original Error-Proof dials have solid colors with that radium lume filling up the recessed numerals, refinished ones can have an assortment of color combinations that’ll often look like a bullseye.

These refinished dials were all common and accepted. Collectors just wanted a watch that looked cool.

Why It Matters

These two moments in history—the original Rolex Error Proof patent from 1941, and the rise of California dials in the 1980s—hint at why Tudor might’ve insisted on calling the Monarch’s dial “Error Proof.” Referring to it as a California dial would be akin to acknowledging this history of aftermarket refinishing in a way most brands prefer not to.

More broadly, brands, especially Rolex, love to create their own lingo. Every innovation is also a branding opportunity. The maybe-not-quite-grand-feu dial on this year’s off-catalog Daytona is just the latest example.

Meanwhile, collectors also love a good nickname. The Italians did it best. Sadly, the melodic Tasti Tondi and Padellone have become the cringey Starbucks, Batman, or Bruce Wayne.

While brands want to tell their version of history, collectors have to keep them honest. Otherwise, we might miss the best, kandy-kolored parts.

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UNPOLISHED STORE

Shop the Unpolished Matte Calfskin Straps. French Calfskin, stitched in the U.S. A matte finish that sits nicely between dressy and distressed, equally at home on the Laurent Ferrier Traveller for Hodinkee or a Patek Philippe 570G. shop.unpolishedwatches.com

Further Reading:

• There Goes (VAROOM! VAROOM!) That Kandy Kolored (THPHHHHHH!) Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby (RAHGHHHH!) Around the Bend (BRUMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM…) (Esquire) — MUST READ!

• Buying, Selling, Collecting: The Rolex Bubbleback (Hodinkee)

• 4+1: Dealer Ken Jacobs On Embracing Vintage Style For 40-Plus Years (Hodinkee)

• Hands-On: The Tudor Monarch (Hodinkee)

• California Love (Revolution)

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Good morning. The Unpolished Canvas Strap is perfect for summer:

• Two of a Kind. There are only three vintage Patek Philippe references with enamel dials: (1) the well-known ref. 2526, (2) its successor ref. 3428, and (3) ref. 2577. Most people know about the 2526, especially since a cardigan-clad blogger once proclaimed it a “watch to pay attention to.” But the 2577 is more obscure/rare. Estimates put total production at just 60 examples beginning in 1956 (compared to a couple thousand 2526s). Unlike the 2526, the 2577 has a manual movement and an angular case that feels very un-Calatrava. It’s funny whenever multiple examples of a rare thing pop up at once, and there are two 2577s for sale:

  • Yellow: Italian auction house Aste Bolaffi has a yellow-gold ref. 2577 in its June sale (est. €25-30k).

  • Rose: Hairspring recently listed a rose 2577 for $345k. There are only four known rose 2577s; one sold for $115k a couple years ago.

• I haven’t gotten more photos of the yellow-gold 2577 yet, but it’s important to look for cracks in these lovely, fragile enamel dials. Largely because of tariffs, I haven’t been focusing much on international auctions lately, but Aste’s catalog is worth a look, with all the standard caveats about watch hunting in Italy. The 2577 is among my favorites, and if it stays within that estimate, it’s a compelling value, especially considering the ask on the rose one.

• Boomer Watches. For more auction action, check out Bonham’s Hong Kong this weekend. One highlight is this Heuer Skipperera (est. $25-38k). The last public result I can remember is from Sotheby’s in December 2024, when one sold for $54k. That one was in obviously better condition, as there’s some degradation especially around the lume plots on the example at Bonham’s. But the Skipperera is super rare—only 30ish known—so exciting whenever one pops up. Vintage Heuers mostly feel like boomer watches, but the Skipperera is bright and fun.

• London Watch Week is happening from June 2–6. Justin Hast and his co-conspirators look to have upped their game for the second edition with a solid roster of brands and programming. Here’s more info.

• I just picked up the new Google Fitbit Air. I’ve been using an Apple Watch Series 2 during workouts for 10 years, so it’s an obvious upgrade and much smaller than a Whoop. Probably the most discreet fitness tracker yet for those of us who would never trade our precious timepieces for a tracking device/AI companion/doomsday machine, but it was hard to resist for 100 bucks. That said, I haven’t worn anything Velcro since I learned to tie my shoes, and it just feels undignified, whether it’s a fitness tracker or a Richard Mille. Let me know if it’s interesting, and I’ll do a < 500-word review in a future newsletter.

Subscribers also get (1) 10% off in the Unpolished Store, (2) $50 off a service at Watchcheck, and (3) access to all comments and Q&As. Paid subscribers are reading:

The Market’s Hot; Time to Stop Collecting

There’s a word we use in this hobby that does a lot of work it probably shouldn’t: Collecting. I’m a watch collector; this is my collection; Unpolished is a newsletter for collectors. It makes acquisition sound intentional and curated, implying some level of taste, knowledge, or restraint. A pretty good trick for what is, at its core, buying objects we don't need.

It was invoked frequently during all the Discourse about Royal Pop. The Flippers were waiting in line, which was all very sad because Real Collectors, whoever those are, couldn’t get their hands on the plastic tchotchke.

In my days at the Mothership, we had a rule against writing that someone “collects for the right reasons.” The right reasons, according to who?

I’ve never been totally comfortable with the word “collecting,” and I feel like it can do the most damage in times like this.

A few summers ago, I was in Italy after Geneva Watch Days when I was caught in a torrential downpour. I had a 1970s Cartier Tortue on my wrist. An elegant watch that exuded a certain sprezzatura for an Italian holiday, I must’ve thought at the time. The rain came heavy and fast, and I started to see some fog on the crystal. It made me nervous. These 1970s Cartiers aren’t particularly well-made—mass luxury, as much as that phrase isn’t a contradiction in terms. We left Italy unscathed, but I sold my Tortue a few months later.

The spritzing Italian rain didn’t care if the Tortue was rare, had a Paris dial, or if it came on its original deployant. All it knew was that it was wet, and a delicate Cartier from the 1970s doesn’t really like that, thank you very much.

Two more quick anecdotes:

• Earlier this week, I met up with a subscriber who was visiting Chicago from Romania.1 He was visiting the U.S. for two weeks and brought only his 36mm Rolex Explorer from the 2000s (ref. 114270).

• I played golf last weekend with another friend who slipped off his modern Explorer (ref. 124270) and stuffed it in his bag before teeing off:

Your travel watch, your golf-bag watch, these might be the most honest watches in your entire so-called collection. Banging around with some golf tees, the exact opposite of my dainty Tortue. Personally, I’ve been wearing my Black Bay 58 on an Unpolished Canvas Strap (Shop This Story!) as the temps have climbed above 80 degrees.

It’s not that you should buy a “summer watch”—watches don’t know or care what season it is. And a Rolex Explorer or Tudor Black Bay 58 are hardly only summer watches.

But summer strips away the pretense.

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Watches are hot right now, maybe too hot:

• Indie collector NYCWatchGuy recently wrote a “bull case for watches.” His basic claim is that we’re still in the early innings of watches moving from a “niche collector market into a global culture market.”

• Meanwhile, WatchPro asked if watches are having another 2022 moment. That was peak hype, when a panda Daytona was supposedly worth $50k, and the world was introduced to MoonSwatch. According to WatchCharts, the pre-owned market peaked in April 2022.

NYCWatchGuy’s argument has coalesced over the past couple of months as Watches and Wonders gave way to million-dollar auction results, which gave way to Royal Pop. He’s not wrong: Watches are becoming about culture, the rich getting richer, social media, scarcity, community.

But this is also when “collecting” can do the most damage.

In last weekend’s article comparing Cartier prices from 1996 to today, I noted that the recently discontinued watches nobody wanted in 1996 are the only ones that outperformed the market.

The obvious question followed in texts and DMs: So what are the recently discontinued but not-yet-recognized watches?

Besides the Tudor P01, your guess is as good as mine.

And that’s exactly the point.

It’s inherently speculative. I don’t worry much about a $3.8m Rexhepi—he’s become the Chosen One. I worry more about a $500k Auffret, or a 1991 Paris Crash doubling in price faster than you can roll your eyes at the word maison (December → May). When prices climb, and auction records get smashed every other week, the language of “collecting” is used to make chasing or speculation feel like curation.

In the long run, NYCWatchGuy’s bull case is probably right. Watches are cultural objects now, sucking up all the hype, money, and speculation that comes with it. But these markets move in cycles.2

All this talk about watches as an asset class insists they’re “stories, social signals, membership cards, portable culture, and in some cases, financial assets wearing a costume,” as NYCWatchGuy puts it.

Maybe. But that stuff comes and goes.

They’re also just watches. And if it’s not something you can wear on a flight from Romania to Chicago or throw in your golf bag for an afternoon, then there might be a better way to spend your money to get whatever it is you’re looking for. A watch can be all those things, but that doesn’t help much when you’re stuck in a rainstorm.

