Category: *News Columns

There’s a watch out there that could genuinely change your life. It could make you happier, healthier and more successful. It could help you regain a sense of control in these messed-up times and add some much-needed pep to your step. The best part? You can pick one up here for the princely sum of $150. The watch in question is a Timex Ironman T66801 and it belongs to Jocko Willink, the man that Tim Ferris famously dubbed “the scariest Navy SEAL imaginable”. Willink is certainly an intimidating customer. He’s a 104kg man-mountain with a permanently fresh buzzcut and a black belt in jiu-jitsu. The 48-year-old is also a bona fide legend in the Special Operations world. The former Navy SEAL commanding officer led the most decorated special ops unit in the Iraq war (American Sniper Chris Kyle was their point man) and would later oversee the military training for all the SEAL Teams on America’s west coast. Since retiring from the military, Willink co-founded Echelon Front, a multi-million dollar leadership and management consulting company. He’s subsequently published a succession of bestselling books including Extreme Ownership: How U.S Navy Seals Lead and Win and Leadership Strategy and Tactics, as well…

The post This is the world’s most inspiring watch. It costs $150 and belongs to “the scariest Navy SEAL imaginable” appeared first on Time and Tide Watches.

Monday is once again upon us, and here in Melbourne, Australia that means we’re oh so close to things starting to crawl back to normality, with pubs and restaurants set to open their doors for the first time in nearly three months, starting next week. Those with school age children are also painfully aware that many of them go back tomorrow. No matter what watch you wear, parents are counting the hours.  Aside from thinking non-stop about just how good that first ice cold brew is going to go down at the local (we can’t wait), the start of the working week has also got us thinking, once again, about micro brands. That’s right, it’s Micro Monday! This week we’re taking a closer look at a small Canadian brand that has caught the imagination of both watch and diving enthusiasts alike. We are, of course, talking about Halios Watches. Founded in 2009 by Jason Lim, Halios was created to express the passion that Lim has felt for watches his entire life. The timepieces that the small Canadian watchmaker produce stay true to the company’s founding principles: 1) offer a quality, well-built watch that you can take into the water; 2)…

The post MICRO MONDAYS: Three key models that are on the way to making Halios a household(ish) name appeared first on Time and Tide Watches.

It’s MJ Monday! Which means there’s a creeping sense of loss all over the world. Because The Last Dance is done. It’s over. Michael Jordan will not be gracing our screens tonight. We will not be gathering like excited children around his armchair tonight, while he pours himself a no doubt single malt on the rocks with a Partagás Lusitania in hand. Sob. So we felt both a personal sense of obligation, and the opportunity for some replacement therapy, to find a story to bring to you. Admittedly, it’s on the trivial side, because Michael Jordan is the principle owner of the Charlotte Hornets, and the richest former professional athlete in the world, worth $2.1bn as at May 2020, according to Forbes. He’s not short of a buck, and as our two-part collection review revealed, he ain’t short of a grail piece or ten when it comes to watches. But, that all said, on The Last Dance, Scottie – his second banana par excellence – might or not have doubled down on the GOAT, by choosing to wear a model from the same brand, Roger Dubuis, with an extra two tourbillons, worth four times more at RRP. The prices of…

The post The savage watch flex in The Last Dance that saw Pip one-up the GOAT… appeared first on Time and Tide Watches.

Whether it’s the Breguet pocket watch that belongs to the dastardly Baron Danglars in The Count of Monte Cristo or the orange-dialled Doxa worn by Dirk Pitt in Clive Cussler’s novels, the literary world is full of watches. Sometimes they’re mentioned as passing details to flesh out a character’s appearance. Sometimes a character’s wristwear comes laden with semiotic depth to reveal some hidden facet of their personality. For this article, Time+Tide hastily re-read every single book ever written – OK, we skimmed a couple – to unpack our selection of horological quotes. THE QUOTE: “He could not just wear a watch. It had to be a Rolex.” CASINO ROYALE by Ian Fleming (1953) Ian Fleming was as morbidly obsessed with brands as Patrick Bateman in American Psycho. In his first 007 novel, Casino Royale, Bond drives a Bentley, drinks Taittinger champagne and pointedly wears a Rolex watch. Although the precise model of Bond’s watch is undetermined, it’s now commonly assumed to be a Rolex Explorer 1016. Not only did Fleming wear that watch himself, but in his later novel, Thunderball, Felix specifically asks Bond whether  “he is still wearing that old wristwatch…with the big phosphorous numerals?”. At any rate, Fleming…

The post From Hemingway’s Rolex to Murakami’s vintage Heuer – the 7 best watch quotes from literature appeared first on Time and Tide Watches.

