Business & Industry
Hodinkee
Independent Watch Retailer Collective Horology Sues Trump And Administration Over New Tariffs
Ventura-based independent retailer Collective Horology has sued Trump, USTR Jamieson Greer, and other officials in the U.S. Court of International Trade, alleging the administration's new Section 301 tariffs of 10% and 12.5% are unlawful and lack congressional approval. Backed by the Liberty Justice Center (which already won a Supreme Court ruling against Trump's initial tariffs), Collective says it has paid over $160,000 in duties and faces roughly $8,280 more on an incoming $69,000 shipment. It's the industry's most aggressive pushback yet on levies that have squeezed retailer margins, and a reminder that with no U.S. movement production at scale, watch importers have no domestic supply to "protect."
WatchPro
Bucherer to open four additional Rolex showrooms in United States
Rolex-owned Bucherer is opening four US showrooms across 2026 and 2027: a Seattle Rolex boutique this fall, the 43,000-square-foot New York 5th Avenue flagship (soon to be the world's largest Rolex store, under Bucherer operational management) at the end of 2026 or early 2027, plus multibrand doors in Washington, DC and Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The build-out adds to Bucherer's 40 existing US showrooms and sharpens the retail arms race with Watches of Switzerland Group, whose American arm now runs 65 stores on roughly $1.24 billion in 2025/26 turnover.
WatchPro
Industry mourns the passing of David Edwards, managing director of Seiko UK
David Edwards, managing director of Seiko UK, has died. Born in North Wales in 1968, he moved into watches via Swatch Group, Technomarine, Tolkowsky and Richard Mille before leading Seiko UK, where his team won WatchPro's 2021 Executive Leadership Team of the Year. His passing removes one of the more distinctive operators from the UK trade, a reminder of how much a national distributor's fortunes ride on the person at the top.
WatchPro
Hermès watch sales recover in Q2 after a soft start to 2026
Hermès watch sales finished H1 2026 essentially flat at €269 million (up 0.2% at constant rates), but the shape matters: a 3.7% Q1 decline flipped to 4.4% Q2 growth, which the maison credits to the Cape Cod and the titanium skeleton H08. The tell is the Le Noirmont facility expansion due in 2028, a capacity bet that signals watches are a long-term priority rather than a hedge on a €8.2 billion group where leather and silk each grew near 10%.
WatchPro
EDITOR’S VIEW: The changing landscape of collecting
WatchPro's editor makes the case that the pre-owned and vintage market has moved from the industry's unglamorous back room to its main growth engine, citing Grand View Research figures putting the global pre-owned luxury watch market at $32.3bn in 2025 and forecasting it past $85bn by 2033, growth expected to outpace the primary market. The commercial tell is that brands are meeting buyers there, mining archives for reissues and rolling out certified pre-owned, buyback and trade-in schemes they once resisted, as millennial and Gen Z buyers use secondary platforms as their entry into heritage watchmaking.</parameter> <parameter name="categories">["vintage"]
Community & Culture
SJX Watches
Conversations: American Watchmakers Jason Lu and Zach Smith of 1776 Atelier
1776 Atelier's Liberty 250, timed to America's 250th anniversary, is the brand's most domestically made watch yet, credibly claimed at over 90% US-made with an HP 917 movement featuring a free-sprung balance, 222 internal angles, and nearly 200 hours of hand finishing per watch (the solid-gold case comes from Germany's RP Uhrgehäuse). Co-founders Jason Lu and Zach Smith argue the FTC's "all or virtually all" Made in USA standard, backed by penalties north of $53,000 per violation, is a blunt instrument for watchmaking and pitch a Canada-style tiered system instead. The subtext for anyone building an American brand: absent a domestic supply chain for jewels, crystals, mainsprings, and hairspring wire, the country's most compelling origin story still can't legally call itself Made in USA.
Worn & Wound
Five Unusual Celebrity Ambassadors for Seiko, Speake-Marin, Rolex, and More
Worn & Wound runs a listicle of five unusual watch brand ambassadors: Kate Bush's late-1970s Seiko commercials, Jaws author Peter Benchley for Rolex (photographed with the Submariner, personally an Explorer II ref. 1655), Pierce Brosnan's 2015-2018 stint with Speake-Marin, James Gandolfini's partnership with indie brand Kobold (he bought 450 watches for The Sopranos cast and crew), and a shark named Andromache whom Ulysse Nardin named an ambassador in 2020 via a tie-up with conservation nonprofit OCEARCH. The throughline is a reminder that ambassador deals were once about cultural cachet and cause marketing rather than pure red-carpet glamor, a useful frame as brands like Urban Jürgensen chase the Timothée Chalamet indie halo today.
Fratello
Video: Meet The Artisans De Genève And Discover Their Exceptional Craft
Fratello runs a video profile of Artisans de Genève, the independent Geneva atelier that customizes and restores clients' watches (explicitly unaffiliated with the original makers), introducing Deputy CEO Philippe Wassmer alongside gouache artist Lucie, gemologist Seraina, and watchmakers Michel and Geoffroy. The piece walks through AdG's bespoke process and past projects including the spiderweb-turquoise "Spider," the 66-gram "Story of 66g," and Adam Levine's "Neon." It's a soft-focus branding exercise for a workshop whose entire business rests on turning other brands' watches into one-offs, a legally delicate niche it keeps at arm's length with careful disclaimer language.