In the summer, everything slows down. Dealers move inventory, auction houses go quiet, the guys driving up the price of a Pepsi GMT-Master II are busy “summering” in the Hamptons.

I hope it quiets down this summer. Because if it’s starting to look a bit too much like 2022, we know what came after that:

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Happy Memorial Day to those in the U.S. Before we get to today’s main event:

• TAG Heuer Formula 1 for the Indy 500. I’ve been wearing this new release a bunch since it’s race weekend. It’s the first time I’ve had extended wrist time with an F1 Solargraph. Too expensive for what it is, but overall it’s harmless fun—the compact 38mm case wears nicely. The Indy 500 LE comes on the bracelet, and I wish they’d added one of the rubber F1 straps in the kit since it’s so much of the original vibe. It looks like the LE (limited to 1,110) is still available through some Indianapolis retailers. Thanks to the local subscriber who gave this to me!

• If you like vintage sports watches, Loupe This is selling 40 watches from Patrick Parrish’s collection. Patrick’s a design dealer who also runs the Secret Watch Shop out of his studio in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. I’ve visited before, and I love his eye for design and approach to collecting. A cool selection of Rolex, Breitling, Heuer, and more. One of my favorites is his Jaeger-LeCoultre Cornes de Vache. Here it is on my wrist from a visit to Brooklyn:

Here’s what it was like to collect Cartier 30 years ago.

“The Ref” is a weekly story about a sometimes-forgotten watch or moment in history. Sunday (Monday) morning is the perfect time to step away from the feed for a few blissfully naive minutes to remember the watches that were. Ref. 02 is about a moment when Cartier took center stage in the collecting world.

The Magical Art of Cartier is an auction catalog I recommend everyone pick up on eBay. In 1996, Antiquorum held a thematic Cartier sale, encompassing the “magnificent creations of this revered Parisian Maison from its inception in 1847 to the present.”

Antiquorum pioneered the thematic auction, beginning with The Art of Patek Philippe in 1989, and followed by sales dedicated to Breguet, Vacheron, British horology, and Cartier. Today, the catalogs are reference material.

It’s been 30 years since Magical Art, and with Sotheby’s selling hundreds of special Cartiers across its spring sales, it’s a good time to revisit that 1996 auction.

We’ll make a few direct comparisons of results between 1996 and 2026, see if the biggest results from 1996 hold up today, and end with a few collecting lessons.

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First, I texted dealer Davide Parmigiani to ask if he was at the 1996 sale. Of course he was! I asked who else was there:

“Barracca was there for sure, Demesy, Wingate, [Dr. Helmut] Crott—all the dinosaurs including myself….”

Here’s how he described the scene:

“It was the golden era of Patrizzi, he was the absolute king of auctions at that time. The auction took place at the Hotel de Bregues in Geneva [now the Four Seasons], which was the room for all Antiquorum auctions. It was a sumptuous event with all the most important collectors of the period, of which you need to think most were Italians.

The room was full and the atmosphere was fabulous. After the sale, which was a great success, there was a big party. I remember I bought some pieces for clients but none for myself, too expensive!

Today, Christie’s holds its auctions at the Four Seasons in a ballroom decorated by massive chandelier, but Hotel de Bregues is perhaps best known for its Chf 50 club sandwich.

1996 vs. 2026

Magical Art featured 622 lots—mostly watches, but some jewelry. In addition to historical pieces, Cartier also made a few watches specifically for the auction.

Most notable were a series of Tank Guichets in yellow gold, rose gold, and platinum, three each. Remember, this was before the CPCP years, and Cartier hadn’t made the Guichet since the 1930s, when it made only a few.

Let’s start there.

[For perspective, the S&P 500 has grown 18x over the last 30 years.]

1/ Platinum Tank Guichet

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Good morning. I’m helping to organize an event at Huckberry Chicago this weekend with Trevor of Pare Pare Podcast, who’s visiting from L.A. Drop me an email, and I’ll reply with the RSVP link: tony[at]unpolishedwatches.com. I know it’s a holiday weekend, so don’t worry if you’re traveling—we’re also working on events for June and July.

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ICYMI

The Roundup

• AP Pre-Owned. While poking around Audemars Piguet’s IP filings to debunk the idea that Royal Pop was some sophisticated legal gambit, I stumbled across a more interesting trademark filing: The Watch Keepers. Filed in May 2025, it’s described as an “online marketplace for buyers and sellers of second-hand watches.” AP’s pre-owned program has been a long time coming (I’ve mentioned before some of the hires made). The filing hints at a centralized online marketplace for pre-owned AP. As with all online marketplaces, the tricky bit is how involved the middleman will be. If it’s an AP-branded site, presumably it will want to provide certification and warranty on all watches. It’d be tough for AP to push a program onto retailers, especially since it doesn’t really have any retailers. The CPO-by-retailer model works for Rolex because Rolex makes 1m+ watches a year, so there’s plenty of stock to go around. But AP makes ~75k watches a year, so a more centralized website/program that has real selection seems to make sense.

• Christopher Ward opens its fourth U.S. showroom here in Chicago. It’s just down the street from the new Geneva Seal Gallery in Fulton Market, which is turning the West Loop into a real destination for watches. Make an appointment here.

• Bremont (finally) gets a win! Maybe you saw those two Navy jets crash at an Idaho air show—all four safely ejected. That’s good news for Bremont! Four more people who can now buy the Martin Baker I, only available to pilots who have used an MB ejection seat.

• The Pocket Watch Agenda. Julie Brener Davich, who writes a newsletter about auctions, asked me if there was a connection between all the big pocket watch auction results and Royal Pop. I said no!:

  “The entire vintage and ‘collectible’ watch market is on fire—like, as crazy as Covid. Broadly, historically or horologically important watches of all eras that are in good condition are shooting up in value, and other stuff is getting left behind. Some collectible wristwatches have gotten so expensive that they’re basically reaching art prices anyway and people aren’t wearing them, so why not get into pocket watches? In many cases, there’s more horology and history than a wristwatch.” ()

  I know there are trend pieces about how The Pocket Watch Is Back, but I think the run-up in vintage pocket watch prices is pretty much unrelated to—and predates—the Royal Pop.

• Aimless Men. Fashion writer Amy Odell picked up my Swatch dispatch and called the guys showing up to Swatch stores around the world “masses of aimless men,” perhaps the most sadly accurate description I’ve read. (Back Row)

• Two Swiss CEOs gave interviews this week—Patek Philippe’s Thierry Stern (Hodinkee) and Swatch Group’s Nick Hayek Jr. (BBC)—neither came off well. Humility, it turns out, is not a Swiss complication (WatchPro clipped and transcribed Hayek’s interview here).

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Market Check-In: Neovintage Blancpain

U.K. dealer Subdial is hosting a Blancpain Villeret exhibit in London over the next few days. Alongside the exhibit, they’re selling a bunch of Villerets in this week’s drop. I wrote about Blancpain’s Six Masterpieces from the 1990s a few years ago for the Mothership—read it for the full history—and they’re still some of my favorite neovintage watches.

When Jean-Claude Biver took over Blancpain in the 80s, they started by pursuing six complications: complete calendar, ultra-thin, tourbillon, perpetual calendar, minute repeater, and chronograph. These became the Six Masterpieces. They’re all 34mm, which is slightly too small for mainstream tastes, so they haven’t popped like neovintage complications from Patek Philippe, Vacheron, or AP (also Blancpain simply doesn’t have the name recognition—no one was rioting for the Scuba Fifty Fathoms).

The cases are slim and the lugs thin, but a stepped bezel gives it some structure. The dials are also flat, which leaves some wanting more. To me, it works better on the QP than on the chronograph or tourbillon (the tourbillon looks like an open-heart Seiko you’d see for 30% off at Macy’s—sorry!).

The Perpetual Calendar ref. 5395 is still the best value in neovintage QPs, and prices haven’t moved much over the past few years. Getting into a perpetual from AP or Vacheron requires 2x the budget nowadays. The Six Masterpieces use an F. Piguet automatic caliber as a base, adding complication modules on top. Here are a few masterpieces on the market right now:

• Subdial has a naked yellow gold 5395 for £8,750 (~$11.5k). The closest thing you can get to a “beater QP.” I think box and papers matter more with neovintage than true vintage—if you’re a modern buyer branching off into neovintage, it’s what you expect. But if the price is right, who cares?

• The Six Masterpieces were also offered on a Gay Frères bracelet, and these command a big premium. Danny’s Vintage Watches has a 5395 on the original solid-gold Gay Freres bracelet listed for $27k. But the Villeret is perfectly fine and perhaps even preferred on a strap.

• Subdial’s also got a 90s Minute Repeater for £48k. The minute repeaters are a cool party trick, but sound like sh*t—very tinny.

