The many drawbacks of watches and why they make us love them even more
One of life’s great ironies is that the pursuit of perfection often leads to disappointment, even when it is achieved. Your average smartphone may have perfected the art of timekeeping, but a watch enthusiast could never be satisfied with that alone. Digital watches like G-SHOCKs may also have that functionality, but we still wouldn’t wear … Continued
The post The many drawbacks of watches and why they make us love them even more appeared first on Time and Tide Watches.
The post The many drawbacks of watches and why they make us love them even more appeared first on Time and Tide Watches.
Some luxury brands shy away from their elite clientele, trying to remain humble despite earth-shaking price tags. Hublot aren’t exactly subtle about their style though, pushing technological boundaries of ceramic and sapphire cases while adorning the wrists of some of the world’s biggest athletes, celebrities, and even political leaders. Today we’re going to take a … 
The changing resale values of Seiko watches is a mystery to most people, with some models soaring and diving within the space of a year. One thing that does always drive up prices, however, is once a model gets discontinued, as I recently discovered with my own $200 Seiko Sapphire. It doesn’t even matter if … 
Not all watch brands have a community around them. In fact, most don’t, which is a huge challenge for those brands to build a loyal following who are relentlessly passionate about their product. As far as relentless passion goes, Grand Seiko is one of the most well-loved brands on the planet when it comes to the head-over-heels admiration its collectors share. As a result of this, Grand Seiko’s social-media community is particularly strong with many enthusiast-run accounts simply sharing their love of the Japanese watchmaker. We wanted to shine the spotlight on a few of these accounts, to share some of the best Grand Seiko Instagram accounts that we think might make your feed a whole lot better. @rjkama RJ is a bit of a legend in the watch collecting community, best known as a bodybuilding doctor who certainly knows his way around a camera when he’s shooting his watches. His collection is diverse, but RJ has a deep love and appreciation for Grand Seiko that quickly comes across in his feed. Check him out right here. @68molle Stefan Molin is better known in the watch world as @68molle and he’s a true dyed in the wool Seiko and Grand…
Around Christmas time when I dug into the archives of Orient Watch, the lesser known sister company in the Seiko family, our story resounded with our readers in a big way. Personally, since my early days of vintage obsession, through to a brief flirtation with a Mako diver, I have nurtured a secret love for the quirky nature and superb value of Orient. Like that holiday destination you don’t want anyone else to find (it’s in the South of France, that’s all I’m telling you), I have been persuaded to share more of their horological offerings with you, and what better way to start than their best new releases of 2021? M-Force AC0L Don’t be shy, here is a tough as nails alternative to other deep ocean dwellers, be that Tunas or Turtles, in a brand new version of the distinctive M-Force series. It’s a bullet-proof diver’s watch with a heritage that stretches back to its initial run from 1997-2002. Admittedly, it isn’t a 38mm svelte vintage dressy diver, but a pure tool that might look intimidating enough to be refused access to a respectable club. With a spot-on petrol blue fume dial, this 45mm diver is a colourful beast…
As we have touched on before in our story here, the Rolex GMT-Master II Ref.126710 BLRO does actually live up to the hype. And while I would love to have one in my own watchbox, the two major hurdles of availability and cost can feel rather insurmountable. So how about the alternatives? Yes, there are some very good ones out there with their own takes on what is practically a separate watch genre. So let’s pop open a few different looking cans of Pepsi and have a taste of the sweet stuff with some fresh alternatives to the GMT-Master II. The original You might find it hyped, ubiquitous and topped by a prohibitively long waiting list. But still, the GMT-Master II Ref.126710 BLRO is for many a proper grail watch and epitomises the Crown’s catalogue of sports watches. Within the confines of a sleek, comfortable 40mm case in the warmth of 904L steel alloy, the comfort is sublime. It will take you all of five seconds with it on your wrist to appreciate Rolex’s unique brand of horological evolution. This story, however, is about finding an alternative to this, no matter how (very, very) comfortable it sits on your wrist,…
