It’s May, baby! Writing a newsletter means Unpolished is rarely the first to mention new watches, but today we got lucky. Let me be among the first to say hello to the Tudor Black Bay Chrono Carbon 25. It’s (roughly) the same BB Chrono, but with a carbon case and cool “racing white dial.” Limited edition of 2025 @ $7,575. It’s a big boy, but should be slightly more manageable in carbon. Still waiting on a new Heritage Chrono…. In today’s issue:
The last watch I bought, and why I love “bad” watches.
Meet the watchmakers going “open source”—could they actually change how movements are made?
Watch of the Week: Hands-on with a stunning handmade watch from two British watchmakers quietly doing it their own way.
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I don’t write much about my own watches or “collecting.”It’s usually more interesting to focus on the big picture. Today, an exception for the last watch I picked up: A TAG Heuer “Full Lume” Diver Professional ref. 980.113.
It’s not rare, complicated, or special (though I did spot one in the TAG Heuer Museum last month!). Hardly even a watch I’d give the faux-dignified label of “vintage”—it’s just old.
Still, it got me thinking. After talking about how watches are technically better nowadays, what about the ones that just feel better?
Truth is, I haven’t bought too many watches since I started doing this full-time in late 2022. Quitting law for Hodinkee meant a pay cut. Then came the layoffs, which can make anyone’s position feel precarious, even if your job isn’t in question. Now, I do this, which feels uncertain but for different reasons.
A long way of saying: It’s felt kind of irresponsible to buy expensive watches (isn’t it always?). Sure, hardly a month goes by where I don’t buy a thing or two on eBay, but that’s not “collecting”—more like acquiring or trying stuff out.
I also experience many more watches nowadays. This year, I’ve already gone to the Miami Beach Antique Show, that NAABS meetup, visited Collectability, and covered Watches & Wonders, along with the occasional press sample. So, so many watches—I’m a lucky guy.
Most desires to buy something fade or turn into something else. I’ve long had a 24-hour rule: If I see something I want, wait 24 hours to send the wire.1 It’s even more effective as the one-week or one-month rule, though that’s not always possible.2
Besides that, I’ve been eyeing some of the same watches for a while. A good vintage Calatrava. Early Lange 1 or 1815 Up/Down (the 36mm one). Chopard L.U.C 1860 (again). Naoya Hida Type 4. Dressy, no nonsense.3
Someone once said to me that collecting begins and ends with a time-only watch on a strap. I think they were talking about Patek Philippe, but it applies to us normies, too.
Acquisition can also turn into addiction pretty quickly. When the watches own you, it stops being fun.
It's about 38mm with a jangly jubilee-style bracelet, just perfect for a '90s diver.
A TAG Heuer Diver lowers the stakes. It was still fun to hunt down, the full-lume version just obscure enough to pique my interest. There are more bad ones than good—the white dial often turns ratty, and Italians seem to love cooking them to a piss-colored yellow that’s uglier than a steamrolled Invicta.
Some of the stuff that makes collecting watches fun—the hunt, the dodgy Italians–but for less than a grand.
You don’t hear a ton about TAG Heuer Professionals, though a few guys I respect love ‘em. Nick over at DC Vintage Watches says he’s often asked to track them down because a PVD-coated full-lume Professional appeared in the Bond movie “The Living Daylights.” But for him, the appeal is simpler:
“What drew me, strongly, to Heuer's Professional diver line is its no-nonsense design aesthetic and reputation for durability; only years later did I discover the Professional line was responsible for saving Heuer from bankruptcy in the aftermath of the Quartz Crisis.”
An old Heuer catalog showing a trio of full-lume divers (note these are “Heuer” logos before the brand was acquired by TAG in 1985, which mean nerds like them more). Image from DC Vintage Watches, a great source for buying these vintage Heuers (and Seiko!).
Nick’s right. There are some fun historical footnotes. Bond. Quartz Crisis. But more importantly: It’s just a solid, unassuming watch that isn’t and never was trying to be anything more.
“We could not imagine that this model would be the very watch that was to help the company recover,” Jack Heuer himself once wrote about the TAG Heuer Diver Professional.
Underestimated, even by the guy who ran the company.
“To be honest, these Heuer divers are neither very rare nor highly coveted,” the tasteful Louis Westphalen wrote for Hodinkee years ago.
In Defense of Worse Watches
I went into my bathroom to take a lume photo like 5 minutes before sending this.
When writing about how watches are better now, I kept thinking about this TAG Heuer Diver Professional. Objectively speaking, it’s a piece of sh*t compared to what TAG Heuer makes nowadays.
But I’ve never felt anything when picking up a modern Aquaracer. I see spreadsheets and bottom lines and Bernard Arnault’s next chateau, but so many modern watches are missing that something else.
That’s what we want. Not just the emotional feeling, but the literal, physical feeling of putting the object on your wrist. The jangly jubilee-style bracelet. The slight crazing of the crystal. The crown that pops off if I pull too hard.
I can tell you about all its quirks, but I barely know those more familiar questions you get about a watch.
I asked watchmaker Roman Winiger to send me a photo of his workshop, where he’s produced the prototypes for 20 ‘open-source’ movements in La Chaux-de-Fonds.
These watchmakers want to ‘open source’ a movement. Can it work?
If you want to make a watch, step one after your brilliant idea is finding a movement supplier. There are a few good ones like Sellita and La Joux Perret. But these are big companies making lots of movements for lots of clients, with all the good and potentially bad that comes with that.
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