• Collectors Corner NY has a platinum Ultra-Thin ref. 0021 listed at $7.3k. It’s a little boring—I prefer the chronometer ref. 7002 with Breguet numerals (here’s one for $8k).

Along with the Six Masterpieces, Blancpain also started to mix and match complications:

• The QP Minute Repeater ref. 5335 with Jean-Pierre Hagmann case featured in my auction preview sold at Phillips for Chf 70k.

• Subdial has a pair of QP Chronographs (ref. 5585) in steel and yellow gold, both around $20k. A ton of watch for that price. Estimates put total production at ~400 pieces.

• Tahoma Watches also just listed a rose QP Chrono, so I asked him to send over a few photos. Besides the rare two-tone, rose is the hardest to find. The only more accessible perpetual calendar chrono I can think of is the IWC Da Vinci, but those swiveling lugs are…an acquired taste.1 Tahoma’s asking $24k for this rose 5585:

So much of the neovintage market has boomed the past few years, but Blancpain has been stable. The size, design, and the simple fact that they say Blancpain on the dial keeps them more of a deep cut than anything with real “investment” potential.

If you just want a watch you can wear and enjoy, that’s great.

I also know dealers can scream about the “value” of watches like this. A QP CHRONO FOR $20K!! If you don’t really get it, that’s fine. I like some of the Villerets—the QP, complete calendar, and split chronograph, along with the cousin ref. 7002—but I find the tourbillon and chronograph lacking.

You can also find special dials and genuinely interesting limited editions if you’re patient. Subdial sold this Constellation that had enough diamonds for Elton John to buy one. There are also cloisonné enamel Villerets, stone dials, etc. Here’s a favorite 90s Blancpain I’ve seen this year:

Finally, props to Blancpain for collaborating with a secondary market player to tell the Villeret story. It takes some guts to put your name on a project that’s offering a 90s Villeret QP for $10k when the modern version will set you back $61k.

If you’re in London, get tickets for the Blancpain Villeret Exhibit here.

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I got to the Oakbrook mall, 20 miles west of Chicago, about 90 minutes before the Swatch Store was set to open at 10 a.m.

As I pulled up, a police officer was already on a megaphone, announcing that the store wouldn’t be opening today. A few hundred people were standing around anyway. You can’t camp overnight at the suburban outdoor mall, but they started showing up as early as 4 a.m. to wait in line.

Are you the store manager? I asked the guy I’d seen talking to the group of 6-8 police officers gathered.

He said no, avoiding eye contact and shuffling away as fast as he could.

I called after him, explaining that I wasn’t trying to buy a Royal Pop (I wasn’t mad), I just cover watches. That softened him, if only a bit, and he confided that he is the manager. He was visibly frustrated; he talked about how the launch could’ve been handled better—a pre-sale lottery, online sales, or communication about allocation at each store. They should’ve done it differently, he said, perhaps not clear who “they” is, though there’s plenty of blame to go around.

As we talked, the police taped a few signs to the door:

SWATCH WILL BE CLOSED TODAY, 5/16/2026

There were some groans, some boos. People started to disperse, but not really. Some of them didn’t believe, or didn’t want to believe, that it was over before it’d even begun.

At least while I was there, the scene at the Swatch Store in suburban Chicago was tame compared to the clips we’ve all seen as the time zones ticked around the world and the Royal Pop went on sale in Tokyo, Dubai, Milan, New York. Closing the store for the day was the only reasonable decision.

I stuck around for 30 minutes before deciding I’d seen everything I needed to. I talked to onlookers, a mix of high schoolers and adults in hoodies, sweatpants, and lots of logos. One guy showed me his iced-out “Santos” and told me he was getting into making “custom jewelry for rappers,” showing me photos of a few chains he’d made for local talent.

At some point, Swatch posted on Instagram, asking people to “kindly not rush to our stores.” I don’t think anyone in Oakbrook got the message.

‘Resale’s only gonna go up now’—guy in the grey hoodie (you can hear it if you play the video).

I posted a quick video, and my DMs started overflowing with messages and videos from people who’d been there at 4, 5, 6 a.m. Videos of people rushing and banging on the store’s doors, lots of yelling, shouting AP, AP, AP, and tussles between police and onlookers.

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C.D. Peacock is in the same mall. It’s one of the best watch retail experiences I’ve seen.

Since I was in the neighborhood, I walked the 600 steps from Swatch to C.D. Peacock. Almost as soon as I walked in, I started overhearing conversations about the Royal Pop. It’s all anyone wanted to talk about as I took another look at the new Tudor Monarch. In the pre-owned selection, I noticed one pre-owned Royal Oak for sale (price: $260,000).

Up on the second floor, I saw a group of three teenagers sitting at the bar. C.D. Peacock has a nice bar, and they do a pretty good flat white. More importantly for a group of 16-year-olds, it’s free.

The trio of high schoolers all had the same haircut—if you’ve been around teenage boys recently, you know the broccoli cut. They all had the same Essentials hoodie and Yeezy slides.

I finished my flat white and went over to ask them if they were at the Swatch Store. Of course they were. They showed me some videos on their phones.

There was a Snapchat of them rolling up at 6 a.m. Hundreds of people sprinting to the Swatch Store, hopping the ropes and fence barricades the Swatch Store had set up the night before, as if those would’ve been enough.

The high schoolers told me they were caught in the middle of the mob when people started rushing the door. They showed me the scuffs on their slides. One of the kids told me he was punched in the stomach by a police officer.

If you got a Royal Pop, were you going to keep it or resell it? I asked them. Two of them immediately said they’d resell. “It’s all about the market,” one of them said. The third was convinced Swatch was selling an accessory that would let you convert it into a wristwatch (they’re not).

We talked for a few more minutes. It’s their last week of sophomore year. I asked if they were going to try again on Sunday. One of them said yes.

“The price is gonna go up on the market now,” he said, listing off the Swatch stores that were closed for the day.

He might be right, for now at least. eBay shows dozens of completed sales for over $2,000.

Swatch completely bungled the release, just as it did in 2022 with the MoonSwatch. They had to know what was coming, and either didn’t plan for the Royal Pop, or were willfully ignorant about how it might go down on May 16.

At Oakbrook, it sounds like the extent of the preparation was putting up a few ropes that merely suggest people queue up in an orderly fashion like a TSA line at the airport. AP may be less culpable (and it’s donating its share of profits to a watchmaking initiative), but its name is still on the dial.

Driving home, I thought about what I, or anyone covering watches, could’ve done differently. Here’s what I came up with.

We let Swatch and Audemars Piguet cloak the Royal Pop in the language of democratization and accessibility. Opening up watches to a new generation of enthusiasts. Opening up watches to women.1

We nodded along and amplified these ideas. We chose to forget or ignore that these are companies. Not brands or maisons or manufacturers, but companies. In the case of Swatch, a publicly traded company, and not one without issues. AP is privately held, but there are still reports of tension among its minority shareholders.

For a few days, it was about the fun, accessible, colorful watches. But Swatch wanted more than that. They want the hype and spectacle, which is what they got. MoonSwatch showed that the line between hype and a teenager getting punched is, sadly, thinner than we’d like to admit.

They had every reason to be ready this time. The only explanation for why they weren’t is that they wanted this, or at least some version of it.

It’s easy to say that Swatch and AP got what they deserved. But a lot of us in watches played along. For views, clicks, followers, subscribers.

And we got what we deserved, too.

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It Wasn’t a Legal Strategy

I’ve seen this totally ridiculous idea that Audemars Piguet collaborated with Swatch because they lost some trademark battles in the U.S. and Japan. AP lost protection for its iconic Royal Oak design, and the market was about to be flooded with cheap knock-offs, so AP had to create a cheap version itself—or so the thinking goes.

The lawyer in me can’t take it, so I’d like to briefly debunk it:

• AP already won a lawsuit in 2014 against a cheap Royal Oak knock-off, with a U.S. federal court awarding it $10m in damages. That decision focused on the similarities between the knock-off’s bezel and screws to the Royal Oak’s design. In other words, AP won because the court said its bezel design was distinctive and worthy of protection. With that decision, AP was confident it could walk into any courtroom and use the exact blueprint against any copycat to protect its octagonal bezel.

• In 2020, AP filed two new trademark applications, seeking to protect detailed 3D drawings of the Royal Oak on bracelet or on strap:

• These trademarks sought broader protection for the Royal Oak. Not just the bezel design, but the case, dial, everything else that makes the Royal Oak the Royal Oak.

• The U.S. trademark office ruled against AP, saying (in part) that trademark law doesn’t protect functional elements of a design. For example, a round dial (as seen on the Royal Oak) is well-established as an efficient way of timekeeping and thus not protectable.

• The final nail in the coffin for this little theory is the design of the Royal Pop itself. If this were a legal gambit, the collab would have been entirely different. In those 2020 filings, AP was trying to protect elements of the Royal Oak that made it a wristwatch, e.g., the way the case and bracelet are integrated. Those drawings are wristwatches.

