Manufactured for the Moment: The Jump Hour in 2025
Three takes on three vintage Rolexes I saw this week; a celebrity Cartier; how Instagram shapes the watches that get made.
Happy Sunday. Thanks to everyone who asked interesting questions in Thursday’s Q&A. I’ve saved a few for a podcast and future newsletter, but give it a scroll if you’d like: eBay tips, my take on the modern IWC Ingenieur, a few “how the sausage is made” questions, collecting strategies, and more.
In this Sunday Edition: Three thoughts on three curious vintage Rolex watches, including one for Harley-Davidson (?); an Elizabeth Taylor Cartier; then, why the jump hour is everything that’s wrong (and maybe right) with watches right now.
The Roundup
A Cartier London Baignoire from Elizabeth Taylor. Sotheby’s Paris sale has a Cartier London Baignoire from 1968 that Elizabeth Taylor gave to director Joseph Losey. The pair worked together on a few films. Closing Oct. 1, it comes from Losey’s family and is already at €17k. That chevron bracelet immediately reminded me of the same style on this London Tank that sold for $50k a couple of years ago—better yet for this Baignoire, the numbers on the clasp and case match. Nick Gould even posted a photo of Losey wearing the Baignoire—always good when there’s some proof of the story:
Swatch Group CEO Nick Hayek’s long interview with NZZ. Lots of politics chatter and a few insights into watches. He allows that Swatch Group was slow to build boutiques for its high-end brands—Blancpain and Breguet have only one and two stores, respectively, in the U.S. Meanwhile, he’s firm in swearing off trade shows when asked about Geneva Watch Days: “For retailers and journalists, yes. For us, the consumer is the focus. We'd rather send our teams to New York, L.A., or Chengdu than to a trade fair in Geneva. Trends and customer needs are identified and awakened on-site with consumers, not in a protected Genevan habitat.” I totally agree, but it’s also short-sighted not to acknowledge the role retailers and media can play in generating interest. This going direct dynamic is playing out across the industry (and more broadly), but I feel something valuable is getting lost in the transition. The best retailers and media can add context, storytelling, curation—all those fluffy concepts that really matter with watches.
A curious Harley-Davidson Rolex GMT-Master. Earlier this week, I posted this odd GMT-Master and it got a big reaction—equal parts love and hate. It’s a Rolex GMT-Master 16750 from 1980, customized for Harley-Davidson. Often, watches like this were customized by a local car/motorcycle dealership, but maybe, just maybe, it’s from Rolex? After that post, it was bought by a dealer who’s a friend of the newsletter, so more to come.
It’s always cool when you find ‘watch siblings.’ I stumbled across this Rolex Milgauss 6541, which the small auction said came fresh from a Florida estate. It had an $80-250k estimate—an aggressive estimate for a watch in this condition—and didn’t get a high enough bid to sell this week. Turns out, it’s only about 20 serial numbers away from a similar Milgauss that also passed at Christie’s last December, which I really liked in person. The two watches have aged similarly—brown dial, rusted hands, some wear on the markers. No doubt, Christie’s Milgauss was better—it wasn’t missing a bezel, for one—but it’s cool when watches that left the factory around the same time show similar wear. Meanwhile, since that record-setting Milgauss sold for $2.5m in 2023, the model continues to be the forgotten stepchild of vintage Rolex. Here are those siblings:
Is this Rolex ‘small crown’ Submariner—with a service dial—a value proposition? I love the slim cases of early, no crown guard Submariners—easily the most wearable Subs for me (refs. 6204/05, 6536/38, 5510, 5508). But they’re tricky: Rare, radium, lots of replacement parts, expensive. The Tudor Black Bay 54 approximates the vibe pretty well. I used to have a friend here in Chicago who wore a put-together 5508 “small crown” Submariner: Recut case, replacement hands, later matte service dial. But for well under $10k, it was kinda cool—certainly not “collectible” in the traditional sense, but a fun way to wear an old Rolex without worrying about it.
I thought about this when I spotted this Submariner ref. 5508 on Loupe This. It’s a service dial, but a real, god’s honest glossy-gilt dial. Rolex transitioned to matte dials by the late 60s, and early gilt dials have a richness unmatched by later dials. If you took an early Sub in for service by Rolex today, you wouldn’t get this replacement dial. For an estimate of $10-15k, it’s a compelling value proposition—a way to get an early Sub and a gilt dial, even if they weren’t born together. Service, restoration, and “franken” watches came up a few times in that Q&A (it’s a never-ending conversation), and this small crown Sub is an interesting case. If, like me, you tend to think the market will become more accepting of Rolex service parts and good restoration as these watches get older, perhaps worth a look. Ends Sept. 25.
Former AP CEO Francois Bennahmias announced his new luxury group, the Honourable Merchants Group, saying he has “a few hundred million” to acquire watch brand(s), and he’ll announce acquisition(s) this year. If you had a few hundred million, what would you buy? As a reference, Chanel’s minority investment in MB&F last year valued the company at an estimated CHF 120m. MB&F sits right at #50 in that annual Morgan Stanley report. Maybe Girard-Perregaux/Ulysse Nardin, which share ownership?
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Manufactured for the Moment: Jump Hours in 2025
We’ve gone from the physical shaping the digital to the opposite. Now the feed shapes what gets made—in watches and everything else.
One of the strangest experiences I’ve had this year was meeting YouTuber Nico Leonard while visiting Amsterdam Vintage Watches in April. We happened to cross paths exactly when the pre-order window opened for his first collab watch, the Maen x Nico Leonard Jump Hour. He was noticeably excited and nervous, stepping outside for a cigarette as it went live. Here’s what he shared:
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