Horolonomics

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...