• But the Royal Pop completely abandons the wrist. It practically distills the design down to just the octagonal bezel and screws, which AP already has strong protection of, thanks to its 2014 victory.

Finally, anyone who’s ever worked in a company knows that no company would let the guidance of lawyers drive a massive campaign like this. In my experience, lawyers are mostly ignored, or at best, treated as a sporadically helpful nuisance.

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Postscript. I was asked by just about everyone this week about Royal Pop. My mom texted me after seeing it on the Sunday evening news:

The Wall Street Journal reached out to me earlier in the week. Here’s what Sam Schube had to say about the Royal Pop (before said chaos ensued).

Finally, I recently published the latest YouTube video about my “Holy Trinity” of 90s dress watches:

A few relevant links:

• Patek Philippe vs. A. Lange & Söhne: 1990s Rematch

• Collector’s Guide: The Chopard L.U.C 1860, and Making One of the Best Automatic Movements Ever

• Unpolished Guide to Selling a Watch

• How to Collect: Neo-Vintage Watches

• How to Collect: Vintage Rolex Daytona in 2026

• How to Actually Develop Good Taste

I’ve been using eBay since law school, when I’d scroll listings instead of listening to a professor drone on about civil procedure minutiae. I’ve bought 12 items so far this year—ranging from $4.99 to a few thousand bucks.

The numbers tell you why it’s still worth your time: eBay had 478 million visits last month. Chrono24 had 4.5 million. While Chrono24 is mostly dealers, eBay also has estate sellers, pickers, and original owners with no idea what they have.

Maybe you find eBay intimidating. The bidding, the bad photos, the design that hasn’t changed since Bear Stearns collapsed. Even in this era of $200k wall clocks, it’s still a fertile hunting ground if you know how to look.

This guide is for enthusiasts who want to hunt for vintage watches on eBay. How to search, how to deal, how to not lose your shirt taking a risk on a vintage Mido that you swear had a clean dial under that scuffed-up crystal.

I spoke with a few dealers and one watch collector who works at eBay. Their tips, plus my own checkered experience, are below.

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How to Search

As with most things online, it starts with the search bar. So empty, so full of possibility. Crafting a search is a balance between broad and narrow. Something too broad like “Movado,” and you’ll scroll through a mountain of Museum watches just to find one redialed M95 chronograph. Too narrow, and you’ll miss the original-owner M95 listed simply as a “Movado Watch.”

“Sometimes I don’t use any search term at all or just search by brand,” says dealer Ryan Thomas, a prolific eBay seller known as Lucky Loupe (17k items sold!). Generally:

• “The information you can read on the outside of the watch is pretty effective,” Ryan said. For example, if you search Omega Seamaster steel that’ll probably capture 90% of potential watches.

• “People who are listing the best deals don’t know the specifics of what they have”—year, reference, movement, even model name. If your search is too specific, you’re missing the hidden gems.

Saved Searches

The most important feature on eBay. After any search, you’ll have a “❤️ Save This Search” option. Set up operators and filters (which we’ll go through below) before you hit save. Also, sort by Time: Newly listed, so you can check every few days and scroll in reverse chronological order.

• Email alerts: By default, you’ll get daily email alerts. If there’s a truly good deal, that’s too slow, but good enough for everything else. I only have email alerts for narrow saved searches that I know get a few hits per year. Otherwise, they’re mostly annoying.

Search Sold Items: Before searching for items that are for sale, look at similar items that have actually sold. Run a search as you normally would, then look for this filter:

Sellers can price however they want, so filtering by sold items lets you see what’s actually moved in the past 90 days.

In addition to real market prices, you can also see how quickly something moves. Here, you can see an Air-King ref. 14000 is selling every day or so, showing it’s relatively liquid. Useful info whether you’re hunting on eBay or elsewhere.

Search Operators

You can put a lot more than words in the search bar. eBay uses a system of Boolean-style operators. As I write this, there are 2.58 million watch listings, and roughly 2.57 million are probably kinda crappy.1 Here are a few search terms to narrow them down.

• Quote marks: Search for an exact match, e.g., "Omega Speedmaster 3510.50” will only show listings with that exact string. The most powerful, but risks missing imperfectly listed watches.

• Parentheses ( , ): “Or” logic, so you can search for multiple terms at once. eBay treats the comma inside the parens as “Or”. E.g., the above returns possible variations of Rolex Air-King in a single search.

• Minus Sign (-): Before a word excludes it. E.g., I have a search for “Omega Seamaster Chronograph -terra”. I like old caliber 321 Seamasters, but don’t want to scroll through the mess of modern Aqua Terra Seamasters, so this excludes those.

• Asterisk (*): Wildcard, acts as a placeholder. E.g., “Vintage Chrono*” will return results for “Chronograph,” “Chronographe,” or “Chronometer”.

Asterisks or parentheses can accommodate common misspellings/typos, one of the oldest eBay tricks in the book (”Breitling” vs. “Breitlng”).

By default, searches only work on listing titles, but there’s an “include description” box under the search bar that broadens it to the item’s description.

Filters

After you run a search, you’ll get a bunch of filters on the left. Use them, but not too much.

“Often, sellers don’t even know how to use those when listing a watch,” Ryan said. When listing on eBay, you’re presented with dozens of checkboxes to describe an item’s features. Only two are required: (1) Category (watches), and (2) condition (new/pre-owned, with variations of each).

Remember that there’s a human on the other side of every listing, and usually they wanna get their item up as quickly as possible. Even if they have an automatic watch, they might not check the box for Mechanical (Automatic).

• Not Specified: Every filter also has a “Not Specified” option. Checking this box is one way to make sure you’re not filtering out too much. For example, when I search for the Hamilton Khaki, I want to filter out quartz, but I don’t want to filter out the watches that might be mechanical, so I also check Not Specified:

Here are a few filters I use to varying degrees:

• Movement: Unless you’re searching for a specific quartz watch, you can filter out quartz movements.

• Case size: This can be a good way to filter out today’s too-big watches, though, of course, you’re relying on someone else’s ability to properly use a ruler.

• Item Location: More below. I change from Default to Worldwide, but many I spoke to limit searches to North America, especially nowadays.

• Year Manufactured: To skip over modern stuff, I’ll limit to older decades. For example, here’s how I set this filter for a vintage Movado search:

❤️ Let’s look at our first saved searches, a few favorites:

Below the paywall: Saved searches to get you started on your hunt, plus how to “read” a listing, seller profiles, and what not to buy on eBay.

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Back in 1998, A Lange & Söhne was basically a startup. It made beautiful watches in the small town of Glashütte, Germany, but was still a disruptor to the well-established Swiss watchmakers.

Lange launched in 1994 with a lineup of fancy watches in precious-metal cases. Even 32 years later, it has just the one serially-produced steel watch, the Odysseus. One retailer, Pisa Orologeria, convinced Günter Blumlein to produce a small run of steel Lange 1s (~20), but that’s about it.1 Then, as now, Italian dealers can be quite charming and persuasive.

Except for one little-known watch: Reference 206.S26.

As a young company, Lange executed everything to the highest degree. If someone brought their nice new Lange 1 or Pour Le Merite in for service, Lange didn’t want them walking around with something else on their wrist—what if it was Swiss?

The Lange 1815 (ref. 206.S26) was a service watch or loaner for clients while their actual Lange was being serviced. It’s similar to the old Hublot “Not for Sale” or LIP “Montre Apres Ventes” service watches.

But since this was Lange, it was executed to the same high level of its standard watches: inside is a caliber L941.1, with the same German silver three-quarter plate and hand-engraved balance cock, also engraved “service” below the serial. But it features a 36mm stainless steel case and a black dial with white numerals. A few years later, Lange introduced the white-gold 1815 (ref. 206.029), which had a similar dial, but the service watch was like nothing else at the time.

I’ve seen estimates of 100-150 service watches, though no one really knows. There’s practically no evidence of them anywhere.

The service-watch program ran for just a few years, beginning in 1998—Langepedia says the program lasted just two years. Supposedly, it ended partly because clients were prone to “losing” their service watches and offering to pay for them. I suffer from a good bit of Catholic guilt from 16+ years of Papal education, but a steel 1815 (in 36mm!!) is the type of watch that’s worth a confession.

In 2019, Sotheby’s was set to offer a steel 1815 service watch at auction, but it was removed from the sale. Perhaps Lange acquired it, or arrangements were otherwise made? SJX covered it at the time, and it’s the only place I can find public photos of any service 1815.

These watches were technically loaners, owned by Lange, and weren’t supposed to be kept, so Lange may have a claim to the property. Oh, and if you do have to send it on to service for Lange? There’s a good chance you’ll never get it back.

But a steel 36mm Lange with a black dial? Basically a dream watch for me.

