3-Watch Thursday #57
Delayed by a week, but we got there in the end
Good morning team,
Apologies for the missed newsletter last week…maybe you didn’t notice? Besides, things got a bit busy again in life and a few things fell by the wayside.
Fear not, we’re back this week! And better than ever?
That’s for you to decide.
A word of warning though. In being very busy, I’ve completely missed the surprises of the auctions this weekend gone. If you missed them as well, go check out
this week with an unfiltered breakdown of the shenanigans at Christie’s.Alternatively, for a PC version, SJX has you covered here.
Finally, somewhere in the middle Tony Traina has you covered here.
Otherwise, let’s dive straight in!
Hodinkee Hyperlapse
If you follow any mainstream photography Instagram accounts at the minute, one style of shot has been doing the rounds.
Hyperlapse.
It’s kind of like a time-lapse, but with alignment of certain parts of the frame between images and sometimes with changing focal lengths.
I really enjoy following other kinds of photography accounts to take inspiration and bring that inspiration into the world of watches.
That’s why I was pleasantly surprised in the Sotheby’s New York preview to see a hyperlapse of a Patek Philippe 1518.
So cool.
So very cool.
I fell it’s unlikely to be matched by anyone in terms of heat, dare any watch photographer try.
The Watch Library
Oddly, I noticed The Watch Library the other week but failed to pay much attention to it.
How wrong I was.
The Watch Library is a Swiss foundation for accumulating and sharing knowledge relating to watchmaking.
With resources from 1650 right to the present day, it’s an impressive feat to attempt and share with the public.
Thankfully, it’s a freely available resource and over time it becomes more and more optimised with a greater number of partnering organisations, but for now, it’s a start and I can’t wait to see how the watch community uses it!
Chinese Watch Brand Demand
We hear it year after year that watch brands are selling greater quantities to the East Asian market and that generally western consumers have different tastes, but rarely do we stop to question the varying popularity of brands in different regions.
Oddly, I found the above image on LinkedIn of all places this week.
The full post is here and I am unable to verify the information, but if it is true it is pretty interesting.
The COMPASS China Luxury Index uses a combination of brand generated content and user generated content across multiple platforms; WeChat, Douyin, XiaoHongShu, and Weibo to see which brands have effectively stimulated interest in the Chinese market through the quarter (against the previous quarter).
It’s pretty striking that most of the top 10 are jewellery brands and watch brands with jewellery brands (but maybe that’s a bias in it being a watches and jewellery list).
Longines are up in the top spot with Rolex down in 12th. Longines have been traditionally strong in China over the last few decades so it’s unsurprising they’re near the top, but clearly, they’re doing something right in terms of marketing to stay there.
If anyone is able to offer further insight (as this is far from my area of expertise), I would greatly appreciate it.
Self Promo: How Rolex Became Rolex: The Automatic “Perpetual” Movement (Part 2) and The Watch Annual 2023
A quick self-promotion if you will allow me.
This week Part 2 of How Rolex Became Rolex went live over at Wind Vintage.]
You can check it out here.
This year I was lucky enough to photograph some watch releases in 2023 and contributed to the Watch Annual.
You can check it out here.
Many thanks for reading this week’s issue.
Apologies for the lack of opinion and the delay. Hopefully, we get back to it next week.
Have a good weekend when we get there!
Owen
I’d call it uncensored ... but still mildly filtered.