Why servicing a vintage Rolex will only get harder and more expensive
You’ll have heard this about vintage watches before: tread carefully when you have these pieces serviced and who you allow to work on them. With Rolex, in particular, you’ll be aware of the dangers of having the factory service their vintage watches and the horror stories of these coveted watches losing the elements that make them so valuable in the process. Rolex’s own service centres are not like Patek Philippe or Audemars Piguet. They do not have a heritage department to painstakingly restore and re-fabricate vintage parts in order to keep everything period correct. Instead, their objective is to make their watches as robust and high-performing as possible. So while many consumers appreciate faded bezels and patinated dials that have lost their lume, Rolex does not. They will, in fact, replace these components with modern alternatives and, in terms of polishing, will likely refinish even if you demand they leave the case and bracelet untouched. But a less acknowledged and even harsher reality to servicing vintage Rolex has been raised by watchmaker Jordan P. Ficklin via a post here on ProfessionalWatches.com: there are only a finite number of period correct parts left and, as the supply dwindles, they will only…
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The heritage trend has definitely saturated the marketplace with virtually every manufacturer looking to their past to create interest in their products. Some do this better than others. With the current ubiquity of the faux-patinated aesthetic, designs have to be pushed even further to stand out. Re-interpretations of heritage designs typically signal that the design is largely unchanged besides minor elements being modernised to ensure they are faithful tributes. Longines, however, has taken a more interesting route of late – leveraging heritage frameworks but issuing them with new skins that cater to modern trends. We saw the Longines BigEye Avigation freshen up a past design with a shaded petrol blue dial. Now a similar shade of smoked blue lacquer has been introduced to the Longines Legend Divers collection, alongside a smoked coffee brown lacquer dial for those hankering for a warmer aesthetic. The dimensions remain the same as the original 2007 black dial model that helped usher in the vintage-inspired trend with its stainless-steel case 42mm in diameter (just like the original 7402 diver it was inspired by), 12.7mm thick, and 52.4mm lug to lug. The 300 metre water-resistant watch has a screw-down caseback, as well as two screw-down crowns…
A few weeks back, I wrote about my own Casio G-Shock GA2100-1A (AKA the CasiOak) that I had modified and received a lot of positive feedback about. Many people expressed interest in how different the watch looked after the modification. While I did note that the bracelet wasn’t particularly comfortable on the wrist, I agreed that the CasiOak was one of the coolest looking modified watches I’d ever held in my hands. But the versatility of the CasiOak extends far beyond a simple steel case and bracelet. The creative lengths that the watch community has gone to in creating weird and wonderful mods is genuinely impressive, and I wanted to take a look at a few examples that really stand out as some of the best CasiOak mods out there. Diamond bezel on orange rubber Gem-set G-Shock’s aren’t totally unheard of with Floyd Mayweather showing off his diamond and ruby set digital watch last year, but diamonds on a CasiOak is a new one. Wowsers! Two-tone case and bezel Two-tone watches aren’t as popular as they once were in their 1980s prime. But this mod has a full stainless-steel case and bracelet with a rose-gold tone bezel. Is this the…
Thanks to the vintage looks of its steel case, the DOXA SUB 300 is a cult diver’s watch. But ever since the SUB 300 Aqualung US Divers in carbon fibre came out, its dark presence has haunted the dreams of DOXA fans (in a good way). Sleek and moody, the DOXA SUB 300 Carbon turns up the emphasis on the SUB 300 as a pure diver’s tool, while at the same time underlining the blisteringly fresh dials. If, like me, you fancy the stealthy embrace of carbon fibre, this is very much your ticket. I do warn you though, you will have serious decision issues, as we have six colourful references in the DOXA SUB 300 Carbon collection to choose from. As a whole new sub-category (pun intended) within the DOXA portfolio, the smooth tactility of the high-grade carbon fibre takes the brand to another level. As icing on the candy coloured cake, these babies are COSC-certified, chronometer spec diver’s watches. Professional Part of the rise of DOXA from niche favourite to Instagram star is the Swiss brand’s tight focus on diving watches. That’s why it seems apt to start with the zesty orange of the Professional in the classic DOXA…
Prospex is the largest growing Seiko line-up with buyers flocking to add pieces from the collection to their wrist. Highly robust and value-driven, these watches can be more affordable than their competitors with little to no sacrifice in the quality of fabrication. While many will refer to this watch as a new entry into the “Willard” line of Seiko divers – named after the watch worn by Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) in Apocalypse Now – that’s actually not the back story here. This watch is really a tribute to the Japanese adventurer Naomi Uemura, who wore a similar piece in the 1970s while completing a 12,500km solo dog-sled run from Greenland to Alaska. Now outfitted with a textured charcoal gray dial, the Seiko Prospex SLA051J1 is a modern re-interpretation of the diving watch that Uemura wore on that expedition. The SLA049 meanwhile is available in a limited-edition run of 1200 pieces and celebrates the 80th anniversary of Uemura’s birth with a blue dial reminiscent of the mountainous terrain that he explored. The stainless-steel cases are 44mm in diameter, but more compact than their diameter lets on with a lug to lug measurement under 48mm. The flying saucer-like profiles wear well…
