Fratello

Not many people realize that it was NASA astronaut Wally Schirra who wore the Omega Speedmaster for the first time in space. Like most other active NASA astronauts, Schirra also received a precious gold Omega Speedmaster Professional BA145.022-69 during the famous Houston banquet in the Warwick Hotel on November 25th, 1969. Allow me to tell …

Astronaut Wally Schirra’s Gold Omega Speedmaster Moonwatch Up For Auction Read More »

A watch just wouldn’t be a watch without a crown… would it? Is the Apple Watch a watch? Does its rotary selector count as a crown? Is a digital G-Shock a watch? Where is its crown? If a brand were to produce an analog watch with no crown and — this is key — no …

A Case For Future Watches: The Crownless Case Read More »

A watch just wouldn’t be a watch without a crown… would it? Is the Apple Watch a watch? Does its rotary selector count as a crown? Is a digital G-Shock a watch? Where is its crown? If a brand were to produce an analog watch with no crown and — this is key — no …

A Case For Future Watches: The Crownless Case Read More »

I’ll be honest, with the ongoing stream of releases that Seiko puts out, the solar-powered models are generally not the first ones I gravitate toward. Seiko simply has so many great mechanical watches in its collection that the solar-powered timepieces usually fall the wayside in my mind. But when they look as good as the …

Seiko Introduces Three New Prospex Speedtimer Solar Chronographs Read More »

We scrape the surface on one of our favorite brands comments … Fratello on Air returns with an episode about one of our favorite brands: Grand Seiko! That’s right — it’s an hour of back-and-forth about a premium line that got its start during the ’60s. What are the favorite models from our hosts? Tune …

Fratello On Air: The Grandest Episode Yet — Featuring Grand Seiko Read More »

As many of you know, Tissot found great success in last year’s release of the PRX. The Le Locle brand followed up strong with the release of the PRX Chronograph. Yet I can’t help but wonder: what’s next? Will it be endless iterations of the PRX family of watches? Well, there’s nothing wrong with playing …

What’s Next For Tissot After The PRX? The Time Has Come For The Le Locle Brand To Prove Itself Read More »

You couldn’t have missed the recent introduction of the Omega Speedmaster X-33 Marstimer. It was all over our website. And for good reason. It’s not every day that you get to watch the launch of a tool watch that’s made together with a space agency. The pros at the European Space Agency (ESA) came up …

Coffee Corner Watch Talk: Taking The Omega Speedmaster X-33 Marstimer To Mars On A Monday Morning Read More »

Usually, the Sunday Morning Showdown involves two quite similar watches — a chronograph against a chronograph, a diver against a diver, or a GMT against another GMT. And normally, two our editors compete against each other. Well, not today. This Sunday Morning Showdown will feature two very different watches and is a one-man show(down). I …

Sunday Morning Showdown: Cartier Santos Vs. Omega Speedmaster Professional Read More »

The Omega Seamaster name holds a very special place in my heart. I have a particular fondness for the vintage Seamaster line from the 1960s. My dad owns a Seamaster De Ville from 1966, and it’s the watch I saw him wear while I was growing up. While that model will always be special to …

Dear Omega, Bring Back The Seamaster Chronograph Ref. 105.005 Read More »

Humans have been making mechanical pocket watches since the early 1500s. Ever since then, they have been concerned with keeping the movements safe from outside nefarious elements. First, it was dust and water, then, magnetism and shocks. Technologies to keep watches ticking constantly improve, and the more time passes, the better they become. Most of …

The Case for Obsessive Specs: The Seaholm Collection Read More »

BOLDR has something exciting coming. Following the success of its Globetrotter GMT and Venture GMT, the Singaporean microbrand is turning its hand to a GMT dive watch. Its latest creation, the Odyssey Freediver GMT, uses the recently launched Miyota 9075, an affordable 4Hz traveler’s GMT movement. The new addition to the Odyssey Freediver collection is …

Introducing The BOLDR Odyssey Freediver GMT Trio — True GMT Functionality For Under €1K Read More »

Not all of us are Premier League footballers. Most of us have pretty normal jobs, and we would look ridiculous flashing a brightly colored Richard Mille. Add to that all of the horror stories about robberies, and the concept of “stealth wealth” starts to seem pretty attractive. There is something so cool about a watch …

Stealth Wealth: Five Ways To Stay Under The Radar With Omega, Grand Seiko, Patek Philippe, And More Read More »

Under his reign, Thierry Stern saw a sports watch morph into a hyped commodity. I am, of course, referring to the basic steel Nautilus. When the hype was in its early days, Stern tried to deal with the annoyance by raising the price of the watch to an unrealistic level. But that didn’t scare off …

Securing Patek Philippe For Future Generations — A Thought Piece On The Future Of The Most Prestigious Watch Brand Read More »

In Part One of this story, we made some pretty bold claims, such as Grand Seiko making the best dauphine hands out there. I’ll still stand by that, and just as Part One described the A–D styles of watch hands, this time, we delve deeper into the alphabet and some quirky categories. For some reason, …

Styles Of Watch Hands And Who Does Them Best — Part Two: From Mercedes To Sword With Rolex, Cartier, Kikuchi Nakagawa, And More Read More »

With the SeaQ line, Glashütte Original released a collection of watches that I have really grown to love. The standard 39.5mm SeaQ in particular is an incredibly charming watch. Ever since the first SeaQ models were announced back in 2019, Glashütte Original has slowly expanded the collection with new models and colorways. The latest addition …

Hands-On With The New Glashütte Original SeaQ Chronograph Read More »

