Hype dodger: 3 steel Professional Rolex watches you can actually buy
$16,450 – that’s the Australian recommended retail price of the Oystersteel Rolex Daytona ref. 116500LN. But, as I’m sure 99 per cent of people reading this are already patently aware, if you actually want to own one of these fabled watches, you can’t merely walk into an AD and pick one up. No, if you want a “Panda” Daytona, you’ve got to venture into the slightly murky and occasionally insalubrious world of the grey/secondhand market. And even then, the steel Daytona is almost an anomalous object, and if you do manage to find one, you’re paying at least $35K all day long. In other words, it’s almost an effort in futility even entertaining the idea of one day having one slapped on your wrist. This is the same story for the majority of Rolex’s Oystersteel Professional range – be it Submariner, GMT-Master II, Sea-Dweller … this list goes on. However, there are certain steel “sports” watches in Rolex’s esteemed catalogue that you can still buy at retail, from a local authorised dealer. Mind you, you’re probably not going to be able to merely walk in, see one on the counter and slap your plastic against the EFTPOS machine. But if…
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Editor’s note: Question: What do David Gandy, Gerard Butler, Eric Bana, Bradley Cooper and Adrien Brody all have in common? Answer: They’ve all been spotted wearing a Bulgari Octo. And apart from being five exceedingly good-looking dudes, they’re all rather tall gents. So naturally, our fearless leader Andrew McUtchen pondered, “What would this beefcake collective be like if they were to join forces and start a basketball team?”. And spare a thought for the celebs who have been relegated to the bench, because let’s face it, 175cm ain’t gonna cut it on this team … Jeremy Renner! Golden State Warriors, you are on notice. If our A-list line-up of regular Bulgari Octo wearers decided to, mythically speaking, join forces on a basketball court in their on-screen personas, you’d be done. Crushed. Eliminated. Defused. Skewered. From snipers to Spartan warriors, Moonlight Sonatas (lovely Adrien, just lovely) and devastating good looks, our Octo Octet has every possible scenario covered, on and off the court. Maybe we’ve had too much time on our hands, or spent too long analysing Met Gala wristwear, but we’ve gone ahead and drawn up, not just the Octo’s starting five (with allocated positions), but a pretty hard-hitting bench too.…
Well, it’s been another successful year for what many in the horological world refer to as (much to the chagrin of Time+Tide’s Nicholas Kenyon) the “Oscars of the watchmaking industry”. And, much like Hollywood’s most revered awards ceremony, there’s been more than a few upsets at this year’s Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève, across quite a few different categories. Now we understand that GPHG is an awards ceremony, so the ability to please everyone is nigh on impossible. However, these three watches represent the biggest shocks from the famed awards night: Tudor P01 Yeah, I don’t think anyone saw this one coming, but somehow, against the misshapen odds, the Tudor P01 has gone and won the hotly contested “Challenge” category at this year’s GPHG. Quite how this … inimitable-looking timepiece managed to upend a field that consisted of watches like Ming’s gorgeous 17.06 Copper and Doxa’s excellent new SUB 200 is beyond me, but GPHG’s expert judges obviously saw something in P01 that this mere mortal did not. Anyway, while the Tudor P01 is a contentious timepiece, it does at least present consumers with an unquestionably unique design language that you won’t find anywhere else. Kudos to Tudor for…
Initially created for the French Ministry of Defence for the French Air Force, the Breguet Type XX, XXI and XXII are timekeeping devices steeped in the history of aviation-specific wristwatches. First released in 1954, the Type XX was the first aviation watch ever created by the storied Swiss watchmaker, who specifically produced the timepiece at the behest of the aforementioned French Ministry of Defence, who had originally approached Breguet to commission 500 examples of a flight-ready wristwatch with a flyback chronograph complication. The rest, as the old adage goes, is history, and now Breguet makes a great many iterations of the fabled aeronautical watch, and we thought we’d take a look at three of our favourite models. Breguet Type XX 3800 The Breguet Type XX 3800 is a faithful reinterpretation of the original Type XX, and is personally my favourite timepiece from Breguet’s sizeable aviation collection. Why is it my favourite, you may ask? Well, for a start, it wears a lot smaller than most flight-ready wristwatches you’ll find on the market, with the familiar stainless steel case measuring in at a reasonable 39mm and 14.4mm thick. It also presents a nicely vintage aesthetic, without being a pastiche. The…
With Only Watch 2019 now just a few short days away, there’s a veritable smorgasbord of gorgeous piece-unique watches and timekeeping devices heading to the auction block. In fact, there are 50 watches in total taking part in this year’s charity auction, with all funds raised going to the research of Duchenne muscular dystrophy. And while all the timepieces are gorgeous and inimitable, the price from one watch to the next can vary greatly in terms of their estimated value. So, we thought it’d be interesting to take a look at the top 3 most expensive timepieces up for grabs at Only Watch 2019: Patek Philippe Grandmaster Chime ref. 6300A-010 We couldn’t write this list without mentioning the truly astonishing offering from Patek Philippe for this year’s Only Watch – the Patek Philippe Grandmaster Chime ref. 6300A-010. Now, let’s not beat around the bush with this one, the Grandmaster Chime was always going to command an eye-watering price, but the extent of the estimate borders on what most mere mortals would consider absurd. However, for the lucky winning bidder, they will have purchased one of the most complicated timepieces ever created from arguably the best watchmaker on planet Earth. $2,500,000…
