Horolonomics

Today, I received a dispatch direct from Le Brassus, aka global headquarters for Audemars Piguet. The email cautions collectors that fraudsters are targeting clients of AP and other brands with potentially bad consequences. In the interest of collector protection, and as a bit of "public service," I'm copying the main body of the AP email below. Be careful out there, always check email headers and double-check with your known contacts at any brands before wiring money, for example: "Cybercriminals are trying to scam customers in every industry and watchmaking makes no exception. At Audemars Piguet we want to be sure that our trusted community is well protected against cyber- criminal exploits. Recently, threat actors have been using spoofing techniques to send fraudulent emails pretending to come from trusted brands, such as ours, in an attempt to deceive individuals into disclosing sensitive information, making payment to illegitimate accounts or engaging in fra...

When will the watch market hit bottom? A lot hinges on the answer to this question. A componenet from a Zenith El Primero movement. Maintaining cash flow in a down market is never easy. For brands that went into the slump with waiting lists, this is less of a challenge. But for those brands still working hard for every sale, the watch market downturn could easily represet an existential crisis. For example, Purnell Watches, makers of extremely dynamic timepieces featuring two triple-axis tourbillons, was dissolved on December 18 of last year. And, we certainly don't know the particulars, but Rolex shuttered Carl Bucherer very recently (according to many reports ). Regrettably, a Swiss industry group, the Union Patronale Suisse (Swiss Employer's Union), seems to believe that the downturn has quite a few months left. More specifically, Marco Taddei (the group's International Affairs Section Manager) recently penned an article suggesting that one of Switzerland's m...

The Wethanor building in Le Locle, screenshot credit Canal Alpha. Now and then, an event takes place which reminds us all how important security is to the watch industry. These prompts can take the form of stories about timepieces stolen on the street or during burglaries as well as thefts at watch stores or boutiques. Last week, news broke of a similar crime although this one was more unique than others. At 7:20 in the morning of Friday, February 13, armed thieves broke into a building operated by Werthanor in Le Locle, Switzerland. The window broken during the heist. Screenshot credit Canal Alpha. I wasn't personally familiar with Werthanor (and they don't really have a social media presence), but they manufacture cases and bracelets. As recently as 2023, news reports indicate that the brand Yema sources components from Werthanor. And, Watchpro suggests that Werthanor "works with the world's biggest watch brands." Indeed, according to Audemars Piguet...

This may not come as a surprise, but I do not read German-language newspapers on a regular basis. Dial of a vintage Omega Constellation, pie pan. I am, however, keenly interested in a scandal involving the Swatch Group and a "Frankenwatch" Speedmaster which was sold at auction a while back for over $3 million. I won't go into all the minute details here, but the punchline is that Swatch Group bought the watch only to discover that some of its own employees may have been part of a conspiracy to assemble a watch which would be quite rare and important if it were authentic. But, apparently, it was not authentic. When the deception was uncovered, various people who were part of the "inside job" lost employment and, reportedly, legal authorities were notified in Switzerland. I originally wrote about this in 2023, you can read my coverage here . There's been excellent reporting on this matter from many sources (see, for example, this story from Bloomberg). ...

It had been a while since I'd watched Tim Mosso live on YouTube. I'm not sure why, I think maybe my notifications were somehow updated by the algorithm and I didn't get a pop-up while I was cooking dinner on Monday night (usually the time I would stream Mosso's show). An AI generated image meant to represent the separation of editorial and commercial interests. Mosso is absolutely my favorite when it comes to live discussion of watches and the watch industry on YouTube. There are a lot of reasons, but most of them boil down to the fact that he is arguably the most knowledgable of anyone on the topic. Well into his live show recently, Mosso read a question from the chat which immediately grabbed my attention. The question was: "Could you tell me what happened that led you to not being able to discuss Rolex anymore?" This was the first I'd ever heard that a watch media "creative" was restricted when it came to a certain topic. My ears perked...

While listening to a recent episode of the A Blog to Watch Weekly podcast, a debate over strategy and pricing at the watch brand Oris caught my attention. An Oris watch. The brand has used Sellita movements. The issue at hand was this: do Oris Diver watches, featuring the in-house calibre 400 movement and priced just over $4,000, make any sense? This question is relevant because other, similar, Oris Divers with a Sellita-derived movement are available for under $3,000. At first blush, I understand and, to some extent, agree with those who question whether it makes sense for Oris to move "upmarket" and still offer lower-priced models. But I think some recent events in Switzerland suggest that buyers should strongly consider, or perhaps prefer, the newer references with in-house movements even though they may carry a premium. When any brand sources materials from other companies, they face something the field of finance refers to as "counterparty risk." Your p...