WatchTime
Watch Week Aspen Returns with Four Days of Watches and Collector Events
Watch Week Aspen returns August 13-16, 2026, for its third year, a citywide collector gathering founded by Oliver Smith Jeweler that spreads brand presentations, panels, and parties across Aspen's boutiques, galleries, and hotels rather than a single convention hall. The 2026 lineup runs deep on independents and heritage names (A. Lange & Söhne, Blancpain, Glashütte Original, Arnold & Son, Gerald Charles, Hermès, IWC, Omega), with WatchTime signing on as an event partner. The bet here is that experiential, retailer-led regional events in wealthy enclaves increasingly matter more than trade-show floors for reaching American collectors.
Reviews
SJX Watches
Rolex Day-Date 40 Jubilee Gold
SJX Watches goes hands-on with the Rolex Day-Date 40 (ref. 228235JG), the time-only flagship rendered in Rolex's new proprietary "Jubilee" gold (its first new alloy since 2005's Everose) with a natural aventurine stone dial and baguette diamond markers, priced at US$65,700 and not a limited edition. They conclude that despite being less innovative than the enamel Daytona or revised Yacht-Master II, the watch stands out through genuine aventurine stone (not glass) and the muted new alloy, and argue it makes a value case, citing the A. Lange & Söhne Odysseus Honeygold at US$110,000, 67% more, for comparable day-date functionality. The trade takeaway: SJX praises the cal. 3255's technical leadership (Chronergy escapement, Parachrom hairspring, Superlative Chronometer at +/- 2 seconds/day) while noting its machine-applied, undecorated finishing and the fact that Rolex's value argument only holds "in a perfect world with on-demand availability."
Monochrome Watches
The Dominique Renaud Pulse 60 and the Fascination of a One-Hertz Regulating Organ
Monochrome Watches goes hands-on with the Pulse 60, the debut from APRP co-founder Dominique Renaud's eponymous brand: a 40mm titanium or pink-gold/titanium watch built around a manually wound BUA2024 calibre whose oversized 20mm balance beats at just 1Hz, re-engineered to run amplitudes beyond 360 degrees (theoretical max 700). They're clearly captivated by the slow, visible "breathing" of the regulating organ, comparing it to the presence of a tourbillon, though they flag that the brand won't specify accuracy and they couldn't measure it themselves. Priced at CHF 49,000 (titanium) and CHF 59,000 (pink gold/titanium), excluding taxes, it positions Renaud's name squarely in the rarefied slow-beat independent niche alongside the Antoine Martin Slow Runner.
Time + Tide
If Zach could change one thing about the Grand Seiko SLGB006 it would be this…
Time + Tide's Zach Blass reviews the Grand Seiko SLGB006 UFA Spring Drive "Ice Forest at Dawn," the first 18k yellow gold Evolution 9 UFA piece (37mm, 100m WR, calibre 9RB2 accurate to 20 seconds/year), limited to 80 pieces at US$43,600. He praises the Zaratsu-finished gold case and sun-pillar dial and calls it aggressively but justifiably priced, faulting only the leather-and-gold-clasp strap: he'd have wanted a slim rubber or textile option to match the case's sporty water-resistance.
aBlogtoWatch
Swiss Crafted Meets Modern Design Excellence: Mauron Musy Node Watch Review
aBlogtoWatch reviews the Mauron Musy NODE°, praising the brand's gasketless "nO-Ring" 200m titanium case, the beautifully finished grade 5 titanium bracelet, and the new in-house micro-rotor Calibre MM03 (13 years in development, 96-hour reserve, 4Hz) that gives off "Greubel Forsey vibes"; the main faults are unprotected scratch-prone titanium and no clasp micro-adjustment. The trade detail: this reference MU09-103 lists at $64,900, the in-house MM03 sits well above the brand's La Joux-Perret-based pieces, and total production remains roughly 300 watches per year, with a cheaper strap version in the works.
Monochrome Watches
The Superb Inverted Movement of the 39mm Minerva Unveiled Secret Limited Editions
Monochrome Watches goes hands-on with Minerva's two Unveiled Secret limited editions, the first releases since the Villeret manufacture split from Montblanc's double branding to stand alone (though still under Montblanc's parent management): a 39mm case housing an entirely new, patented inverted in-house monopusher chronograph calibre, offered as a 58-piece steel-and-rose-gold version at EUR 58,000 and an 18-piece diamond-set 18k rose gold edition at EUR 88,000. They praise the downsized 39mm case and the wine-red colour scheme for making the exposed movement far more wearable and legible than the outgoing 43mm double-branded models, but fault the 14.18mm thickness on a hand-wound watch and the pointy lug tips carried over from the Unveiled Crownless. For the trade, the real story is Minerva testing its newly independent branding on collectors at Richemont-tier prices, arrow crown and Montblanc-free caseback included.
