While the market today overwhelmingly favors automatics, a well-made hand wound movement is one of horology’s greatest pleasures. This IWC shows why. IWC, like virtually every watch brand great or small, produces mostly automatic watches, but some of the most interesting and historically important IWC watches used a small group of beautifully made and designed...

The Black Bay collection’s usually all about heritage, but the Carbon 25 is Black Bay in the future tense. Although the Tudor Black Bay models started out as a sort of refresh of well known and much beloved Tudor Submariner design details (especially the snowflake hands, first used on the Tudor Submariner references 7016 and...

Exploring Grand Seiko’s range, from humble hi-beats to high-horology heavyweights. Welcome back to another installment of High and Low – The column where we explore the full range of a brand’s catalog, from its most affordable to its highest-priced pieces, from both our pre-owned and new offerings. What started as a simple exercise has become...

The latest in the 20.01 chronograph series from MING has a dial inspired by the world of science fiction – created with techniques from science fact. The 20.01 series of chronographs from MING are distinguished by their case design and construction, with “flying blade” lugs and a case which was designed around the MING version...

Over twenty years since the first version of this watch was launched, it remains one of the most compelling manual wind time only watches in the world. Grand Seiko’s been on a roll in recent years in the world of complications, culminating in the release of one of the most complicated watches it has ever...

Color in fine watchmaking is usually a subtle element, but Moser’s putting saturated dials at center stage. When last we checked in with H. Moser & Cie, the company was doing what it does best: confound expectations. The launch of the Moser X Alpine Mechanic’s and Driver’s watches saw the company pair its signature Agengraphe...

The caliber DUW 6101 – it’s smarter than it looks, and it looked pretty smart to begin with. Every once in a while in this business, you get a reminder that not only don’t you know everything, but you have actually missed something you should have noticed the first time around. So it is with...

A dark take on a classic Zenith design. “Defy” sounds like a name that might have come out of some serious focus grouping at a modern watch brand (it raises so many questions. What is being defied? And by whom?) but the original name and the original design at Zenith goes all the way back...

Everything old is new again, again. The dive watch is obsolete, and has been for many years – that is, it’s obsolete as a primary instrument for recreational and professional divers, both of whom rely on digital dive computers. However, dive watches have gone on to have a very robust second life as backups to...

Is a Fifty in 38mm the Fifty Fathoms you’ve been waiting for? The first Blancpain Fifty Fathoms I can remember seeing and wanting was the 50th Anniversary model, which was launched in 2003 in a 40.3mm steel case, and with, for the first time, a sapphire bezel; I thought it was a spectacularly beautiful watch...

Everyone’s favorite analog digital watch, now has an open sapphire case, and it’s almost a completely different watch. The original Amida Digitrend was very much the product of its time. Originally released at Basel in 1976, the original Digitrend was an attempt to offer an entry level mechanical analog to the then-more expensive LED quartz...

In July of 2019, F.P. Journe announced a unique piece for Only Watch: the Astronomic Blue, which was the most complex watch Journe had ever created. Cased in tantalum, the Astronomic Blue featured a plethora of astronomical and other complications, including a tourbillon with remontoir, annual calendar with Zodiac indications, Equation of Time, sunrise/sunset indication,...

From Enlightenment-era escapements to Gilded Age dandies, the pursuit of thinness in watchmaking wasn’t just about design, it was about ambition, culture, and the quiet power of refinement. Someone once told me that history isn’t linear, it’s more like a web. A tangle of interconnected points that don’t always line up chronologically. Ripples echo both...

One of the three new watches from Urban Jürgensen brings to life an ingenious invention created by the late Derek Pratt. The recent relaunch of Urban Jurgensen is nothing if not ambitious. The company launched its first three watches in Los Angeles, under the leadership of Kari Voutilainen and Alex Rosenfield, with the stated ambition...

A new Black Bay 54 that says, tune out and go catch some waves. Tudor introduced the first Black Bay 54 in 2023, and it was widely welcomed as a wearable alternative to the larger Black Bay models, with a 37mm x 11.24mm case, and a design that was meant as a modern re-interpretation of...

From sub-$100 beaters to $3,000 titanium-clad samurai tributes. A look at two very different G-SHOCKs—and how both belong in the conversation about meaningful watch collecting. I’m not a finance guy. Never have been. Analyzing market trends, debating tariffs, tracking trade deficits, it just doesn’t do it for me. My version of financial planning is figuring...

Extra plat, extra refined: The Daniel Roth Extra Plat is an argument for trusting quality to speak for itself. The Daniel Roth Extra Plat is the second model in the revived Daniel Roth brand, and like the tourbillon which preceded it, it was first introduced as a Souscription model with a closed caseback, in yellow...

The new collection, the first major update since 2017, keeps the connection to Breitling’s first dive watch, fine-tuned for today. Although most of us naturally think of chronographs, and its history as an aviation supplier, when we think of Breitling, the company’s history of course encompasses a much wider range of watches (although technical watchmaking...