Today, it’s said that some Lange employees still wear steel watches around the manufacturer for testing purposes.

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What members are reading:

From this week:

• What dealers can’t sell right now,

• 10 takes on Cartier, Daniel Roth, AP x Swatch, and more

The 2 most popular newsletter of 2026 so far:

• 26 incredibly niche watches I love

• 15 rapid-fire thoughts on Watches & Wonders

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P.S. Geneva auctions are still happening, but here are a few insane results from Phillips:

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1/ The Four Families

Investor Paul Graham recently wrote “The Brand Age,” which uses the Swiss watch industry to argue that as technology matures, product function becomes commoditized and companies compete on brand instead of quality. I’d quibble with some of the details, but one fact stuck out:

“Only three [Swiss] watchmakers survived the dark days of the 70s and 80s as independent companies: Patek Philippe, Audemars Piguet, and Rolex.”

In 1970, there were ~1,600 Swiss watch companies, so I thought he had to be missing at least a few brands. But I could only come up with one: Chopard, which the Schuefele family acquired in 1963 before the quartz/currency crisis.

The rest died off, became zombies, or were gobbled up by holding companies. Forget the Holy Trinity, I think these four companies that have managed to stay independent—Audemars Piguet, Chopard, Patek Philippe, and Rolex—deserve their own nickname. Maybe the Four Families?

2/ Where is Cartier’s creativity?

The many Cartier watches coming to auction at Sotheby’s this weekend are a reminder of its rich back catalog. Take this hexagon from 1940s Cartier Paris, or this Stirrup from 1960s London. It makes it even more of a bummer that this year’s Privé efforts are mostly rehashes of watches from the last few years: a slightly better Normale, a slightly worse Tank Cintrée. An updated skeleton Crash, that, the more I look at it, the more I wonder why they put the crown there.

If Cartier can bring back the obscure Pebble—only a handful were ever made— and turn it into a hit, there’s no limit to the models it can revive. I’d like to see it take a few more chances instead of running a greatest hits album that has some asking: Is that limited-edition from a few years ago really that limited?

3/ How much do we really want Daniel Roth?

After visiting La Fabrique du Temps last November, I wrote that Daniel Roth is making some of the best watches today. Movements and cases that are clearly better than 90s Roth, but drawing cues from that era.

The Rose Gold Extra Plat retails for $67k, obviously a lot of money, but not offensive compared to unproven indies at $100k. The Tourbillon is $212k, so I’ll have to keep taking my chances with gravity’s impact on my escapement.

When it comes to the Extra Plat, I’d been wondering about: (1) production numbers, and (2) how they’ll perform on the secondary market. We’re getting a glimpse of both this auction season.

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Especially around Watches and Wonders, there’s a tendency to focus on the expensive stuff: Rolex, Patek Philippe, Universal Genève, even the new Naoya Hida.

The vintage market is also hot. Sotheby’s just sold a bunch of Cartiers, one of them a Crash that became the most expensive Cartier ever, selling for $2m (to the same company that bought Jane Birkin’s Birkin).

I didn’t want to write another diatribe about prices. It’s not that it’s unwarranted—go off!—but it can show a lack of imagination, or at least an inability to explore beyond the handful of watches that are very expensive, hot, or hard to get. The fun of collecting was never joining the cult of Journe, but finding the hidden nooks and crannies.

“People love to complain about [prices], but when there are good values they don’t want it,” says dealer Kevin O’Dell, “because they want what’s hot and they also want it to be cheap.”

People want what other people want is a basic fact of the human condition, perhaps exacerbated by social media.

Instead of focusing on the hot watches that sell immediately, I texted a few dealers the question: “What are some watches you’ve had listed for a while that offer a ton of value but no one’s paying attention to right now?”

Here’s what they’re sitting on.

In today’s Watchlist: Dealers on where to find value, including watches for sale right now, and a few new eBay saved searches for you (IWC, Rolex, Jaeger-LeCoultre, field watches, and more); then, how to double a watch’s price in 6 months; plus an April recap.

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In today’s newsletter: The wrong lesson to learn from the indie boom, a visit to watchmaker Gregory Proz, hands-on with the Ming Polymesh, and is Rolex about to introduce a new desk clock? I’m not sure it can beat Jaeger-LeCoultre’s latest effort.

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Subcribers can find my 15 rapid-fire takeaways from Watches & Wonders here, full Geneva Dispatch here, or scroll through the Geneva photo dump and Q&A here.

You can also listen to today’s newsletter here, and subscribe on Spotify or Apple:

The newest independent watchmaker in Geneva

On my last day in Geneva, I visited a watchmaker most people at Watches and Wonders hadn’t heard of.

That can be a good or a bad sign. The world of independent watchmakers is crowded. Render drops, deposit lists, and $100k price tags for watches that don’t even exist yet. Some of these guys are extremely talented. Others went to school, learned to file some nice angles, and figured out that “independent watchmaker” is a good business if you can find the right collectors.

I was put onto watchmaker Gregory Proz by a couple of collectors who have made deposits for the Genese, his first independent watch.

Proz is 40—older than most first-time independents. He won the GPHG Best Young Student award nearly two decades ago. After that, he worked at BNB Concept, the complications maker that eventually folded and was acquired by Hublot. It’s where Rexhep Rexhepi got his complications chops. Gregory and Rexhep have been friends for nearly 20 years. Proz later went back to get a master's degree in project management before setting off on his own.

The Genese (French for genesis) is a limited run of 20 pieces, with an exposed movement and moonphase indicator on the caseback. The front is very much on trend: an independent watchmaker playing with symmetry and obsessing over finishing. But the movement architecture and caseback complication—complete with a hand-painted moonphase disc—is a genuine twist. It wasn’t finished when I visited, but the concept is more considered than most in this genre.

Proz says he can rely on his old friend Rexhep if he needs certain parts.

“If I need a tool, I just walk over and ask Rexhep,” is how he put it to me.

Proz currently has one hand-finishing specialist, Fabian, working with him. He’s looking to hire another, but said it’s not easy to find someone with the skills needed to finish and assemble the Genese.

Geneve Genese

Proz was born and raised in Geneva. I briefly met his dad on the way in, who was the director of the Théâtre du Léman, where the annual GPHG awards are typically held. A few of the old theater seats are sitting in Proz’s workshop, waiting for visitors. It feels fitting that Proz is one of the few watchmakers you’ll see working in the windows while walking through Geneva, along with Rexhep and Xhvedet Rexhepi.

As for the Genese: It’s 39x9mm with a triple-stepped bezel and caseback. On the prototype he showed me, Proz has also added stepped lugs that weren’t in the original render. I sent photos to two collectors I know who have made deposits. One loved the lugs; the other didn’t. I’m with the skeptic—it starts to feel ornamental, one flourish too many. But that’s a matter of taste. Proz told me he also wants to refine the crown. This iterative process is exactly what you sign up for when you put a deposit on an idea. It’s patronage in the most literal sense.1

The Genese is CHF 73k, or close to $100k by the time it clears U.S. customs. He quickly sold all 20 slots after after posting the first render last October. Off the popularity of the Genese, he also has limited-edition versions in the pipeline for Seddiqi and is in discussions with another major retailer in Asia.

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This is the audio edition of the April 28 newsletter, a visit to Geneva’s newest independent watchmaker.

Show Notes

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On my last day in Geneva, I went to my favorite coffee spot. The barista recognizes me, or at least knows I’m in Geneva a few times a year “for watches.”

He told me about a few folks who had just been in with a bunch of watches spread across the table. He even took a photo because he vaguely recognized Simon Brette’s Chronometre Artisans:

It turns out the eponymous founders of Aubert & Ramel were there showing a prototype of their Ourea. The pair of watchmakers won the 2024 FP Journe Prize and worked for Simon Brette for about a year before starting their own brand.

The Ourea is beautiful, even if it reformulates the general idea of the Chronometre Artisans—finely finished, time only (with a price approaching $100k)—in their own style.

It’s a wonder

Everyone, from the customs agent at the Zurich Airport to the barista at my favorite coffee spot, knows about Watches and Wonders now, which wasn’t the case when I first attended in 2023.

It’s as much about the wonders as the watches. More than previous years, I saw Watches and Wonders coverage about Watches and Wonders—the best booths, best coffee, best tote bags. Thierry Stern carrying a Rolex tote while shaking hands with CEO Jean-Frederic Dufour.

There’s the good of that: If the purpose of Watches and Wonders is to create a global moment for Swiss watchmaking, it is a wild success.1 Those beige halls have become instantly recognizable. I was shocked by the amount of content wherein the primary purpose of the content was to show that yes, I was there too. Those Rolex totes are already listed for $200+ on eBay, while everyone points out their resemblance to the work of artist Alighiero Boetti.

There’s also the bad: I heard of at least a few watch thefts across Geneva last week. The most notable involved a media member reportedly being stabbed in front of a bar late the night before Watches & Wonders officially began. Apparently, attackers were trying to steal his Octo Finissimo.

