Andrew reveals five of his own watches in a Media Watch Death Match against Josh from Watchonista (and gets a slapping)
It started with an invitation to join Watchonista’s ‘Home Time Live’, a new series on Instagram that takes followers into the homes of the industry’s leaders and luminaries for an intimate interview. Georges Kern, CEO of Breitling. Jean-Christophe Babin, CEO of Bulgari. Max Büsser of MB&F. And now, a Happy Hour version of the usual midday broadcast featuring Time+Tide. Exciting! It was a rad proposition, because — thanks to some brutal time zone trading — it also meant me drinking breakfast beers while we did it. Josh, meanwhile, sipped a much more civilised evening tipple. But, aside from discussing our chosen beers, what else would we talk about? Josh Shanks and I had a WhatsApp chat. We settled on a live version of our very own ‘Celebrity Watch Death Match’, where we would pit five of our own personal watches against each other. The categories for the watches would be Dive Watch, Pilot Watch, Dress Watch, GMT Watch and, Josh’s last-minute inclusion of a ‘Curiosity Category’. Throughout the battle, we maturely, and in as least a biased manner as possible, tried to select a winner. The idea was that we’d then compare our own ratings with The Internet. We planned to put…
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Recently, Andrew put together his greatest hits from the Time+Tide Watches YouTube channel, chronicling some of the finest pieces of information and entertainment-rich video we have ever produced. It wouldn’t be fair to let him have all the fun, though, so I put together my own list, much of which I enjoyed for years before I joined the Time+Tide team. You can find my full playlist of my highlights right here (close to 3 hours of viewing), but I also wanted to include a couple of my real favourites below. Russell Crowe on the stories behind his watches, and why he’s selling them “A spring clean on a celebrity scale,” is how Felix succinctly put it, and that’s exactly what we got. Russell Crowe showed us how to sell off a collection in style, and was generous enough to share a few of the stories behind the watches he was auctioning. Top-notch stuff. A week on the wrist with the Chopard Alpine Eagle, one of the most controversial watches of 2019 This was a longer-format look at one of the most talked about watches in 2019, the Chopard Alpine Eagle. Andrew nails the nitty-gritty detail of why this watch is…
Michael Jordan is an NBA legend who many consider to be the greatest player of all time, the GOAT, or, if on social media, simply the goat emoji. Jordan won a total of six NBA championships with the Chicago Bulls and is nicknamed “Air Jordan” and “His Airness” for his ability to hang in the air on the way to the basket. Stopping time. When it comes to timepieces, Jordan has shown an eye for purchasing models that have been less known to the masses at the time. As one commenter on an Instagram thread put it, “When you’re the goat, you don’t have to follow the herd.” A. Lange & Söhne Datograph Probably one of the coolest finds of 2020 that I uncovered was Jordan sporting a first generation A. Lange & Söhne Datograph in platinum on matching platinum bracelet back in 2002. The Datograph was a revelation when it was unveiled at Baselworld 1999 and at the time not too many people would have been aware of the brand in the early 2000s. Seeing MJ rocking one in 2002 was definitely eye opening! Franck Muller Long Island Perpetual Calendar At 6ft 6 inches, Michael Jordan is a tall…
Remember the moral of The Emperor’s New Clothes? When something is universally praised, you become unwilling to speak out, even if something is gravely wrong on a fundamental level. That’s how I feel about the Cartier Tank. I know this is wildly sacrilegious. The Cartier Tank is, after all, one of the most iconic watches of all time, whose classic design has withstood the fluctuating whims of fashion for more than a century. Since Louis Cartier rolled it out in 1919, the Tank has graced the wrists of a veritable Who’s Who of movers and shakers. You want names? OK, let’s start with Clark Gable, Rudolph Valentino, Cary Grant, Bob Hope, Cole Porter, Frank Sinatra, Duke Ellington, Truman Capote, Fred Astaire, Gary Cooper and Jackie Onassis. More? Alright then, how about Steve McQueen, Muhammad Ali, Calvin Klein, Yves Saint Laurent, Ralph Lauren, Patti Smith, Claudia Schiffer, Sofia Coppola, Angelina Jolie and Michelle Obama. Yet all these illustrious go-getters turned a blind eye to what, I believe, is a truly strange and unnerving detail. And when you take another look at the Tank, I think you might agree. Personally, whenever I see that watch, I suddenly come over like a die-hard…
The Swatch Sistem51 collection centres its value proposition around two things the rest of the Swiss watch industry finds very much at odds — technical innovation and affordability. With the new Swatch Sistem51 Petite Seconde, we get both of those things in a classically dressed-up package, with the centre seconds of previous models moved to a sub-dial at six. After gaining global recognition as the Swiss answer to the quartz era, Swatch were limited by their own success for a period, as they only produced quartz-powered watches that were incredibly varied in style and relatively disposable in nature. This changed at Baselworld in 2013 when Swatch announced their Sistem51 technology, which made claims at being the first-ever mechanical watch that was totally machine made. The mechanical movement housed only 51 parts in total, boasted 90 hours of power reserve, and was built entirely in Switzerland by a series of machines along a conveyor belt. Despite the lack of human touch, the Sistem51 was also remarkably accurate, ticking along at an impressive +/- 7 seconds per day. Impressive because these watches are not regulated for accuracy by watchmakers, and are actually hermetically sealed, which has the benefit of keeping dust and moisture…
