Horolonomics

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Leeds Beat Weems: the Origins of the Rotating Bezel

I recently realized that my curiosity about watches is similar to the way a T-Rex' vision works, at least according to the 1993 film Jurassic Park . For those who don't remember the film, Dr. Alan Grant (a paleontologist played by the actor Sam Neil) tells the other characters that if they don't move, the T-Rex won't see them. Similarly, I realized that the rotating bezel is such a permanent (but adjustable) fixture of dive watch designs that I've never actually seen much of its history. Subsequent to attending Jeffrey Kingston's Horological Society of New York lecture on the advent of the first dive watch by Blancpain (required WIS viewing, really), I think I'd naturally assumed that the brand's former CEO, Jean-Jacque Fiechter, invented the rotating bezel sometime around 1953. Drawings of rotating bezel from Fiechter's Fifty Fathoms patent. There certainly were many innovations he patented while dreaming up the Fifty Fathoms, so I subcon

The Watch Media Ecosystem: a Two Year Review.

Last week, I finished user onboarding with a service called CrowdTangle , a startup that launched in 2012. In 2016, Facebook acquired CrowdTangle. In 2019, it opened a service for academic researchers. I recently applied to participate and I was accepted. CrowdTangle provides a wide array of analytic data for activity on Facebook and Instagram. I'm only beginning to familiarize myself with it. Out of curiosity, I decided to get my bearings by looking through the platform's data on watch media. The insights I'm posting here are the result. CrowdTangle's engine reports a wide range of information on public posts and accounts, including followers, reactions (likes, etc), shares and commenting. I began by building a list of the major watch media outlets which have been operating for a fair number of years. I requested feedback on Instagram for my initial list and updated it accordingly (thank you to everyone who commented, acknowledgements below). I ended up with a list

The Grey Market Rolex Discount

Today, I happened to notice that Jomashop is selling a large number of Rolex references, many at a discount relative to the official price. My subjective impression is that this does not happen very frequently, so I wanted to more formally tease out some implications of this development. I assembled a spreadsheet of the listings and ran some numbers. For this discussion, I will focus on the references which Jomashop identifies as "Men's" (due to the fact that I am unfamiliar with the other references which are listed). Jomashop lists 197 references for sale at a discount relative to list. This is a remarkable variety of watches on the grey market, expecially considering that Rolex contracts likely penalize ADs who resell through third party dealers. The average discount across these references is 10% with a minimum discount of 1% (mostly 36mm Datejusts in precious metals with unique dials) and a maximum discount of 31% (Cellini Pink Dial Automatic Men's 18kt

Stay Gold

I'll admit it: I had a negative initial reaction to Rolex' recent release of a "Rolesor" Explorer (aka two-tone in steel and gold). I wasn't alone. As I type this, I think to myself "they really ought to change that term. It rhymes with eyesore." A memeified version of Sir Edmund Hilary and Tenzing Norgay On the day of the release, I created a meme which I posted to IG, also offered here. It reflected my assessment at the time, which was that the adventure / mountaineering legacy of the Explorer really does not require precious metals, especially gold. It is soft. Climbing Everest requires hardness, so all we need is 904L steel. Not very sophisticated thinking, I'll admit, but I'm pretty certain that's what the "reptilian complex" portion of my brain was up to. It seems that certain novel watch releases kick off an emotional grief response in the watch community. Photo credit Wikimedia and Bertrand Grondin There a

The Tall Tale of Luxury Watch Sizes

Helmets of different size on shelving. I had the distinct pleasure of recently, and virtually, joining the Horological Society of New York for a lecture this week. The talk was entitled "The Ideal Watch Size: A Curious Case of Misperception and Missed Opportunities." The speaker, Mark Cho, is a men's fashion entrepeneur who co-founded The Armoury (with stores in New York City and Hong Kong). Cho also owns a men's clothing brand in UK: Drake's . I won't spend too much time describing, in detail, Cho's talk because it is recorded and currently available for HSNY members online (in the near future it will be publicly available on YouTube). Screengrab from Mr. Cho's talk. Cho collected some data online, using a survey, about people's perceptions of their wrist sizes as well as their actual wrist sizes. He also compared and contrasted those survey responses. The results are really interesting and worth considering. Plus, Cho mention

The Swiss Diaspora in America

Let's play a word association game, watch idiot savant style. I'll offer a word and try to anticipate your response. Bern? I'm guessing Switzerland, or Rolex, comes to mind. Geneva? Maybe you're thinking about the stripes on a movement, or the seal that's a hallmark of quality in watchmaking. Moser? I'm betting you might pull up the Instagram account of H. Moser or recall some of their vanta black dials. Baumgartner? Maybe this won't prompt any particular response, but for aficionados of the Urwerk brand it's almost guaranteed that Felix Baumgartner comes to mind. He's the watchmaker, and co-founder, of the manufacturer. I'm even more confident that, in response to any of these prompts, almost no watch enthusiast would think of the state of Indiana (located in midwest farmland of the United States). The Star Press, Feb 3, 1936. But what about this newspaper clip dated February 3, 1936 from The Star Press out of Muncie, Indiana?