It’s no secret we are rather enamoured with the Bulgari Octo Finissimo and calling it a micro-technological marvel of the new century would not be overselling it. Following our article on Bulgari’s latest chapter of one-upmanship – where they managed to somehow engineer a tourbillon to fit the already infinitessimally optimised space inside the angular case – we are still none the wiser as to how they did it. Surely you too have wondered just what hides within the paper thin layers of cogs, bridges and small colourful pops of jewels in their caliber BV318. Rarely have we spent so much time looking at a movement through the clear sapphire caseback in the sandblasted titanium case, every so often turning the watch expecting it to be an optical illusion. Surely it is not humanly possible to fit a traditional mechanical movement with a chronograph complication and a GMT function within a case of 6.9mm? We are deadly curious and who better to educate us than Peter Speake-Marin of The Naked Watchmaker. In his Deconstruction series, an already fascinating journey into the inner workings of the mechanical wonders we obsess over, he has dedicated his workbench to the Octo Finissimo Chronograph…
While Panerai was founded way back in 1860, its rise to prominence came on the back of a very specific type of celebrity: the action hero. It was thanks to the likes of Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger that brand awareness soared following wrist-bound cameos in films like Daylight, Eraser, Rambo IV and The Expendables franchise. In 2021, Panerai continue to be the brand worn by action heroes with Jason Statham confirmed as wearing two of their pieces while shooting the new spy film Five Eyes, which began filming in January this year. Directed by Guy Ritchie, famous for helming Lock, Stock Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch and more recently The Gentleman, it’s the fourth time that Statham and Ritchie have worked together on different films. Five Eyes also features another alumnus from Richie’s past work in the form of another Panerai fanatic, Hugh Grant. Grant has admitted that his love for Panerai stems from the fact that he’s a bit short-sighted and he appreciates their easy legibility. In the film, it has been revealed that Statham will be wearing two different Panerai pieces in the Submersible Goldtech 42mm (PAM1164) and the Submersible Carbotech 47mm (PAM1616), both of which were provided…
Studio Underd0g have a refreshingly playful approach to watchmaking. As the British microbrand explain on their website. “When the biggest news in the watch-world for 2020 is that a certain brand (that shall not be named) had increased their case size by an unfathomable 1mm it got us thinking… Why… so… serious…? Don’t worry, we don’t plan on taking them head on just yet, but we are here to inject a bit of silliness into what can be a very un-silly industry.” This is a very welcome perspective and plays out in Studio Underd0g’s cheerfully irreverent debut collection that consists of three watches: Desert Sky, Watermel0n and Go0fy Panda. Normally, after all, watches with bicompax and “big eye” features come loaded with vintage preconceptions. We might expect a manual movement, intricately detailed feuille hands, monochrome tones and rather high price points for the serious collectors out there. But Studio Underd0g (yes, that is a zero in their name) aim to do things differently. By adding fresh colours and humour suddenly we’re into unknown territory. Richard Benc, the founder of Studio Underd0g, seems to have a particular sense of style and an instinctive feel for both dial size and the delicate…
We really should have seen the Hamilton Intra-Matic Chronograph H coming. Having played with the idea before, this hand-wound, bi-register chrono – in beautifully proportioned panda and reverse panda dial variants – sees Hamilton effectively resurrect and update its first chronograph. The modern Intra-Matic Chronograph H is compelling in either dial, taking direct inspiration from 1968’s ‘Chronograph A’ and ‘Chronograph B’. Those original pieces have often aged beautifully, so it’s no surprise to see fauxtina deployed here. A box sapphire crystal further adds to that ’60s vibe. In all, though, it appears to be a watch that leans heavily on the vintage cues without ever losing its balance. At 40mm, the case contains the new H-51 movement (utilising a base ETA-7753) with 60 hours power reserve. It also comes with a welcome 100m of water resistance. But while the Chronograph H is a modern take on Hamilton’s original chronograph, it’s also a natural step in the brand’s recent exploration of those ’60s designs – and suggests that while they’ve been looking backwards, they’ve also been responding to the tastes of modern watch-buyers. This is not the first model to find inspiration from the reverse panda looks of the ‘Chronograph B’.…
The tide seems to be shifting in the auction world towards scarcity and craftsmanship, rather than scratched-up provenance and movie-star affiliations. We could see results of this theory already in our story on the latest Antiquorum auction here. In Monaco, the auction darlings of the last five years, steel sports Rolex, did OK, whereas the rarity value of a few references from F.P Journe smashed through the proverbial glass roof of the reserves. Are Philippe Dufour and F.P Journe the new auction stars and have steel sports watches peaked? In this article on industry insider Watchpro, Simon de Burton argues that is an indication that the previous auction scene duopoly of Patek and Rolex is in fact slowly crumbling. Is that a fact, or is it a mere shift in the market towards rare luxury that sets buyers apart from the usual Rolex collector out there? The bigger question should perhaps be whether the bidders are following their personal taste or market trends. A handcrafted case in point was the 2004 F.P Journe Octa Calendrier – that we covered in this story on Antiquorum’s Important Modern & Vintage Timepieces in Monaco – which more than doubled its already high estimate, going under…