SJX Watches
Chanel J12 Coco Game
SJX Watches goes hands-on with the haute joaillerie Chanel J12 Coco Game, the diamond-set (5.46 carats on the bezel plus more marking the hours) top tier of Chanel's games-themed Watches & Wonders lineup, featuring an 8-bit "Coco" avatar mounted on the fourth wheel that trots around the dial in place of a seconds hand. They praise the near-unmarrable zirconia ceramic case and the shimmer added by the baguette variant's polished bevels, but flag the trade-off: this jewellery model drops the screw-down crown and thus rates only 50m (versus 200m on the standard Coco Game), and the Kenissi-built cal. 12.1 lacks the silicon hairspring that makes its Tudor siblings anti-magnetic. Limited to 55 pieces at ~US$180,000.
New Releases
Worn & Wound
Citizen Introduces the Tsuyosa Shore “Time Slip” Limited Edition
Citizen has added the Tsuyosa Shore "Time Slip" to its sub-$1,000 automatic line: a 40mm steel skin-diver with 100m water resistance, a caliber 8210 movement with date and cyclops, a textured black gradient dial with gold accents, and an exhibition caseback. It's priced at $525 and limited to 12,000 pieces, a run size aimed at keeping a "limited edition" genuinely obtainable for the younger, entry-level enthusiasts the Tsuyosa collection courts.
aBlogtoWatch
The Quantum Barracuda BAR1208B Brings Serious Dive-Watch Specs At An Accessible Price
Quantum's new Barracuda BAR1208B is a 41mm steel automatic diver (13mm thick, ~48.5mm lug-to-lug) with a ceramic rotating bezel, sapphire crystal, screw-down crown, 200m water resistance, and the Miyota 8215 movement, all for $299. It's a pointed play at the price-to-performance segment: for a brand operating across 35 countries, stacking ceramic-and-sapphire specs at three figures is how you win the accessible-diver shelf where every microbrand and heritage name is now fighting.
Monochrome Watches
Laine Watches Celebrates its 10th Anniversary with a New 33mm Model and Evolutions of its P37
Laine Watches marks its 10th anniversary with the P33, a compact 33mm hand-wound dress piece (8mm thick, 41mm lug-to-lug) with a double-guilloché silver dial and a Peseux 7001 base decorated in-house, priced on request but expected in the brand's usual CHF 10,000-12,000 bracket. Alongside it, Torsti Laine's Neuchâtel atelier is releasing five new dials for the 37mm P37 (small-seconds, Peseux base, 17 hand-finished steel parts), a numbered edition capped at 99 watches across all colourways at CHF 9,900 excluding taxes. For a hand-guilloché micro-atelier, a genuinely small case at classic-Laine pricing is a bid to broaden its collector base without touching the finishing that justifies the ticket.
WatchTime
Mido: The Multifort TV Big Date Gets a Rose-Gold Twist
Mido has added a rose-gold-colored PVD variant to its retro Multifort TV Big Date, keeping the 1970s cushion "TV screen" case (40mm by 39.2mm, 11.5mm thick) and pairing it with a blue-to-black fumé dial and integrated bracelet. Inside is the Caliber 80 automatic (based on the ETA C07.651) with a Nivachron hairspring and up to 80 hours of power reserve, visible through a sapphire caseback. It slots into Mido's accessible-Swatch-Group tier, where two-tone dress-up finishes and the 80-hour movement do the heavy lifting on perceived value.
WatchTime
Gerald Charles Elevates the Masterlink with Exceptional Stone Dials
Gerald Charles has expanded its Masterlink line with three Gem Set Stone Dial editions (Black Iron Eye, Blue Spectrolite, Green Aventurine), each limited to 10 pieces and pairing an asymmetrical natural-stone dial with a color-matched gemstone-set white-gold bezel (60 baguette-cut tsavorites, sapphires, or matching stones). The 38mm by 38mm steel case is 7.9mm thick, water-resistant to 100 meters, and houses the ultra-thin (2.67mm) automatic caliber GCA 1000 with micro-rotor, 3 Hz beat, and 50-hour reserve on an integrated bracelet; pricing is on request. Stone dials at 10-piece runs let Gerald Charles push the Genta-designed Masterlink upmarket into hard-to-scale artisanal territory, where scarcity and gem-setting do the pricing work.
Podcasts
Fratello
Fratello Talks: The Watches That Won Us Over
On this Fratello Talks, Nacho, RJ, and first-time guest Jorg discuss the watches they initially disliked but learned to appreciate over their collecting journeys (wrist checks include a Grand Seiko SBGR023, a Christopher Ward C65 Dune GMT, and an RZE UTD8000), a useful window into how collector taste and second impressions actually form for anyone selling to that audience.
Hodinkee
The Business of Watches Podcast: Christie's Remi Guillemin On The Fundamental Shifts In The Auction Market Driving Record Prices
On The Business of Watches podcast, Christie's head of watches for the Americas, Europe and the Middle East, Remi Guillemin, breaks down why the current record-setting auction market (driven by F.P. Journe, Cartier and pocket watches) is fundamentally different from the hype-watch surge of 2021 and 2022, a read worth hearing for anyone tracking where collector money is moving mid-year.