Listen, I like a good Omega as much as the next man, but old Hayek need to rethink this shiz if he thinks he can take on Rolex. Rolex = Golfing Executive’s Watch of Choice.
The flames of hostility began to spark during an interview that Nick Hayek Jr. gave to the excellent newspaper, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. “The growth of Rolex seems to be slowing down a little,” he declared, adding quickly, “Omega, on the other hand, is doing quite well.” And, laying his cards on the table, he went on to say, “Our ambition is clear. We want to equal, and then to surpass Rolex in three to four years.”
SWATCH versus ROLEX [Europastar]
A quick post on WatchRap opens up a whole can of worms on the nature of watch collecting. It is an obsession, friends, and an expensive one at that. Not as expensive as buying a Corvette every year, but this stuff adds up.
You’re asking advice from a bunch of watch addicts that are willing to buy expensive photo equipment to take macro pictures of movements. We will go on vacation and take pictures of our watches in foreign places. We will drive a car really fast and take a picture of our watch beside the speedometer. We take pictures of screws and post them. We also get replies to the post. We have no common sense. We are really lemmings leading you to the edge of the horology cliff.
What should a person do… [WatchRap General Watch Discussion Board]
Here is an excellent look at Donald W. Corson’s foray into creating his own watch completely by hand. We’re talking everything from the movement. Amazing stuff.
The following are posts I made to an Internet watchmaking forum describing the advancement of my work during the course of almost a year. From a few square pieces of cold brass to a working movement in a one-of-a-kind case. One of the joys of this work was the constant changes in skillset needed. From machinist to watchmaker to silversmith, etc.. As such the work is never boring, never repetitive, always new challenges and unknowns to be overcome.
Making a Watch by Hand [Ticino]
My buddy Amit lives in Nigeria now and just bought a Vulcain Cricket GMT to celebrate a new job. He wrote a bit about his experience and it was quite moving.
I tell you what, buying the Vulcain was a real
extravagance but I didn’t do it on a whim. I’ve always known that I would
buy a nice watch at some point and when I saw the thing in a shop window I
knew that would be the one. I then made an agreement with Claire that I
would only buy it if/when I got my next job. So that watch waited for me
in that shop window for five months. In fact, although we then bought the
watch when my new job had been agreed in principle, I didn’t wear it until
the paperwork had been completed and that took another three months!! I
had my wife hide it in the house and then had to try and forget about it.
It was agony!!
Read more…
Harry at WatchingHorology takes on the age old question: is it better to spend your wad on one timeless piece or buy a few, more inexpensive pieces. The jury is obviously out, but my suggestion is this: buy cheaper pieces at first and when you know what you want, sell them and buy the dream watch. Or, better yet, never buy the dream watch – remember, when the watch has had about 2 weeks of wrist time, the bloom is off the rose, friends. There are so few watches that can withstand a longer than usual wear time that it’s almost a fool’s game.
Many have suggested that I liquidate my collection to move on to a higher value piece such as a tourbillon or minute repeater. While I may have considered this, it has yet to take root in my collecting values. For me currently, I fell that unless it’s absolutely certain that the (over S$30k) purchase will not depreciate, I will not fork out the hard earned money nor liquidate the hard to acquire pieces of lesser value I have. Save for Pateks – which MAY have some assurance of its long term value and secondary market. Almost nothing in the watch world can promise a recovery of investment cost. For me, Patek does not especially do anything for me at its price point.
FAQ #2 – Single High Value Timepiece v Collection of Mid Values [WatchingHorology]
A shifty store, Dualtime sold one of the watch folks a Glycine with box and papers. Apparently, the buyer received only the watch and then got a broken box and weird papers for his trouble. I suppose they’re someone to watch out for now.
Bad bad experience of online trading (pls read) [BWF]
An amazingly detailed post on how to buy a Seiko 6309 diver, one of the iconic Japanese divers of the last century. The 6309 has an automatic movement and is built like a tank with the crown at 4 o’clock. I have my father’s, which I redid completely after he left it sitting in a drawer for about 20 years. It’s a striking piece and, along with the Orange Monster, is a great newbie collector’s watch.
HOW TO BUY A SEIKO 6309 DIVER (Belongs in FAQ) [Seiko and Citizen Forum]
WuS has one man’s quest for the PERFECT watch. The story he tells is an incredible tribute to watchmaking and patience.
Long story with loads of pics about my ‘little’ watch project 
[WatchuSeek
]
Nice fat thread about wearing a “nice” watch – do it or not? I wear my Speedmaster to death. No reason to treat these things with kid gloves.
How does everyone feel about wearing their nice watches to work and around the house? One one hand I feel that I spent alot of money on these watches and I should enjoy wearing them even with the chance that they could get a scratch or mark on them. One the other hand I don’t want to get them scratched or damaged. I’m not talking about a $10, 000 watch. But more like $500 to $2500 watches. I’m leaning toward’s “just wear them and enjoy them.”
Check it out here.
Still getting my head around the Glashutte trip I went on two weeks ago. I’m working on a story for InSync, as well, so I’ll just offer a bare bones assessment of the factory and leave the heavy lifting for the dead tree magazine.
On the whole Glashutte turns out excellent pieces. That’s not surprising. Lots of people can do that. But to see it done, all by hand, in a long trip through both time and space, was just incredible. I mean get this: they have one guy who does all the engraving. If he were to get sick or decide to join a commune, the company is in a bad way.
Read more…
Check out Velociphile’s take on the Spring Drive. Thorough. Very thorough.
Because it is a continuation of a line of evolution, it makes sense, at least to me, that developing better mechanicals remains valid; the logic being in the absence of quartz where could we be? And this is where I start to struggle with Spring Drive.
Read the rest here.
Velociphile does it again.
I was recently showing some industry execs one of our new technology demonstrators. One of them turned out to be someone Id known for several years and being very happy to see them I gave our demo driver a rest and took to the track with them myself. Sat alternately pinned and restrained in the passenger seat harness answering his questions as the car whooshed through its paces I noticed his wrist on the gear shift sported a JLC. I pointed it out and in his broken English, while still tackling the course, he told me its story…
Read the rest here.
An interesting thread over at WatchUSeek. Eric asks if he should wear his Planet Ocean to Jamaica. First, do any street toughs know what a Planet Ocean is and second, this brings up an interesting point: is watch thievery still a big deal especially considering the glut of fakes and quartz junk out there?
Check out the thread here.
Nice thread on the BIG Watch Forum about the best cheap beaters. Some interesting ideas.
I would say my best beater is the Sandoz Diver. Automatic, withstands gardening and wall fixing, and looks nice.
Check out the entire threa here.
Velociphile is saying the unthinkable. The watch bubble? Burst? People will always pay $10,000 for a Franck Muller with golden hands. The world is just thirsting for a $6,000 dubiously waterproof diver with a fat Unitas movement in it? What a fool!
The number of people asking “which are the best investments” just don’t have simple answers. Of course it’s possible to make money buying and selling watches or there wouldn’t be any dealers….. but right now….phew, you’d better have a collection made up of things you actually like. Right now the more relevant question is “which is best for value retention.” Having had a superheated market, with sky high list prices, out of proportion premiums on complications and the persistent marketing of the myth that because you could buy a watch in 1950 for $1000 and sell it for $5M now, it makes sense to “invest” now, I really believe we’re seeing some common sense finally intervene.
As usual, top-notch writing and top-notch commentary.
Read the rest here.
