Swiss news media report that yesterday, Sunday, August 9, 2026, burglars broke into the Musée d’horlogerie du Locle in Le Locle, Switzerland. Satellite view of Musée d’horlogerie du Locle, Source: Google Earth. An alarm went off at 6:14 in the morning, just before sunrise. Further, a witness contacted the police in Neuchâtel in order to report that there were people near the museum behaving suspiciously.
At least four people broke in through a door to the north which, according to satellite imagery, faces a wooded area. Reports indicate that the thieves were only on the property for, at most, five minutes. They seem to have gotten away with less than ten objects (perhaps pendulum clocks).
The museum is roughly two miles from the border with France so French authorities have been informed of the theft. Reports of other thefts in this region suggest that criminals sometimes cross the border with their ill-gotten goods.
Let's hope the items are retrieved. They are part of the heritage of watchmaking in Switzerland and it is a shame to see that the public may be at risk of losing access to these items. Authorities ask that anyone with information about the theft should contact the Neuchâtel police at +41 032 889 9000
My book on the history of Rolex marketing is now available on Amazon! It debuted as the #1 New Release in its category. You can find it here.
Last week, Icebox / Swiss Watches GA, a third party retailer of pre-owned watches, officially acknowledged receipt of a lawsuit filed by Rolex USA in the US District Court for the Northern District of Georgia - Atlanta Division. A screenshot of the Icebox / Swiss Watches GA retail location Source: Rolex's legal filing. The cause of action for Rolex's lawsuit against Icebox / Swiss Watches GA is "Trademark Counterfeiting, Trademark Infringement, False Advertising, Designation of Origin, Descriptions, Representations, and Unfair Competition." I've previously covered lawsuits of this sort filed by Rolex against independent retailers who sell modified watches. But this one is an order of magnitude different. Icebox / Swiss Watches GA has some very high-profile clientele. For example, a YouTube video from five years ago entitled "Post Malone Buys Rolex For 21 Savage & Autographs A Bugatti!" has over seven million views (the video content is pretty ...
We're certainly not suffering from a shortage of coverage when it comes to Rolex's recent launch of an entirely new product line: the Land-Dweller reference 127334 (steel, there are also precious metal versions). I've read much of this coverage and I will do my best not to repeat it here. Instead, I hope to share a few takes that you may not have seen elsewhere, including evidence that the watch's design heritage extends in directions that are overlooked. So let's get into it. To begin, the Land-Dweller is undoubtedly attributable to the leadership of CEO Jean-Frédéric Dufour, who took the reigns of the brand in the summer of 2015. According to an expose by Bloomberg (more on that later), development of the Land-Dweller began roughly five years ago, a handful of years after Dufour took over. There have been many, equally significant releases by Rolex of late. For example, 2023's "emoji" Day-Date was arguably a bigger "mic drop" than the Lan...
I recently learned that the CEO of Audemars Piguet Americas (APA), Ginny Wright, was departing the legendary watch brand. A tabletop model of the AP "Starwheel," photo taken at AP House NYC. The new CEO of AP Americaa will be Louis-Gabriel Fichet, who joined AP in 2020. I learned about this development from an online watch publication whose editor opined on the matter . I feel obliged to respond to that piece because I think it reveals some concerning biases in watch industry coverage, biases which will only diminish if we talk about them openly and honestly. There were three critiques of Ms. Wright's time at the helm of APA that jumped out to me. First was the allegation that Ms. Wright suffered a "sudden removal." Subsequent to this critique, Ms. Wright posted on her Instagram account that she is "returning to the world of prestige beauty and stepping into a global CEO role." Moving from a regional executive position to a global one is not ind...
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