Right now, the dive watch market is more saturated than a saturation diver’s wetsuit. If you want a fit-for-purpose timepiece made to withstand the pressures and perils of H20, you are most definitely spoilt for choice. Of course, it’s understandable why watches that aren’t going to completely capitulate when coming into contact with water are so popular – it’s a very desirable feature. But it can be daunting trying to separate the good from the bad and, more importantly, trying to understand the gulf between the inexpensive and the very expensive. That last point is something that I think about a lot. And matters haven’t exactly been simplified since I started wearing this new Longines HydroConquest in Khaki Green. In fact, this watch has well and truly muddied the waters. Here is a timepiece with no less than 300 metres of water resistance, a self-winding movement, ceramic bezel, solid build quality, arresting presentation and it comes from one of the oldest and best watchmakers in the game … and it costs $2325 AUD. Normally with these types of stories, we like to bury the lead somewhat, keeping readers in suspense until the very end. But, in the case of this…

The post IN-DEPTH: The Longines HydroConquest 41mm in Khaki Green, a value proposition like few others appeared first on Time and Tide Watches.

Editor’s note: There comes a point in every collector’s journey where they wish, even if only for a moment, that they had only one watch. That all of their learning, discussing, buying and selling in the world of horology could be focused into a single piece that they could wear every day for the rest of their life. Never again would they hesitate in the morning as they decide what to wear that day, and never again would they wonder where part of their collection was. For many, that watch could be the Rolex Oyster Perpetual 39 ref. 114300. The story in a second: This could well be the only watch you’ll ever need. There’s a concept in the world of watch enthusiasts that’s referred to as ‘only one watch’. For the majority of the population, this concept is better known as ‘normality’. But if you’re the sort of person who has a watch for work, one for the weekend as well as a dedicated timepiece for special occasions, there’s a good chance the thought of committing to just one will fill you with dread. How could you choose? Can you live without a chronograph? And do you go for…

The post Why the Rolex Oyster Perpetual 39 ref. 114300 might be the only watch you ever need appeared first on Time and Tide Watches.

The last episodes of The Last Dance, the epic documentary series on Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls, have just aired. While watching, our Deputy Editor, Nick Kenyon, caught a glimpse of what looked like a vintage Rolex Daytona with a “Paul Newman” dial on the wrist of American director Spike Lee, who was a spectator at a Bulls match in 1998. Lee is known for films such as BlacKkKlansman, Do the Right Thing, Inside Man and Malcolm X. We know Lee is a watch guy, with pieces ranging from the evergreen cool Casio G-Shocks to watches from Jaeger-LeCoultre and Rolex. I did some digging through photo archives and discovered that Lee rocked a Rolex reference 6263 Daytona in steel with a white non “Paul Newman” dial back in 1992. Through further searching, I came across images from 1996 of Lee sporting a vintage Daytona with a “Paul Newman” dial, but couldn’t completely make out the exact reference due to the distance of the photograph. Rocking a vintage Daytona in the ’90s would have been a rarity, considering there wasn’t the level of interest like we have seen in the past 15 years for these timepieces, and it shows Lee was…

The post Proof American director Spike Lee is way ahead of the collecting curve, from a PN Rolex Daytona in ’92 to Casio appeared first on Time and Tide Watches.

It’s Friday, it’s knockoff, and it’s a beading glass of vodka and dry ginger I have at my left hand. What a week! Most of it was dominated by the Mission: Possible attempt to film a feature-length special on a Sunday and then publish it at 3am Australian time on Thursday morning. It was ambitious. We were sleepless in Seattle. But it was an honour. The El Primero is among the truly legendary achievements in the pantheon of watchmaking, both as a movement and as a watch. If, like the many new people in my inbox over the last couple of days, you were inspired by this launch to put your name down for one, please write to me directly at andrew@timeandtidewatches.com The other consequence of this big Manufacture Edition reveal is that our scheduled Baselworld Edition of the ‘Home Delivery Watch Fair’, where we bring fairs direct to your couch, is bumped a week. We’ll be dropping more teasers during the week. Rest assured, it will fill the void that The Last Dance has left in all of us. It will be multiple feature-length episodes, this is a promise. In other news, we spotted a truly wild watch on the wrist of…

The post FRIDAY WIND DOWN: Celebrating the week we helped Zenith launch the final El Primero 50th Anniversary Edition and Billie Eilish’s baller new watch appeared first on Time and Tide Watches.

It may have been made to celebrate an event that, like everything else this year, has been cancelled, but that hasn’t stopped TAG Heuer from unveiling a new, high-octane variant of its iconic moniker – the TAG Heuer Monaco Grand Prix de Monaco Historique Limited Edition. Mouthful of a name aside, this latest iteration of the squared-off icon has been made, rather obviously, to celebrate the wonderful Monaco Grand Prix de Monaco Historique, which TAG Heuer is the official timekeeper for. The motorsport event is a stunning two-day spectacle that sees historic race cars from yesteryear being belted around the fabled circuit at indecent speeds. It was set to be held May 8 to 10 … but it’s since been black flagged due to COVID-19, which is such a shame. Regardless, the timepiece itself appears to be a very good-looking iteration of the legendary namesake, so let’s take a closer look. The biggest talking point of the new watch, by far, is the motorsport-inspired red and white dial, which aims to pay homage to some of the most iconic race car liveries ever to grace the seaside principality’s famed street circuit. It’s a very cleverly designed dial – one that…

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