Editor’s note: As summer is swiftly approaching (in the Southern Hemisphere), a couple of friends who are into watches and I have been increasingly keen on picking up a summer watch. The thing about a summer watch is that you don’t want to break the bank when buying one, just in case you do only wear it during the summer. Which led me to thinking about the best watches that live for the summer months, but are also relatively affordable. Have a read, and let us know your favourite affordable watch for summer in the socials comments. Not everybody can afford the big guns: Patek Philippe, Vacheron Constantin, Audemars Piguet, Lange & Söhne, Breguet … These brands are, for many of us, a little out of reach (unfortunately). But that doesn’t mean we can’t appreciate them from afar. Nor does it mean that we can’t find watches within our grasp that offer enough bang for their buck to earn the approval of even the snobbiest of watch snobs (well, okay, maybe not the snobbiest). Not all of the brands on this list of the best budget watch brands look a lot like any of the watches produced by the haute…
Later this year, Phillips, in association with Bacs & Russo, are hosting the Game Changers auction, which will be offering some of the most important watches to ever meet the public market, including watches owned by golfer Jack Nicklaus, and actors Marlon Brando and Robert Downey Jr, as well as incredibly rare vintage examples of Patek Philippe, Rolex and LeCoultre. While the full catalogue for the Phillips Game Changers auction has not yet been made public, let’s take a closer look at some of the highlights that are likely to get paddles in the air. The Jack Nicklaus’ Rolex Day-Date Ref. 1803 Jack Nicklaus is considered by many to be one of, if not the greatest golfer of all time, having won 18 major championships over his career. He wore his Rolex Day-Date for the majority of his career, after he received it in 1966 through his relationship with Rolex as a golf tournament sponsor. The Marlon Brando ‘Apocalypse Now’ Rolex GMT-Master, Ref. 1675 The sale of this bezel-less Rolex GMT-Master was announced in July this year, and immediately turned heads, as the intoxicating blend of Rolex, Hollywood provenance, and first time to market (which saw the Paul Newman “Paul…
This year we were lucky enough to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the TAG Heuer Monaco. It was in the last year of the 1960s that the brand (just Heuer at the time) released their iconic watch that was one of the first ever automatic chronographs, and was cemented as a legend when it was seen on the wrist of Steve McQueen in the cinema classic Le Mans. To celebrate this very special watch, in 2019 they have released a series of five TAG Heuer Monaco limited edition watches (of 169 pieces per watch), with each part of the series representing a decade in the life of the Monaco. The fifth and final watch was released last week, so we wanted to take a look at the full picture, now the last piece of the puzzle had been placed. TAG Heuer Monaco 1969-1979 Limited Edition The first cab off the rank was the Monaco 1969-1979, with a deep green dial and, unusually, Côtes de Genève finishing on the dial, a technique that is most commonly used to decorate movements. With a brown leather rally strap, and the red and yellow dial highlights, it oozes with the cool of the ’70s. Read…
Omega’s eponymous collection of Seamaster timepieces are as varied as they are capable, and no matter the occasion, chances are Omega makes a water-ready timepiece that’s right for you. Genuinely, the Swiss marque’s famed dive watches are available in so many different iterations that one could conceivably own several different variants from the same family of watches. With that in mind, we thought we’d take a look at three versions of the Omega Seamaster that will look great on your wrist, no matter the occasion. Omega Planet Ocean 600M Co‑Axial Master Chronometer 39.5mm For a daily timepiece, the Omega Seamaster Planet Ocean 600M presents as a pretty compelling proposition. For a start, the stainless steel sports watch’s 39.5mm case size lands it smack bang in the middle of the “Goldilocks zone”, ensuring that you can wear it with just about anything. Furthermore, the Planet Ocean’s uniformly black dial backs up the versatility of the case size, and gives the PO a great amount of bandwidth. And when you take into account that the Planet Ocean hosts Omega’s Calibre 8800 movement, which is not only self-winding but also master chronometer certified, magnetic resistant to 15,000 gauss and offers up 55 hours…
It has been a stellar year for Grand Seiko, with the Japanese watchmaker releasing not only a bevy of new iterations of some of their most popular models, but also a completely new manual-wind dress watch, the SBGK series. And, as is always the case with Grand Seiko, the arresting dials adorning these new timepieces have been received with a fairly large amount of adoration within the horological community. So, with that in mind, we thought we’d whittle down all the new dial designs produced by Grand Seiko in 2019 and pick our five favourite examples: Grand Seiko SBGH269 We couldn’t make this list without mentioning the current hype beast of Morioka, the Grand Seiko SBGH269 ‘Autumn’. There’s no two ways about it – the dial of this watch is gorgeous, with a bright red centre bleeding into a deeper and darker almost-maroon around the edges. Then there’s the vertical pin striping in slightly brighter shades of red, giving the watch’s dial an overall aesthetic akin to that of a boiled candy. Contrasted with gold accents that can be found on the Grand Seiko logo, minute markers and second hand, the SBGH269 certainly deserves its ‘Autumn’ moniker and is…