Editor’s note: The Cartier Pasha is a watch surrounded by curiosity. Legend has it that it was commissioned in the 1930s by the Pasha of Marrakesh, who wanted a watch he could take into the water. The design then lay dormant for decades, before it was revived in 1985 by one of the most creative minds the watch industry has ever seen, Gérald Genta. It isn’t a watch you see very often, in part because Cartier no longer produce it, and also because the generously embowed case, Vendome-style lugs and chained crown guard are no longer in white-hot vogue. To arrest some of the blinding spotlight from the onslaught of blue dial steel sports watches that are currently enjoying it, let’s take a closer look at why Fergus decided to pick up one of these unusual Cartier watches. I think I was actually actively seeking out something that had a gold dive bezel, as well as some actual water resistance. I’ve got my Great Grandad’s old Omega Seamaster, which was the first watch I ever owned, and when I got that, I thought: “Well, this is it, I’m never going to need another watch again, this watch is so good.”…
You may have heard the news that Tom Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson contracted coronavirus while filming the untitled Elvis Presley biopic in Australia; they are both reportedly recovering well, but Elvis fanatics will be champing at the bit for the production to ramp back up. It, like life as we know it, has been postponed. While the film is on hold, fans now have the chance to own one of The King’s personal timepieces – one that has had a torrid, and fairly low-rent ride through various auctions over the years, never achieving a fraction of the value of either, more prized timepieces. Such as this Omega, which was sold by Phillips in 2018, and took the crown for the highest price ever achieved by an Omega at US$1,812,318, an eye-watering amount, and an indication of how far some fans will go to bring a part of musical history into their collections. But this result does not explain the case of a yellow gold Universal Genève owned by Elvis, which has been up for sale at auction no less than four times, and is now for sale again for $34,500 USD plus premiums. Currently being offered by M.S. Rau…
There’s no doubt about it. The latest 47mm professional dive watch from Grand Seiko makes a dramatic first impression, but that shouldn’t overshadow just how remarkable the technical achievements are inside that large and in charge case. The Grand Seiko SLGA001 certainly isn’t for the faint of wrist, measuring in at 46.9mm in diameter and 16mm tall, but the technology powering it is impressive to the highest degree. The new Spring Drive movement is thinner than its predecessor, as well as being more shock resistant thanks to a single-piece central bridge. It boasts a full five days of power reserve as a result of two mainspring barrels. The accuracy has also been improved to ±0.5 seconds per day, an achievement possible thanks to technology borrowed from the 9F quartz movements used by Grand Seiko. The case and bracelet are constructed in hard-wearing titanium, which eliminates what would have been significant weight if the watch was made in the typical steel used in watchmaking, and makes it remarkably more wearable considering its size. This is a watch designed for the professional diver, and ticks just about every box someone who spent their life underwater would want. The Grand Seiko 60th Anniversary Limited…
The dusty shelves of antique stores and less-trafficked avenues of eBay are full of watch brands whose glory days are well behind them. DOXA, who date their history back to 1889, was almost one of those brands. But thankfully, the name persevered, and DOXA is still with us today, and the brand’s future looks bright – almost as bright as their famous orange dials. The history of DOXA is one that’s best told in two chapters. The first is the late 19th century story of a brand that began, like so many, in the Jura Valley – the heartland of Swiss watchmaking. Georges Ducommun quickly built DOXA into a brand with a strong reputation for reliability and innovation, including their eight-day calibre – patented in 1908 – which became widely used in dash-mounted clocks in automobiles and planes. But DOXA’s main moment didn’t come until some years later, in 1967 to be precise. But before we go into the specific details in which the iconic DOXA SUB was born, let’s talk a little about the dive watch more broadly. While watches made to survive the rigours of the underwater environment existed in the early 1900s – the Rolex Oyster case…
Does the name James Robinson look familiar? That might be because James is part of the team here at Time+Tide Watches and he writes quite prodigiously about watches. You might have read his story on Zenith’s new Land Rover collab today, or countless other times before. Well, we thought it was time we put a face to a name. Ladies and gentlemen, meet James! In this episode of Every Watch Tells A Story, James chose to talk about his indefatigable Longines HydroConquest (which he reviewed in detail here), which has been everywhere with him. And unfortunately, very recently that meant going with James from an upright position on a bike to splayed out on the concrete after a spill. The crown seemed to have made direct contact with the tarmac, and it’s been jammed in ever since. But did the movement stop ticking, even after the licking? Nope.