Photo Report: The Biggest Annual Vintage Watch Show in Miami Beach

36 hours in Miami Beach; are perpetual calendars the new Submariner? Plus, Unpolished's latest YouTube video.

Mar 31, 2026

After five straight years at the Original Miami Beach Antique Show (OMBAS), some of the watches start to look familiar.

There’s this one Rolex Submariner/Explorer Franken-mashup I make a habit of checking in on every year. It’s always at the same exhibitor, with the same look of disregarded dejection, sitting on an island of misfit Rolexes. Yep, that’s the one:

That Rolex ‘Explorer-Submariner’ is a familiar face for me. If you go through my previous photo reports on Rescapement, Unpolished, or Hodinkee, you’d find another photo of this same watch.

I also saw the same Audemars Piguet “Sun-Ray” Tourbillon, Starwheel, Vacheron Constantin 4073, and many others. Some were at the same dealers, some at different booths.

It’s not like these are “burned” watches—a great watch is a great watch—but it makes me more excited when I see something genuinely new. Similar to a few years ago, a fresh-to-market Vacheron Constantin ref. 4072 chronograph in a “pink-on-pink” configuration stole the show for me, sourced beforehand and picked up by no other than GQ’s 2022 collector of the year, Rob (@bazamu):

A highlight from the weekend, a fresh Vacheron 4072 chronograph.

I also see some of the same scenes. A 20-something dressed in streetwear with more logos than an F1 driver walks up to a booth with a green Rolex bag. “Are you buying?” he asks the exhibitor.

Original Miami Beach Antique Show — A not uncommon site at OMBAS: youths with green bags looking for a fast sale.

The response is usually a tepid yes, and the streetwear-clad hustler gently slides a Rolex green box out of a Rolex green bag and onto the glass case. Inside, a lowly two-tone Rolex Datejust 41.

His ask is about $800 too high, so the two go back and forth for a few seconds before it becomes clear there’s no deal to be had. Often, a few camera operators are filming it all, and it’s clear the flipper’s already got what he came for.

That’s because Miami is the influencer capital of these United States of TikTok, and not even the hallowed halls of the Miami Beach Antique Show are immune. On Friday evening, traffic snarled across the island as our nation’s Influencer-in-Chief gave a speech just 15 blocks away. Across Biscayne Bay, Ultra Music Festival filled the entire metropolitan area with EDM and MDMA as neon-clad concert-goers stumbled around town in a selfie-induced haze.

A selection of Alfredo Paramico's Langes on display—original Datographs and Dufourographs. Totally different, he also had a dozen different watches from the space-age Pierre Cardin Espace collection from the 70s:

Some things are also different. In 2024, Alfredo Paramico displayed an impressive collection of neo-vintage watches—Blancpain, Ebel, Breguet, and others. But no Lange. Two years later, he’s got Lange. Lots of Langes. “I’ve sold 62 Langes this year,” he told me.

And these aren’t your simple 1815s or Saxonia Thins. It’s early or limited-edition Lange 1s; seven first-gen Datographs (ref. 403.035) sitting on the same clamshell together that’ll almost distract you from the Datograph Perpetual Tourbillons to the left. Special stuff.

Four different Audemars Piguet perpetual calendars, starting with a pair of AP QPs with ‘mother of pearl’ dials—the pearlescent effect actually comes from a special galvanic treatment. The platinum ref. 25661 is one of only 10 known (ask: $175k).

ultra-thin 1990s audemars piguet perpetual calendars — The guilloche dial (bottom right) is one of only two known, made by Metalem. Meanwhile, the ref. 25561 Tuscan with knotted bezel sold over the weekend. The dealer let a collector "test drive" it for the weekend to see if he liked it. It never left the collector's wrist—oldest trick in the book!

Neo-vintage watches were everywhere. It’s as if 1980s-90s perpetual calendars are the new Submariner. I saw at least a dozen ultra-thin QPs from Audemars Piguet, Vacheron Constantin, Blancpain, and Patek Philippe.

Now the variety is skeletons and Tuscan dials instead of glossy or matte. One of the best was Watch Brothers London’s full-set skeleton Vacheron 43032 in platinum (ask: ~$140k).

Another AP QP featured a guilloche dial by Metalemn, the dialmaker that made dials for Philippe Dufour’s Simplicity and Chopard’s L.U.C 1860 (Chopard quietly acquired Metalem a few years ago). The owner (@watches_and_guinness) was eager to talk about his recent discovery of the supplier, showing how education on this era continues to grow.

The only known 90s Blancpain split with a mother-of-pearl dial.

Last year, I remember hanging out with a dealer who couldn’t move a Journe Chronometre Bleu for their client—they “needed” something like $75k. Just 12 months later, those same seventy-five thousand dollars might buy you half an Elegante and an empanada at OMBAS (the lunch of choice for most exhibitors). The cheapest CB on the market is $178k. I saw a few Journes on wrists, but not many in cases, though the Journe knives from his Geneva restaurant made an appearance (ask: $15k).

fp journe knives — Journe knives ($15k) and an Elegante ($idk too much)

There were more dealers than last year, though probably fewer attendees. All the exhibitors said watches were moving. I saw a few deals, mostly between dealers, but the consensus is that list prices are high (but negotiable) at OMBAS.

On Saturday afternoon, I moderated a panel with Tania Edwards, Morgan Cardet, and Mike Nouveau. More than the answers, the questions from the audience are what I find interesting: Questions about how to value authenticity vs. originality, how Rolex’s certified pre-owned program is impacting the market, and more.

I was only in Miami for about 36 hours, and had dinners at Mignonette and Hiyakawa—I’d recommend both.

I took photos on a new-to-me Ricoh GR IIIx. It’s the first time I’ve used it for shooting on the go, so it took some getting used to. But I’ve never gotten so many questions about a camera—and I got to shoot at the Antique Show with a Leica Q2 “Ghost” a few years ago!

The Ricoh is an awesome travel camera that fits in my pocket, which makes it easy to carry everywhere. I’m simply able to snap photos more easily and more often than any other camera I’ve owned, making it well worth any small trade-off in image quality compared to my Nikon Zf.

Here are some scenes from Miami. No one is safe when they’re in the Influencer Capital, so I also posted a few videos on my Instagram.

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