The present-day owner of Lebois & Co, Tom van Wijlick, decided to come up with a reinterpretation of the brand’s original chronograph watch from the 1940s. However, to make the development a little more democratic, he asked the watch community what they’d like to see. Lebois & Co. ref. 2723, circa 1945. Image source: Christie’s …

Lebois & Co Heritage Chronograph — Here Are The Prototypes! Read More »

G-Shock has an exhaustive catalog with options for fit and functionality from the super budget-conscious up to full, five-figure luxury. I’ve always been partial to G-Shock, especially the quintessential square design derived from the original DW-5000C. I already own a basic black DW-5600 square which has earned its place in my minimal collection as a …

Why I Bought It: The G-Shock GW-5000U-1JF Read More »

I always thought that I had relatively small wrists at around 17cm. After all, there are quite some popular watches out there that I find are too big for my wrist. For example, the Rolex Explorer II, Omega Seamaster 300M, and almost any watch in IWC’s lineup. But actually, according to what I could find …

Fewer Millimeters, Please: Calling Out Mainstream Brands That Still Focus On Large Watches — Tissot, IWC, Breitling, And More Read More »

As I diverged from the steep ravine that some friendly locals referred to as a path to let through a group of tourists coming up from the beach, I made a critical error. Leaving the safety of the path exposed me to loose sand and gravel. As I pivoted on my right foot and shifted …

One-Watch Summer: Putting The Zodiac Super Sea Wolf 53 Skin Diver Through Its Paces In Spain And Portugal Read More »

Which would you pick — the unorthodox lume design on the Favre Leuba Daymatic Waterdeep or a simply structured Citizen dial? Choose your favorite!  In the last #TBT story, I introduced the Juvenia Architect “Protractor”, which has been sitting on my wishlist for quite some time. I don’t know if it was a side effect …

#TBT An October Dose Of Vintage Inspiration With Favre-Leuba And Citizen Read More »

My well-publicized love affair with URWERK continues today as the brand launches a brand-new model to the collection. The URWERK UR-120 is an evolution of the discontinued UR-110 with a whole host of new tricks up its sleeve. Nicknamed the “Spock”, this may give you a slight hint as to the watch’s coolest new feature. …

URWERK Visits The Final Frontier With The New UR-120 “Spock” Read More »

One can only look at watches for so long before the obsession requires other inputs. Recommended by my father, Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time by Dava Sobel ended up being exactly the watch-adjacent content I was looking for. It’s a book about ingenuity, …

Book Review: Longitude By Dava Sobel — A Concise History Of John Harrison And His Marine Chronometers Read More »

Kristin Harila is doing something no human has ever done before. She’s getting close to having climbed all of the fourteen peaks above 8,000 meters on our planet within six months. With this amazing feat, she is set to beat the previous record (six months and six days) set by Nirmal “Nims” Purja, which was …

Kristin Harila Takes The Bremont S300 On Fourteen Record-Breaking Climbs Read More »

In 2022, we are finally catching up with our Speedy Tuesday Events. After an unwanted two-year period of no events, we restarted earlier this year in Biel. We continued in Milan and then last week at the European Space Agency (ESA) in the Netherlands. This time, though, it wasn’t only a get-together of Speedmaster enthusiasts. …

Speedy Tuesday Event Photo Report — Spending Quality Time At ESA Read More »

Take a classic dive watch from 1977. Combine it with a modern movement and all the specs you might come to expect from a contemporary diver. Now, make the case titanium, and keep the price well under €1,000. Sound too good to be true? Well, it isn’t — the Citizen Promaster Mechanical Diver 200M (also …

Hands-On: The Citizen Promaster Mechanical Diver 200M NB6021-17E — The Ultimate Affordable Titanium Dive Watch Read More »

When something or someone gets a nickname, there must be love involved. After all, why go through the efforts of coming up with something creative and catchy for something you don’t like? And that’s why the headline reads “Hands-On With The Full-Metal CasiOak Watches” and not “Hands-On With The Casio G-Shock GM-B2100”; sorry about that, …

Hands-On With Three Full-Metal CasiOak Watches — The Casio G-Shock GM-B2100 Read More »

Our taste in watches evolves constantly. One day, we may like dressy watches and the next day, sporty ones. We may prefer large cases that make us feel the watch is sitting confidently on our wrist, or we may get tired of that and opt for smaller, lighter timepieces. I am not immune to changing …

Hands-On With The Audric Strider — An Adventure Watch With Sharp Angles  Read More »

Seiko offers professional dive watches all over the price spectrum, ranging from around €550 to over six grand. But is the best of them necessarily the most high-end, or can we find the sweet spot somewhere in the middle? Today, we’ll look at the Marinemaster line, from the very first reference to today’s Prospex SLA021J1. …

One Seiko To Rule Them All — Is The Marinemaster (SLA021J1) The Best Seiko Watch? Read More »

I have written many stories on Linde Werdelin and its hewn-from-granite Nordic design language. But this time, no, it’s not a round retro 38mm field watch. The Oktopus Moon 3DP Black Ink is more of the same, yet different. And that is the clue to Linde Werdelin persisting in its niche space of futurist tool …

The Linde Werdelin Oktopus Moon 3DP Black Ink Is The Stealthiest Dive Watch Of This Year Read More »

The finishing quality of a watch is one of the major determining factors in how that watch looks and feels. The term is thrown around all the time but seldom explored. Prices are often justified or criticized on the basis of finishing quality. I am talking about case finishing in particular here — the way …

Making The Case For Case Finishing: What Separates The Good From The Bad? — Examples From Seiko, Hamilton, And Minase Read More »