“My name is Thor, and I am a strapaholic.” It’s only a matter of time before I get pulled into some kind of intervention with friends, family and a psychiatrist. I’m surely not the only watch lover who likes to swap my watch straps on a regular basis. But many brands seem to be stuck in the strap-tech stone-age and still rely on the fiddly spring bar that hardly offers a user-friendly way to change straps. What if we coul just click’em all off and on at our leisure, changing a strap to match up that outfit in 10 seconds flat? Thankfully this vision of the future is, in fact, already upon us with some forward-thinking brands leading the way. Now excuse me while I crawl under the sofa to find that missing spring bar… Omega Seamaster Diver 300m Americas Cup Chronograph For those of you that think the standard Seamaster Diver 300M is a tad vanilla-flavoured, the Omega Seamaster Diver 300M America’s Cup Chronograph offers a brand new look in a fresh oceanic blue pepped up by flashes of red, notably for the countdown indicator at 3 o’clock. The watch introduces a slew of new upgrades we can only…
Nearly every watch lover will harbour certain regrets. It is inevitable there’s a watch you wished you’d pulled the trigger on – wincing in hindsight that it is not in your collection today. In fact, this is such a relatable aspect of watch collecting that for the fourth weekly meeting of The Breakfast Club on Clubhouse we’ve decided to ask participants to share their own tales of the watch that got away. When it comes to such sob stories, our very own Time+Tide team is no exception. So in anticipation of this week’s meeting, I asked my colleagues to share the watches that slipped through their grasps. Please join us on Clubhouse (Friday 8pm EST / Saturday 11am AET) as we’d love to hear your tales, too. Thor Svaboe’s watch that got away: Girard Perregaux Laureato 38mm I’m sticking to my top choice of a 38mm Girard Perregaux Laureato. To such an extent that I recently sold my Black Bay 58, and am now waiting for another one to come up for sale at the champagne-for-the-price-of-soda price of the lost one. This Genta entry ticket at 38mm is a great version of the delicately bevelled Girard-Perregaux Laureato. I reviewed one…
Of late, eBay has been making serious strides into the pre-owned watch market and they certainly aren’t slowing down. They recently started a new Instagram account dedicated solely to watch content and just a few months ago announced their Authenticity Guarantee program to verify watches sold for $2000USD and over. This week eBay is offering another sweetener to consider their platform if you’re a watch buyer. They’re offering a $500USD discount on watches that cost more than $2500USD until March 28 (see T&C below). To make the most of this deal and a half, we’ve pulled together a list of eight pretty interesting watches that span a range of brands and complications, but all ring the till up to about $5kUSD, just to make sure your $500 discount is going to work. Rolex DateJust with blue dial We all know that stainless-steel Rolex is a white-hot category and if you add a blue dial into the mix, it only gets more desirable. This 36mm Rolex DateJust features a blue dégradé dial that is just a delight to look at and the case looks to be in decent condition. While the bracelet is not original, the price reflects this missing piece…
When it comes to Omega dive watches, the Seamaster 300 is an enthusiast favourite. Yes, the Diver 300M collection is hugely popular, but for those who aren’t after a contemporary design and prefer the softer and more balanced designs of the Omega archives, then the Seamaster 300 is where you may well eventually find yourself. For 2021, the Bienne-based watchmaker has reinvigorated the collection with all new Omega Seamaster 300 references that remain faithful to the original design, but have a few key updates. With that in mind, we wanted to take a closer look at the new Omega Seamaster 300 versus old variations and unpack the key differences. The dial construction This year the Seamaster 300 has received a totally new dial, both in its construction and in its details (which we’ll get to in a minute). It features what is known as a sandwich dial, which is a first for Omega and basically means that it has two dials sandwiched together to add more visual depth. The baseplate of the dial is German silver, which is coated in vintage-coloured Super-LumiNova, before being covered with the second dial of common bronze which has the hour markers and numerals cut…