I heard another story of a retailer having a couple of Patek Philippes swiped after leaving his bag unattended in a hotel lobby. If the customs agent and the barista know that millions of dollars of watches are descending on Geneva for six fast-paced days of watches, surely the thieves know.

FP Journe didn’t even allow photos at their appointments, and honestly, I don’t blame them.

Watches have a place in culture like never before, and that’s mostly a massive positive. Watches and Wonders is a microcosm of all the good and potential bad that comes with that.

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Wheels up

I was on the same flight back with Jonathan Sydel, of retailer Sydel & Sydel here in Chicago. We traded notes about indies we saw. Jonathan carries brands from Grönefeld, Gruebel Forsey, and Voutilainen all the way to Oris and Unimatic—he’s got a good eye for what’s exciting and what works. We talked about the parade of time-only, highly finished indies we saw, a conversation I must’ve had 4-5 times last week.

The formula may be well-worn by now, but the market's interest hasn't faded. Most watchmakers in this mold have sold out, with retailers lining up for special editions.

There’s nothing wrong with the formula itself. There will always be room for another watch with flowing stripes and finely executed anglage (at the right price). But fine finishing without any real expression behind it can feel as cold, clinical, and calculated as the collectors-cum-investors who seem to be as interested in supporting the next Rexhepi or Journe and the associated windfall as they are in the watchmaking itself.

I said before Watches and Wonders that most of these watches aren’t really for us anyway, and that’s fine—they’re exhibits as much as actual products. But if you haven’t found something to get excited about over the past week, then I don’t know what to say. Design, history, mechanics, craft—it’s all there.

Nerd out on the TAG Heuer Evergraph, flip through Patek Philippe’s rare handcrafts, or check out the Armin Strom 12:59 Minute Repeater. I’m not about to buy a $30k TAG Heuer chronograph, much less a $500k repeater, but they’re fascinating.

It’s fun to be in Geneva during Watches and Wonders or observe from afar, to suspend reality, if only for a few days, and forget about wars and ceasefires, and instead argue about a beloved brand’s relaunch or 100th anniversary celebration.

If my barista is excited enough to take a picture of the Chronometre Artisans in his shop, then we should all have plenty to be excited about, too.

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A few more notes from Geneva:

• I hate the word “novelties.” It’s just not a normal word, and I don’t know why we use stilted language to describe new watches or releases.

• LTM. I heard the name Le Temps Manufacture a lot last week. The Fleurier-based manufacturer is making the three-quarter “microrotor” movements for the Universal Geneve Polerouter (while the chronograph uses Breitling components). On Friday, another small brand that has thus far relied on Sellita told me it’s working on a project with LTM. LTM’s website also counts the Berneron Mirage 34, Ressence, Fiona Kruger, and others as clients.

Below the paywall: 5 favorites from Geneva, a slept-on release in gold, the indie that finally delivered a watch, Wei Koh’s new brand, and the biggest miss of the week.

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Good morning. I’m back in Chicago, fighting off jet lag. I’ll have a few more thoughts on Watches and Wonders next week, but thought I’d open it up for our first Q&A of 2026 for this Sunday:

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Ask a question, and I’ll answer throughout the day. As always, I’ll save a few of the most interesting inquiries for a future newsletter.

Ask about anything you’d like about new releases, Watches and Wonders, or Geneva. I met with ~30 brands this week across W&W, Time to Watches (eeek), Chronopolis, and elsewhere in Geneva. I also had casual coffees/beers/chats with another handful, along with auction previews at Sotheby’s and Monaco Legend.

Below, a photo dump and more quick thoughts on some of the many, many watches I saw in Geneva (without rehashing everything I covered on Wednesday):

• Also check out the YouTube video for more on Rolex, Tudor, Cartier, and other favorites.

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Leave a comment or question:

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Best in Show

• Last week, I wrote that some of the watches announced will be “exhibit” pieces, meant to be showed off but ultimately purchased by very few clients. My favorite releases are typically the great watches I can see myself buying, wearing, and enjoying. Unpolished isn’t really the newsletter to wax poetic about a $500k triple-axis gyrotroubillon with mahogany obsidian dial, though we certainly appreciate (some) of those too.

• That’s why, if you cornered me at Watches & Wonders and made me buy one modern watch, released this year or any year, it’d be the new Chopard L.U.C 1860 “Areuse Blue” in steel. It’s the one press release I received before the show and forwarded to GQ saying I gotta write this one for you guys (here’s that intro). It’s just a dial update, but it’s gorgeous. I liked the salmon a few years ago, but this feels more contemporary and fresh. The original blue dials from the 1990s are incredibly rare, and a shade or too away from the Areuse Blue, so it’s an easy win.

• Hamsterdam on Prices: It’s $29,500, an aggressive ~25% increase compared to the salmon’s intro price (but ultimately reasonable in my opinion), of $23,200 in 2023. To earnestly discuss all of these releases, we almost have to suspend the consideration of price, which in many cases are at best “punchy,” and at worst, crazy. This newsletter edition will mention prices but mostly reserve discussion of whether or not they’re reasonable for another day—kind of like Hamsterdam in The Wire, when the Baltimore mayor designates isolated areas as “free zones” where drug dealing is allowed without police action.

• The watches I have been asked about the most by friends, subscribers, and collectors, in no particular order: Lange Saxonia Annual Calendar, Cartier Santos “Ghost,” the all-gold Rolex Oyster Perpetuals, Tudor Monarch, Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Control Chronometre, the H Moser x Reebok Streamliner “Pump.” Capsule thoughts on all below.

I also did a first pass at these takes for YouTube, rushing back to my hotel after my first day of appointments. Here it is:

Thanks for the feedback on video so far—it’s low fi and we have bigger ambitions, but that’s also how all of the YouTubers I respect most started their channels.

If you’re overwhelmed by the deluge of new watches and content, last weekend’s podcast with Screwdown Crown is a palate cleanser:

Find the full Unpolished archive online.

Cartier

• It’s the 10-year anniversary of the Privé collection. I wondered earlier this year if there might be an expiration on the heritage-focused collection, especially given the original CPCP lasted 10 years (1998-2008). There are no new Prive shapes this year. Instead Cartier is doing a “greatest hits” with two trios:

  • Platinum: Skeleton Crash, Tank Normale, and Tortue Monopusher

  • Yellow gold: Tank Normale, Tank Cintree, and Cloche

• Only the Crash is a limited edition. I would’ve liked to see Cartier bring back another shape in a small run. The day before Watches & Wonders, I previewed Sotheby’s upcoming Cartier-heavy sale. That catalog is a reminder that Cartier has dozens of shapes it could bring back. Much of the 1970s Louis Cartier collection hasn’t been revisited—I’d love to see a refreshed Ceinture or Cristallor.

• That said, all of the new Privé watches are well executed. The platinum Tank Normale is the most noticeable upgrade—the 2023 version was monochromatic and lacked pop.

• The Santos-Dumont bracelet is beautifully made. Very flexible, almost like a Milanese bracelet. That said, I prefer the look of the 80s-90s “grains of rice” bracelets. The links are more rounded and give it a softer, more elegant vibe. Also, it works nicely on the Santos-Dumont, but I’d love to see how a Tank Louis looks on a bracelet like this.

• People are excited about the slate Santos “Ghost.” The 80s Ghost and Burgundy Santos have gotten popular, so it’s Cartier obviously paying attention to enthusiasts, which they do as well as any brand. We didn’t get much info, but Cartier said both a Ghost and Burgundy are coming this fall. The Ghost is the medium automatic Santos, while the Burgundy is small and quartz. I wrote down a price of $11k (please don’t quote me). The new Ghost is closer to a true matte dial, compared to the brushed finish of the originals. It doesn’t have quite the same metal-on-metal feel of the 80s Santos, but it’s cool.

Tudor

• I’m glad to see Tudor take a swing with the Monarch. And I like the watch. As long as I’ve been doing this, it’s been Black Bays and Pelagos. The angular case is 39mm, but wears relatively compact and thin. It’s angular, and unlike most modern Tudors, isn’t slab-sided, so you don’t perceive all 11.9mm of thickness. The error-proof style dial has a rich golden-copper hue. I’m glad it’s not salmon, which has become a bit passé. I don’t think we need a display-back Tudor.1 Out of habit, the first thing I do when I pick up a watch is wind it. The first thing I noticed when I picked up the Monarch is also my biggest buagaboo:

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• How Rolex signed its first modern sports ambassador

• The simple charm of the mid-century golfer’s watch

• The scramble to get a Rolex on the wrist of one Masters winner before the green jacket went on

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Before we get to the golf—

• Watches & Wonders starts Tuesday. I'll be posting appointment videos on Instagram (Tudor and Cartier), along with a Day 1 newsletter and YouTube video by Wednesday. I’ll also open the chat for paid subscribers on Day 1 (link below).

