How the “Willard” Seiko SBP153 became my favourite watch of 2020 after it survived a direct hit while paintballing…
Editor’s note: There’s a lot to be said for collecting vintage watches. In an industry built on anachronistic foundations, going straight to the source of these cultural and historical artefacts makes a great deal of sense. And that is even before you consider the pulse-quickening elements of minutiae that you can get lost in when it comes to hunting down the vintage reference that your heart desires. But there is one downside to vintage watches. They aren’t always as robust as they once were, and you’d hate to be the person who put a scratch on a watch that’d survived decades in otherwise pristine condition. And that doesn’t seem quite right when it comes to watches that were designed with vigorous action in mind. Whether it’s a dive watch or tool watch, you want to wear them in the rugged pursuits they were intended for. This is where the beauty of the inspired reissue lies. A design that offers a nod to the past, in a package that is more than able to handle anything you can throw at it. You can have your cake and eat it too, and that’s why the Seiko SPB153 is my favourite Seiko of…
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Ok, here’s a fact: The Rolex Daytona owes a debt to the Zenith El Primero. A modified version of the El Primero movement powered the Daytona for 12 years, and marked the first automatic Daytona models. This all happened when I was merely 12 years old, in 1988. And now, Zenith is taking that debt back with a black ceramic bezel twist that dawns a new era and a new name, in the Zenith Chronomaster Sport. There’s some pretty nifty mechanical trickery going on with the new 10th of a second caliber, too, but we will get to this once the initial impression wears off, and is – in my opinion – thoroughly justified. The Zenith El Primero is famous for two reasons. One, as a watch that deserves to be called iconic even amongst the most towering icons, and that holds various important claims in the pantheon of 20th Century watchmaking, including, but not limited to the first fully integrated, Swiss made, self-winding automatic chronograph, hence the name, El Primero. The second is the El Primero’s fame as a movement alone. Even 19 years after its release in 1969, the movement was so reliable, robust and well regarded that…
There’s a strong argument that the Blancpain Fifty Fathoms was the first real diver’s watch of its kind… and that’s because it was. It’s also true that the Rolex Submariner, which was also released in 1953, but after the Fathoms, did borrow some stylistic cues from the Blancpain. However, if any one watchmaker can claim to be the true king of waterproof watches, it’s the one owned by the Hans Wilsdorf Foundation. To understand the genesis of the Rolex dive watch history, we must wind the clock all the way back to 1926, when Rolex first patented and launched the prodigious “Oyster Case”. This was the first truly waterproof watch, thanks to its screw-down caseback and, more importantly, screw-down crown. Rolex held the patent for this new feat of engineering and it meant that even almost 30 years later, watches like the Blancpain Fifty Fathoms couldn’t use a screw-down crown and were compromised as a result. Hans Wilsdorf, co-founder of Rolex and marketing genius, further demonstrated the Oyster Case’s waterproofed credentials a year after its unveiling, when he gave one of his Oyster watches to Mercedes Gleitze, a British swimmer who attempted to swim across the English Channel. Gleitze did…
We’ve all been there. It’s inevitable as a watch collector. You see a new watch that’s been released and immediately fall in love with it. You can’t get it out of your head, until you finally give in, and track one down in the metal. But once you have it in your hands, you realise how much better the rendered images from the brand made the watch look and it doesn’t live up to your expectations on your wrist. With the Hublot Classic Fusion 40 Years Anniversary collection, however, the opposite is true. It looks just as good on the wrist. Maybe even better. Here’s proof – in a collections of shots I’ve spotted on Instagram over the last few months, that show just why the Hublot design DNA is standing the test of time. @equationdutemps If you aren’t following @equationdutemps yet, do yourself a favour and check out his ‘gram. In this shot of the Hublot Classic Fusion 40 Years Anniversary reference in titanium he manages to capture not only the mirror polished bevels and satin polishing of the rest of the case, but also the inky depths of that jet black dial. Don’t stare at it for too…