While we very much focus on watches at the affordable end of the spectrum here at WWR, we do occasionally take forays into the realm of the luxury watch, especially if the watch in question offers something rather unique. One of the brands that has tripped that threshold more than a few times has been Arnold & Son, and their latest certainly fits the bill as well. So, without further ado, let’s have a look at what the Arnold and Son Golden Wheel has to offer.
When it comes to watches that offer a tremendous value, the catalog coming from Christopher Ward has been offering a lovely variety of watches, with various price points on tap for all budgets. Lately, they have expanded the range into something more approaching luxury territory, and the brand has also expanded to have some of their own movements. This has been most prevalent by their Johannes Jahnke’s designs, of which we now have a third iteration in the form of the Christopher Ward Jumping Hour Mark III.
With SIHH behind us, and Basel around the corner, there are lots of beautiful, complicated, and intricate watches being introduced. But there is something really nice about a simple watch done well, and the Alpina Startimer Pilot Big Date Professional is a simple watch, done really, really well.
The last time I wrote about Breitling, I mentioned that many of their watches really had not captured my attention, as they simply felt too cluttered for my tastes. This seems to have changed, much to the better, with the Transocean collection. I really quite liked the looks of the Transocean 38, and the new Breitling Transocean Chronograph 1915 looks to be more of the same.
Hoptroff is a British Watchmaker who is doing very interesting complications with electronic watches tied to your smart phone. Instead of trying to do everything, and losing the look of a conventional watch in the process, the watches specialize is a specific function, and use the hands and subdials of the watch to convey the information. The Hoptroff Hotblack line of watches is available with options to keep you up to date on football (soccer for those in the US) scores, stock prices, the direction and time of day for Muslim prayers, and important notifications.
I have made no secret my affinity for the watches that Shinola produces. Sure, not every single…
We here at WWR are fans of seeing watch startups kicking off here in the ‘States, and I have personally had an enjoyable time getting to know the guys behind Smith & Bradley, as well as the watches they are creating downstate from me. Just a little bit ago, we brought you a breakdown of what was going on with their upgraded Atlantis, which already had quite a few options to choose from. Now, you have the ability to create your own Smith & Bradley custom Atlantis (originally reviewed here).
Touch of Modern (join here is you are not already a member), is a limited time, members only sales site that features lots of guy-centric goods. For our audience, it is the watches that really matter, and the site does feature a lot of watch sales. Right now, Davosa Swiss Automatics are on sale at Touch of Modern, plus one quartz chrono for the budget minded.
When it comes to watches from Bulova, we tend to see them as being nicely designed pieces, mostly quartz driven and affordable. In other words, a good watch, but not necessarily something that you take notice of. Of course, if that’s the thinking, then you are ignoring things like their crazy-accurate chonograph (ABTW LINK). These days, you would also be ignoring the new direction they attempting to take things in, which is underscored by the Joseph Bulova Collection First Edition 24-Karat Gold watch.
The concept of a skeleton watches intrigues me, but the execution (at least for affordable ones) usually leaves underwhelmed. I love the way that the mechanical movements are exposed, but they end up visually very busy, and they tend to be overly ornate. When Tissot offered to loan me the Tissot Chemin des Tourelles Squelette for a review, I jumped at the opportunity. Here was a watch that looked modern and readable, while still showing off the mechanical movement that makes a skeleton interesting. Unbeknownst to me, Patrick also decided to review this watch, albeit for A Blog To Watch. He didn’t get it hands on, but his impression was that the watch lacked some of the showmanship that you see on really high end skeleton watches, but still had a design that was readable while showing off the important parts.