• 🎧 New Podcast: The Psychology of Watch Collecting. One reason I find watch collecting so fascinating is that it puts on display the entire breadth of human psychology: Why we want the things we want, and how to enjoy what we already have. This week’s podcast guest is Kingflum, who writes the newsletter Screwdown Crown. He’s known just as much for his diversions on psychology as he is for calling out the BS he sees in the watch industry. Listen below or wherever you get pods: Spotify / Apple / RSS:

How Arnold Palmer and Rolex created the modern sports ambassador

When the Masters winner slips on his green jacket on Sunday, no doubt we’ll catch a glimmer of the watch on his wrist.

That all started with a handshake in 1960, when Cleveland lawyer Mark McCormack convinced Arnold Palmer to become his client. McCormack was a talented golfer in his own right—the two had played against each other in college—and by then Palmer had already won two majors.

But McCormack saw Palmer as more than a golfer. Palmer had already become a popular athlete, assembling “Arnie’s Army,” his growing popularity lining up with the advent of television.

Before their handshake, Palmer had two endorsement deals: $500 for Heinz Ketchup (along with free ketchup) and Wilson Sporting Goods, which required him to return his clubs if he stopped playing golf.

McCormack and Palmer probably couldn’t have imagined that 50 years later, there’d be tall iced teas with his name in 7-Eleven stores across the world. But the endorsements came quickly: United Airlines, Pennzoil, Hertz.

The big one came in 1967: Rolex. Palmer became Rolex’s first “Testimonee,” a made-up word for its roster of ambassadors.

Before McCormack and Palmer, sports endorsements were merely functional, like Arnie’s deal with Wilson. These are the tools I use to compete at the highest level, you should try them too. Just a decade prior, the world’s best golfer, Ben Hogan, had collaborated with Timex on a line of accessible watches.

After Palmer, athletes became aspirational.

Timex was “takes a licking, keeps on ticking.” Rolex was for “men who guide the destinies of the world.”

Rolex didn't just sponsor golf; it became golf. Today, it sponsors every professional major; it added Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player to its roster of Testimonees; hell, it sponsors the junior golf rankings. The Rolex golf clocks!

By 1990, McCormack was named the “Most Powerful Man in Sports.” He founded the massive agency IMG and represented Tiger Woods, Serena Williams, Wayne Gretzky, and even Pope John Paul II.

Every modern sports star follows the playbook written by McCormack and Palmer of the athlete as brand. It’s Michael Jordan’s Jumpan logo, Lebron’s signature shoe, or Roger Federer “leaking” the new Land-Dweller. 1

Sometimes, the line between athlete and advertisement gets so blurry that we don't even notice it.

McCormack and Palmer also gave Rolex a head start. When the quartz/currency crisis came for the entire Swiss industry in the 70s, Rolex was already transitioning from talking about the features of its watches (robust, waterproof, accurate) to the lifestyle of those who wear its watches.

Andre Heiniger, president of Rolex from 1962 until 1997, oversaw its growth from a maker of tools into a world-famous brand.

As recounted in one obituary, a friend once asked him, “How’s the watch business?” to which Heiniger replied, “I have no idea.” His friend laughed, but Heiniger wasn’t trying to be funny. “Rolex is not in the watch business. We are in the luxury business.”

Palmer and McCormack sparked that pivot.

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Collecting the mid-century golfer’s watch

That pivot is everywhere now. Golf is bigger and more accessible than ever, and so is watch collecting—both worth celebrating. But bigger hasn’t always meant better. The mid-century golfer’s watch didn’t have GPS, shock resistance, or a heart rate monitor—they just told time, which was more than enough.

Today, watchmakers often come up with shock-proof solutions more fit for a Best Buy than a watch boutique, but there was a more elegant solution in the mid-20th century:

The golfer’s watch.

A simple, back-to-the-future solution. Instead of strapping on a wristwatch, you put it in your pocket. These golfers’ watches were made to hang from the belt, often dangling from ornate chains with a crown at 12 o’clock.

As far back as the 1930s, Hermès, Cartier, and even Abercrombie & Fitch had made watches built into belt buckles, hinged to flip open so a golfer could check the time on the course.

These weren’t sports watches in the modern sense, but dress watches for a sport played in polos and pressed trousers. The category peaked in the 1950s and 60s, with golf booming globally and brands competing for a slice of the scorecard.

Whether you were playing at a country club or a muni, there was a golfer’s watch for you:

• Gilbert Albert's Montres Golf. The best of the bunch came from Patek Philippe, designed by Gilbert Albert during his tenure as head of its creative workshop. The Golf watches—refs. 782, 783, and 799—were launched in 1959. Made in gold with integrated chains and clips, and delivered in leather pouches. The segmented dials are unmistakably from Albert's pen, also seen in his wristwatches for Universal Genève and Patek Philippe. These golf watches come up for sale occasionally and are relatively affordable compared to his other designs.

• Seiko Golf. In Japan, golf exploded after the war. The U.S. military had taken control of numerous golf courses during the war, and when they were handed back in the 1950s, enthusiasm for the sport spiked. That’s when Seiko began making golf-themed watches for the pocket and wrist, featuring dimpled, golf-ball-textured dials and cases. The wristwatch even has a bit of a Patek Philippe 565 vibe. While they’re kinda hard to find in the States, they’re not super expensive—maybe starting at $700-$800 for the pocket watch.

• That’s not all. The Patek Philippe and Seiko are some of my favorites, but there are others: Eterna made a golfer’s watch, so did Omega. And that’s before we even get to later score counters like the Cartier Pasha Golf.

Play it as it lies

Soon enough, shock-proof technology became good enough to handle a golf swing (whether it’s recommended is another matter). Phil Mickelson has won a couple of majors wearing his 90s Rolex Cellini.

I’ve talked before about playing a different game—finding corners of collecting that nobody else is paying attention to. For me, golfer’s watches are one corner.

There’s fun to be had from $100 to $10k: A Patek Philippe by Gilbert Albert reaching the top end, but that rope-style chain matching the bezel is peak Patek Philippe. Meanwhile, a Seiko Cronos golf or Eterna Golfer can be found on eBay for a few hundred bucks if you’re patient.

There are also all kinds of random stories to uncover because of the connection between golf and watches: The Heuer Carreras made for Arcola Country Club in New Jersey, not to mention Jack Nicklaus’ Day-Date selling for a million bucks.

Some watch brands still make golf watches today, though I’m not sure why. They promise GPS, hole layouts, exact yardages—everything except the one thing the mid-century golfer's watch had: elegance.

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The scramble to get a Rolex on Scottie Scheffler's wrist after his first Masters win

In a move that proved prescient, Rolex signed Scottie Scheffler as a Testimonee the Sunday before his first Masters win in 2022.

The biggest part of a watch deal is getting a watch on their wrist before they hoist the trophy. It’s the money shot. This proved a challenge after Scottie’s first Masters win. He’s got big hands, and while he had a watch in his bag ready for the moment, it wouldn’t fit on his wrist.

As Chad Mumm, producer of Netflix’s Full Swing tells it in his podcast, this had people frantically looking for a Rolex for Scottie before the trophy ceremony. Mumm doesn’t name names, but when you put together that Scottie had signed just days before his win, it’s reasonable to believe it’s him (and look how tight that GMT-Master II is).

They found a member of Augusta National to borrow a watch from. Somewhere, there’s a guy out there whose GMT-Master II now has the distinction of being worn by Scottie Scheffler when slipping on the green jacket for his first Masters— and we’ll never know about it.

Rolex has spent the last 60 years perfecting the art of the ambassador, but the best stories can never be planned.

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Get in touch:

• tony[at]unpolishedwatches.com

• My favorite, leave a comment or like this post

• Keep an eye on the chat for Watches & Wonders

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One of the reasons I find watch collecting so fascinating is that it puts on full display the entire breadth of human psychology: Why we want the things we want, and how to be happy with what we already have.

Today’s guest is , who writes the newsletter Screwdown Crown. He’s known just as much for his diversions on psychology as he is for calling out the BS he sees in the watch industry.

We discuss how to appreciate watches without having the sometimes unhealthy desire to own every single one; the two systems always at work in our brains; how Instagram has changed watchmaking; enjoying his titanium Rolex Yacht-Master and Romain Gauthier C6; why your taste is not as personal as you think; the McMansion effect and the power of mimetic desire; the difference between a community and a cult, and which are FP Journe owners? On the eve of Watches & Wonders, we also talk about the industry: Is the slowdown cyclical or existential; the rise of Chinese manufacturing; the death of the middle market. We close with a few minutes on the current state of watch media: How brands are (or aren’t) interacting with independent newsletters, handling criticism, and is now the most exciting time to be an enthusiast?

Subscribe to Unpolished here.

Subscribe to Screwdown Crown here.

