This Week (in Watches) Today, 6 November 2022: 7 things you should know

Did you hear that Scottish Watches has a new watch collaboration coming up for sale at the end of the month? But we won’t toot our own horn and cover it here. Robbie from Robb Report has a brilliant review up that you can find here or here. In other watch news, things are still pretty active though we are now in the final two months of the year. We have auctions coming up from Bonhams and Christies with a rare Dirty Dozen piece and the introduction of blockchain to the process respectively, we have the marginally slowing UK’s watch market, Rolex’s reclaiming of the deep sea crown, and cool releases from Timex, Parmigiani, and Montblanc. These are the top 7 things in the world of watches; let’s get into it.

Rare Dirty Dozen Grana watch up for auction

Photo Credit: WatchPro

 While war and the horrors that come with is always tragic and gruesome, we usually celebrate the men and women who put their lives on the line for the causes that were worth fighting for, hence the fascination with military watches. One of the most renowned collections in this category is the Dirty Dozen watches that were used by the British military in World War II. Well, one of the rarest of that collection of watches has come up for sale at the upcoming Bonhams’ Knightsbridge auction, a piece from Grana. Grana was responsible for one of the smallest production batches of Dirty Dozen watches, with only between 1,000 to 5,000 pieces made which makes the current offering an extremely rare opportunity for collectors to pick up a very exclusive piece of history. For those interested, the auction will be on 15 November and is available both online and in person.

Christie’s blockchain experiment

Photo Credit: WatchPro

Much has been discussed about the pros and cons of blockchain technology in the watch space especially given that the actual asset in question still is and will remain primarily physical. One company that believes in its value is Christie’s which is experimenting with blockchain as the certificate for its auction lots. It is starting this initiative with a Rolex Daytona Lemon (ref. 626), which is one of the rarest 18k yellow gold Daytonas to exist, with only 1-3 known pieces that are estimated to sell for between CHF 3 million to CHF 5 million. Christie’s will issue a Watch Certificate which is a blockchain-based digital certification together with the sale of this watch. Christie’s believes that the Watch Certificate will allow for greater benefits for collectors since it enables them to check on the value of the piece, transfer ownership if required, blacklist the serial numbers in the event of theft, and qualify for additional insurance. It would also purportedly help Christie’s manage its auction lots in the future more efficiently. Time will tell of course, how this experiment turns out.

UK slowing watch market

With everything going on in Europe and the rest of the world, it is no surprise that watch prices have fallen quite significantly over the past couple of months in the secondary market. That decline in demand seems to be reflected in the retail market as well with overall watch sales declining by 1.2% in September (year-on-year) which has also slowed the overall year-to-date (September) growth rate to 6.1%. Interestingly though, the sales of watches above £10,000 increased significantly in the same month, by 9.5% while watches between £1,000 to £5,000 decreased by 14%. Unfortunately, these changes are probably merely an extended symptom of the ever-widening income inequality gap, which no country seems to have a viable long-term solution for at the moment.

Rolex retakes the deep sea crown

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Earlier this week Rolex dropped an unexpected new release, its answer to Omega in what has become a two-horse race for the watch to achieve the greatest depths of the ocean. While taking in the accolades was definitely the aim, Rolex also has released this watch for regular production, priced at £21,850, for anyone interested.

Ralf a.k.a. @koolpep_watches has this to say “The new Rolex Deepsea Challenge RLX Titanium is a beast of a watch at a diameter of 50mm, the height of 23mm, and lug to lug of 61mm. It’s also the first time Rolex has used titanium in the pieces.” Check out his full article here.

Timex Expedition North Titanium

“Presenting the new value king for Timex! For $349 Timex is offering the Expedition North Titanium Automatic 41mm, based on the limited edition with The James Brand its a peg above. The 41mm x 12.5mm titanium case (the grade isn’t specified but it’s probably 5 because it’s most common) is matte bead-blasted creating a gritty grey texture. It has been paired with a vintage-style Ecco DriTan quick-release leather strap with a titanium pin buckle. Even though it’s a field watch, thanks to the screwed-down crown and display case back the case withstands 200m WR.

The antireflective-coated flat sapphire crystal protects the matte black-grained dial which has easy-to-see white lumed markers including the Expedition North logo at 12 o’clock. This is also found signing the crown. The Miyota caliber 8215 used to power this model has a quick set date that is placed a 3 o’clock. This automatic movement runs at 3Hz, a full wind will max it out at 42 hours of power reserve, and it has a hacking function. Unfortunately, it does show that you can have absolutely everything with the accuracy being -20 to +40 sec per day. Still, this tool watch has way way more advantages and makes jaws drop with its price point. ” – Misael Alves

Parmigiani Tonda PF 36mm

A round case with a hand-knurled bezel, slim tear-drop lugs, and a bracelet with small comfortable links that mix polished & brushed finishing, makes the Tonda PF from Parmigiani a pretty unique design, even amidst a rather saturated market category of integrated sports watches. The hand-finished grain d’orge guilloche dial and sharp skeletonized hands certainly don’t hurt.

Well, the brand’s latest additions to the collection are visually similar to all that has come before, but feature changes that are music to my ears. In other words, the watches are now smaller, coming in a 36mm case. The thickness may have gone up from 7.8mm to 8 because the in-house Calibre PF770 movement comes with a full rotor instead of a micro-rotor, but that is still absolutely wearable. The brand has introduced three models in this sizing, two in steel with a warm grey dial & baguette diamond indices and a “silver sand” dial with regular 18k white gold applied indices, and a rose gold option with a beautiful burgundy dial & diamond baguette indices.

The rose gold option is undoubtedly my favorite though given that the steel Silver Sand option is already CHF 18,500, I would probably be priced out of the rose gold model.

Montblanc Worldtimer

“The new Montblanc world timer got such a beautiful refresh. Available for $7,000 at Montblanc boutiques and Montblanc online this new version updates the Orbis Terraum from the original white and blue color scheme from 2014 over the multi-colored in-between model to the new gold and black version that just emits sophistication. A very well-done update!

What stayed the same is the way to set it and the movement itself an MB 29.20 based on the ETA 2892 with 42hours of power reserve. It has a very user-friendly system. To adjust the world time one uses the pusher at 8 o’clock and the crown in its second position to set the local time. I am hoping we will see another UAE special edition in some form of green someday.” – @koolpep_watches a.k.a. Ralf

So that is it for this week. As always, get in on all the action on the Scottish Watches website, Instagram, Facebook and of course, the podcast on your podcaster of choice. Till next time, take care everyone.

 

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