re: Watches and Wonders 2021 Releases

Why can't Rolex put a date on the Daytona and Tudor can?

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It is a luxury item. Which by definition means it's not a necessity from a purely functional standpoint. Pateks are incredibly well made (all in-house) watches...which is very much a skill, but you are largely paying for the name (one of, if not the most luxurious brand in watches) and a degree of exclusivity. Just like anything else you can't judge luxury items based SOLELY on functionality.

A Rolls Royce and a Toyota Camry both perform essentially the same function (transportation) same as a Rolex and a Timex. But with each you are mostly paying for the decades of goodwill, brand recognition, and exclusivity. That's why it is a LUXURY item. No one NEEDS a $35k watch just like no one NEEDS a $400k vehicle

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I understand the concept, but at least with a luxury car you have noticeable, tactile luxuries that you're able to distinctly detect with your senses. I just don't see that same sense of luxury from a watch, especially that Patek. But, that's not really my hobby, so I don't really know the in's and out's. I just don't understand the price tag for such a watch that doesn't look all that great.

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Rolex upgraded the EXP II with the new 3285 movement but not much else, still available in black and "polar".

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This is on the short list to get to rotate with my 16800. How impossible will it be to find them?

Ok, 10-4

No, you get it.

It's ugly but has impeccable craftsmanship and buyer will be the envy the CC to have the watch many gush over despite being plain an hideous....Just has the right brand.

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I understand the concept, but at least with a luxury car you have noticeable, tactile luxuries that you're able to distinctly detect with your senses. I just don't see that same sense of luxury from a watch, especially that Patek.

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First, I completely get Gentaesque Yachting/Porthole inspired watches with integrated bracelets are not everyone's taste. While AP and Patek have been making them for 50 years it has become one of the hottest trends in watches over the last 5-6 years, they are getting "copied" left and right.

Perceiving the quality of a watch is like everything else you can easily do it if you have the proper perspective, easy for a watch nut not so easy for someone that isn't a watch nut. You can take an Amish man and put him in a BMW then a Bentley and he is likely not to be able to immediately perceive the reason for the disparity in price but put two hand plane irons in his hands one made by Lie Nielsen and one being a modern Stanley and he is likely to be able to wax poetic about the differences. It is one of those things that if you don't care you don't care.

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Not shitting on the whole thing, it's just something I've never really grasped.

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I totally get that. I don't understand people's obsession with sneakers, cars, or audio equipment but there's nothing wrong with it. Just not my thing.

Anyone with a spare 1,350,000 dollars from their Gamestop play might consider the Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso Hybris Mechanica Calibre 185, the first watch with 4 faces. To please upgrayedd it has 11 complications. It is a minute repeater (it can chime the time and it is a very unusual and complex interpretation of one. It also has a flying tourbillon.

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The complications are as follows. On the first face, there's an instantaneous perpetual calendar, with big date and indications for the day, month, year, and leap year, day/night indication. A flying tourbillon is visible through an aperture in the dial.


On the second dial, there is a second dial showing the time, with a digital jumping hour. Also visible are the components of the minute repeater. The minute repeater has a feature unique to just a few high-end repeaters from JLC. A minute repeater is a watch that chimes the time "on-demand," ringing the hours, quarter hours, and minutes when a slide in the case is pressed. Normally, there's a slight gap between each set of chimes – this is most noticeable when there are no quarters to chime. JLC has been working to reduce this delay, first in the Hybris Mechanica Master Ultra Thin Minute Repeater Flying Tourbillon (2014) and then the Master Grande Tradition Gyrotourbillon Westminster Perpétuel (2019), but this is the first JLC repeater in which the delays have been eliminated completely.


The remaining two "dials" are on the inside and back of the case cradle.

The third dial shows various aspects of the Moon's orbit – in particular, it displays three different versions of the lunar month. These cycles are the Synodic cycle, Draconic cycle, and Anomalistic cycle.


The Synodic cycle, or synodic month, is the lunar cycle with which most of us are familiar. It's simply the amount of time from one New Moon to the next – a month as determined by the phase of the Moon. This is shown at the top of the 3rd dial, by a very large moon-phase display in which an opaque blue lacquer disc, carrying a starfield, crosses the face of a laser-engraved Moon. The length of a Synodic month varies slightly throughout the year, but the average is rather exact: 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes, and 2.8016 seconds. A conventional moon-phase display rounds this off to 29.5 days. The Moon in this case is painted onto a disk with 59 teeth (actually two Moons, so that when one disappears at the New Moon, the other is ready to rotate into place) but after two and a half years, the moon-phase will be off by about a day. Higher-accuracy moon-phase displays have become the norm in high-end watches with astronomical complications – the Hybris Mechanica Calibre 185 Quadriptyque's is accurate to one day in 1,111 years. This is not to say that JLC expects the watch to run for 1,111 years straight, but it's a demonstration of precision engineering appropriate to the ambitious nature of the watch (I always like to think of high-precision moon-phases as being rather akin to extreme depth ratings in dive watches – you don't need it, but it's fun to know it's there).

Below it and to the left is a representation of the Draconic cycle. This is a little more complicated than the Synodic cycle. The Moon's orbit around the Earth is very slightly inclined with respect to the plane of the ecliptic – that's the plane on which most of the planets appear to travel as seen from the Earth, on their orbits around the Sun. It's not a lot – about 5.14º – but it's important to astronomers. This is because there are two points at which the Moon's orbit, and the plane of the ecliptic, intersect: These are the North and South Nodes, known in mythology as the Head and Tail of the Dragon (caput et cauda draconis).


The Ascending and Descending Nodes of the Moon's orbit, as seen from the Earth. Image, Wikipedia.

These are the two points at which an eclipse can happen, as if one of the Nodes is in a direct line between the Earth and the Sun, the Moon will perfectly block the solar disc from view (it is one of the interesting oddities of the Solar System that the Moon orbits the Earth, at least in the present era, at exactly the right distance to take up the same number of degrees of arc in the sky as the Sun). The display shows the Sun at the center, with the Moon orbiting around it – the number of degrees above or below the plane of the ecliptic is shown by the degrees scale in the counter. The two Nodes are shown by the traditional ancient symbols ? and ?.

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I completely understand and see the luxury in something like this, but not so much on something like that Patek.

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Keep in mind the price of the Lange Triple Split is ~5 times what the Patek 5711 is.

The Patek also has a display back and has a well-finished movement BUT a 3 hand automatic is never as sexy as a column wheel manual wind.



My favorite watch movements are made by Lang & Heyne





I could talk about the craftmanship for hours. Instead of plates, they use rounded stainless cocks to support the going train. The hairspring jewel is a diamond. One guy hand makes a polishes all their screws supposedly they cost about 100 Euros each. All the gears in the going train are made from gold. Just an all-around decadent movement.

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I'm still holding out for the Omega.

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I'm looking to get an Omega soon too.