Our book recs:

• Thinking, Fast and Slow

• Alchemy: The Dark Art of Creating Magic

• Wanting: The Power of Mimetic Desire

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We don’t run ads from watch brands and are supported by subscribers. You’ll also get: (1) $50 off any service from Watchcheck, (2) 10% off all U.S.-made straps in the Unpolished Store, and (3) 2 emails/week, comments, Q&As, and the full archive.

A few thoughts on the Universal Genève releases:

• They don’t seem too thick, which is the biggest plague on modern watches (12.5mm for the Compax, 9.5mm for the Polerouter).1

• Compax dimensions seem wearable (39.5 x 12.5mm). Daytona-like, which pretty much every other brand fails on. A solid mass-market chronograph.

• Not offering the “Nina” on a bracelet is a miss—leaning a bit too hard into the Nina-Wore-It-On-A-Bund thing (see also Watches Are Too Literal). In reality, the list of people who can pull off a bund strap is: (1) Nina Rindt, (2) Paul Newman.

• Compax price isn’t bad (Chf 17k on bracelet), but the Polerouter doesn’t make sense next to it (starting at Chf 14k).

• I wish they had the Polerouter Date in 37mm—one of the few watches that’s better with a date window.

• The three-quarter rotor calibers look nice enough, and distinguished from Breitling. Prices are approaching Chopard, but L.U.C watches have Geneva Seal and better finishing. I haven’t seen any external certifications or accuracy guarantees for these new UG calibers (did I miss?).

• Can any brand resist stone dials?

• Except for these short clips from Watch Advisor, I’ve only seen renders. I assume we’ll see the real stuff in Geneva next week. I know others have seen the collection, dating back to Dubai Watch Week, but heard UG was strict about taking photos. I would’ve figured out a way to make sure some media had live photos for launch day.

• I think about this quote from tech reviewer MKBHD a lot:

  “Most products are mid, which means they don’t get a review. If something is really good, that’s interesting. If something is really, really bad, that can also be interesting.”

• Based on renders, that’s basically how I feel about these—mid. But computer renders rarely make me feel anything. Still, I’m looking forward to seeing them.

That transitions us to today’s main event—

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A (usually) unspoken word before Watches & Wonders.

I think about this watch way too often:

In 2023, Hermès introduced an H08 Monopusher Chronograph at Watches & Wonders. It was kind of interesting, and the H08 is a good-enough sports watch, even if it is just Birkin bait for most Hermès clients.

I even wrote a hands-on for the Mothership. But here’s what we didn’t mention at the time:

That sample had a blocked caliber—that is, a non-functional, dummy movement.

So perhaps it shouldn’t have been surprising when two years later, I still hadn’t seen or heard anything more about that monopusher. Look around the internet, and you’ll see there’s nothing after that initial release.

Last June, I reached out to Hermès about the H08 Monopusher. Relax Tony, I was told, it’s coming out later this year. And in October, Hermès did release an H08 Monopusher, but it wasn’t quite like that first one: It’s yellow and has a larger 45mm case (not 41mm). [4/9 update: It’s now offered in orange, but that watch is also 45mm.]

I’ve seen a few of these yellow Monopushers hit the secondary, and it’s also listed on Hermès’ website ($13,300), so I guess it’s real this time.

Showing watches with dummy movements is somewhat common, especially at a trade show (that Polerouter above seems to have one). The first time I saw a Berneron Mirage, it had a paper movement, printed to look like the caliber. Some of the Cartier Tank a Guichet samples last year weren’t gold.2 Et cetera.

It’s fair enough: Why let all these media members get their grubby hands on a shiny new watch to make a Reel for their 2,000 followers? Still, it’s not ideal, even if a dummy watch can give the reviewer some sense of fit and finish.3

Exhibit of the Moment

I use this anecdote as a reminder: Watches & Wonders is a trade show. Brands have “exhibits.” It’s a chance for the watch industry to put its best foot forward. The most complications, the shiniest diamonds, the stoniest stone dials.

But so many of the watches we’ll see covered next week are just that: exhibits.

They aren’t made for you or me or really anyone. Extremely limited or complicated—which is to say expensive—more statements about what a brand can do than what it spends most of its time actually doing. A few, like that Hermès chronograph, might not even reach production. (Often, I get most excited about the ones that are for us, say last year’s Nomos Worldtimer or Lange 1815.)

This will be my fourth Watches & Wonders, and it feels like it’s drifting further away from the world we actually live in. Perhaps that’s more of a commentary about the world we live in than on the Watches and the Wonders. Luxury is meant to be an escape; still, there’s no escaping the fact that every discussion begins and ends with, as calls it, the “Unpleasant Matter of the Bill.”

Last year, I mentioned that I have complicated feelings about Watches & Wonders. Some of this come from seeing the show more like a shopping mall than a trade show. From thinking more in dollars and cents than gears and springs.

I’ve found it helpful to remember that these are often exhibits as much as they are products. Whether that’s a million-dollar perpetual calendar minute repeater, an impressive new flyback chronograph, or even just an Hermès Monopusher.

Then, the high prices, the fact that I can’t have it all, or really any of it, hurts a little bit less.

On Exhibit

At Watches & Wonders, brands try to dictate the narrative. They send us press releases about watches, shoehorn them into their heritage, explain why they matter.

But all they can do is try. We’re the ones who get to decide what sticks.

Collectors kept Universal Genève alive for all those years. Georges Kern, Partners Group, and their advisory board can go on all they want about Le Couturier de la Montre, but it’s up to us to call bullsh*t if UG, or any brand, is more marketing than substance.

It’s one reason I come back to the old stuff. Once all the Instagram posts are buried and the ad budgets are spent, the watches are what’s left. We’ve had time to sit with it, to see what lasts. Watches & Wonders is the beginning of that process, not the end.

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UNPOLISHED STORE

These are my favorite leather straps, which is why I sell them in the Unpolished Store. They’re sewn and made right here in the U.S. from a French calfskin. The matte finish sits right between dressy and distressed—I wear them on a Lange, I wear them on a Black Bay 58.

They’re the best leather straps you can find—and they’re 100 bucks. Shop the Unpolished Matte Calfskin Strap in the Unpolished Store:

Unpolished Store

A few more links to get you prepared for Watches & Wonders

The Unpolished Guide to Geneva

Arrive in Geneva by train, and you’ll breeze past half a dozen HORLOGERIE shops as you walk down the hill towards Lake Geneva, all trying to sell you a Tissot, Mondaine, or a brand called Jacques du Manoir. One has Victorinox Swiss Army knives in the window, and cheap cuckoo clocks hung on a pegboard in the back.

Arrive by plane, and you’ll be smacked with glowing Richard Mille or Patek Philippe Twenty~4 ads. It’s where I finally caved and bought my first Airport Swatch—the MoonSwatch 1965—exactly 1,106 days after the original release.

Geneva is the epicenter of Swiss watchmaking. In the fairy-tale version, watchmakers spent winters working in mountain workshops before descending to Geneva each spring to show what they’d made.

And watches are everywhere. Public trolleybuses remind you that Tudor is “Born to Dare.” Rexhep Rexhepi has an impressive presence in the city’s historic Old Town. Geneva has experiences you can’t find anywhere else, which is what I’ve aimed to highlight in this Unpolished Guide to Geneva:

Full of practical recommendations like:

• “Don’t get fondue on your first night in Geneva. If you’re coming from the States, you’ll already be jet-lagged, and you don’t need to add fondue-lag. Also, don’t drink cold water with fondue, it’ll make the cheese congeal in your stomach like a rock.”

• “I once peed in the urinal next to F.P. Journe at this bar at 1:42 a.m. I was leaving, he was arriving. During busy weeks, more watch execs here than there is leopard print.”

• I even made a map: 🇨🇭 Unpolished Guide to Geneva | Google Maps

WATCHES AND WONDERS 2025

Funny enough, I wrote in last year’s preview that “Thus far, I’ve avoided the airport MoonSwatch, but eventually it comes for us all—and I do like the new 1965.”

Perhaps it was fitting that I bought one on my way out of the Geneva Airport during one of my trips last year (above).

If you want to step into the wayback machine, here’s more from Watches & Wonders 2025:

THE ROUNDUP

He Got Rich Buying and Selling Luxury Watches. Was It a Ponzi Scheme? “You’ve paid that money? You’re crazy or what?” HYT co-founder Vincent Perriard, upon learning someone had paid $191,000 for an HYT worth ~$22,000. (NY Times)

Sotheby’s has an insane collection of Cartier watches this year. 300+ watches from one collector, they’ll be spread across New York, Hong Kong, and Geneva. It starts in Hong Kong this month. In addition to watches, there are all kinds of cool Cartier objects: photo frames, drum-shaped alarm clock, keyring tires, magnifying glass, bulldog clips, envelopes, clip watches, and more. It starts in this month’s Hong Kong sale.

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