New Watch Master

Business News: Swatch Group Publishes Open Letter To Morgan Stanley Management Saying Longines Is Profitable And Tissot Sales Grew In a recently published open letter, the Swatch Group AG criticized the most recent Morgan Stanley "Swiss Watcher" industry report in a letter to the investment bank's management, calling some of the data presented in the analyst report "erroneous and questionable." The Swatch Group letter, addressed to Morgan Stanley Investment Management and linked below, says the report rankings and estimates of sales and production figures for the top 50 brands in the Swiss watch industry make "questionable assumptions," resulting  in "inaccurate findings and questionable conclusions." Swatch Headquarters in Biel / Bienne.  Published earlier this month, the ninth edition of the Swiss Watcher report showed that most Swatch Group brands lost market share amid declining sales. It also reported the group's flagship Om...

The Sinn 903 Returns in Titanium, Updating an Iconic Design Sinn is celebrating its 65th anniversary with a limited edition of one of its most peculiar watches. Not peculiar in terms of design, but because it feels like an outlier to the rest of their catalog, though in some respects, it’s also the most recognizable. The Sinn 903 is a pilot’s chronograph with an internal slide rule bezel that bears a striking resemblance to another famous watch, the Breitling Navitimer. But it’s important to note that it’s not a copy of a Navitimer. Rather, Sinn has owned the rights to this design since the late 1970s. A cult classic, it stands out aesthetically from Sinn’s other instrument watches, which tend to have a toolish, stripped-down look. By comparison, the 903 is more elaborate and, given its associations with the design, a more Swiss-luxury aesthetic. With that said, as Sinn is Sinn, they bring their engineering flair, while also keeping the price relatively approachable. This is true ...

Dryden Introduces Updates to the Chrono Diver Collection With all the challenges that come with owning vintage watches—servicing, wear on components, wildly varying valuation—sometimes it’s easier to look for something that simply looks vintage instead. Thankfully, we’ve seen a wave of intriguing retro-style watches as of late, and the new Dryden Watch Company Chrono Diver Gen 2 collection brings even more 1970s design to the world of modern skin divers. While the first generation of Chrono Divers from Dryden covered relatively contemporary aesthetic points, like bright colors, high-contrast details with ultra-bright Super-LumiNova, rubber straps, and more, the second generation promises an adherence to more nostalgic design cues. While the new Chrono Divers sport the same modern 42mm case dimensions, the design itself is revised; a layered profile to integrate solid end links for a new tapered five-link bracelet and recessed pushers give the watches a sleeker silhouette that h...

Happenings: Celebrate 50 Years Of Eco-Drive At Citizen’s New York City Flagship Store For half a century, Citizen has led the field in light-powered timekeeping, pioneering Eco-Drive in the 1970s and proving that a watch can be powered by any light—sunlight, desk lamps, even the glow of a city at night. What began as an energy solution became a philosophy: practical innovation, refined design, and real-world longevity. On Wednesday, March 18th, from 6:30–8:30 PM, Hodinkee and Citizen invite you to the Citizen Flagship Store to celebrate the legacy of the Eco-Drive movement.  To honor this celebration, the event will feature an intimate panel featuring voices spanning continents, companies, and design perspectives, along with a private look at what's next. Noted guests will include Neall Brick, Director of Merchandising at Citizen Watch America; Shoichiro Morita, Eco-Drive Movement Engineer at Citizen; Yu Sekiguchi, Editor-in-Chief of Hodinkee Japan, and Mark Kauzlarich, Senior ...

Hands-On: The G-SHOCK Nano DWN5600 Ring Watch We've written lots of Hands-Ons here at Hodinkee. In fact, I assume that's a large part of why many of you who are currently reading this come to the site. But this might just be the first time that we've written an On-Hands. Banana for scale. If a classic GW-5000U-1 was the banana. See, last December, Casio followed up its immensely successful Casio ring watch launches with an even more interesting proposition: a G-SHOCK ring watch. And just a few weeks ago, as I was shopping in the Lower East Side, I decided that it was time to add one to my collection in G-SHOCK's iconic yellow, reference DWN5600-9. In an effort not to bury the lede, what makes the G-SHOCK Nano 5600 so specifically special is that, for all intents and purposes, it is not really any different from any other G-SHOCK despite being around one-tenth the size. G-SHOCK's entire brand has revolved around its extreme durability, with shock and wate...

Why The Flashlight Is the Underrated Watch Tool The post Why The Flashlight Is the Underrated Watch Tool appeared first on Worn & Wound .

The Audible Joy of Alarm Watches One of the most useful watch complications in horological history is also one of its most forgotten.  The ring of a mechanical alarm may seem like a lost artifact, like a rotary phone dial or a manual transmission, all once the necessities of 20 th century civilization. And yet, functionality of a settable and mechanical-winding alarm into the tiny confines of a wristwatch is an impressive mechanical feat, one underrated among dive bezels, world timers, pulsations scales, and tachymeters.  The alarm watch was meant for the everyman, whether they’re travelers, titans of industry, or merely early risers. Just like there is appreciation for a watch’s ability to do more than just tell time, there is the aural sensation for a watch to produce something more for the senses than just sight. Eterna was the first to patent an alarm caliber as early as 1908, eventually introducing an alarm wristwatch in 1914 at the Swiss National Exhibition in B...

Citizen and seconde/seconde/ Launch a Fun and Affordable Tsuyosa Limited Edition For years now, Romaric Andre, better known as seconde/seconde/, has been collaborating with watch brands of all kinds on creative limited editions that effectively serve as visual puns. He’s applied his unique sense of humor and aesthetic to watches made by H. Moser, Spinnaker, Maen, and many more brands at every conceivable price point. We talked to him about his process and art here . This is all to say, watch enthusiasts have a pretty good understanding of seconde/seconde/ at this point. That’s a good thing, on one level, as it means his name (or his pseudonym, at least) is out there. But it also makes it harder to surprise, which was so much a part of the charm of those early collaborations.  The latest from seconde/seconde/ is about as good a distillation of what he’s all about as I can think of, and represents a real opportunity for enthusiasts who have been waiting for something affordable...

Hands-On: The Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Chronograph in 38mm Is The Option Smaller-Wristed Collectors Deserve When we received the press releases for Audemars Piguet's early-year novelties, three immediately stood out. The most attention went to the Neo Frame Jumping Hour , the first in a new collection. A jaw-dropping pocket watch got plenty of attention (if partially just because I will always write about complicated pocket watches). However, I'd say the most practical and meaningful release was perhaps the new 38mm Royal Oak Chronograph with an in-house movement. Most watchmakers will tell you that doing a novel chronograph movement is among the hardest things you can do. When the brand updated the Royal Oak Chronograph in 2022 , the 41mm steel version got a new in-house flyback caliber, which had debuted in 2021. That was a welcome addition, as it changed a few things aesthetically, with better-positioned and balanced subdials. But it also replaced a movement that was a...