Business & Industry
WatchPro
Gold prices appear to have found a “solid base”
Gold has stabilized around $4,000/oz as a support level and clawed back toward its 50-day moving average near $4,175/oz, helped by Chinese investor buying, a softer dollar, and a more benign US rate outlook. A sustained break higher could open a path toward the mid-June high just under $4,400/oz. For watchmakers already squeezed by precious-metal costs, a firming floor under gold means the margin pressure on cased pieces isn't easing anytime soon.
WatchPro
Maurice Lacroix appoints new managing director
Joel Chabanne is the new managing director of Maurice Lacroix, replacing Stéphane Waser, who exited in July after 18 years with the brand (12 as MD). Chabanne arrives from majority owner DKSH's Guam operation and, before that, 21 years at Cartier, and inherits the launch plans Waser left behind. The handover comes as Maurice Lacroix's $1,000-$3,000 core has taken a beating over three years: continuity, not reinvention, is the pitch.
WatchPro
THE BIG INTERVIEW: Collective Horology gives California a new model for independent watch retail
Collective Horology, the retailer founded by ex-Facebook colleagues Asher Rapkin and Gabe Reilly, has built an independent-focused watch business around a Ventura, California showroom, though more than 95% of sales happen online or by phone. Grown from a Facebook employee watch club into collaborations with Zenith, H. Moser & Cie., Urwerk, IWC and Oris, the operation is investor-free and pitches itself as filling a Southern California gap for newer independents. The bet worth watching: treating retail as personality-and-experience driven rather than territory-based, with client relationships measured by whether collectors actually pick up the phone.
Community & Culture
Fratello
Fratello Talks: Can A Case Back Make Or Break A Watch
The latest Fratello Talks podcast has Nacho, Timo, and RJ debating whether display case backs help or hurt a watch, weighing exhibition sapphire against solid backs for tool watches. Wrist checks include an Omega Speedmaster in Moonshine Gold, a vintage caliber-321 Speedmaster ref. 145.012, and a Tudor Pelagos FXD. It is a low-stakes format piece, but the case back debate maps neatly onto how brands justify (and price) movement finishing.
WatchTime
Current Day Excellence: Walking Through Glashütte, Part III
Part III of WatchTime's Glashütte walking tour maps the town's current roster, from A. Lange & Söhne and Nomos to Glashütte Original, Tutima, Union Glashütte, Mühle-Glashütte, Bruno Söhnle, Moritz Grossmann and Wempe. The through-line: "Made in Glashütte" now covers everything from accessible manufacture pieces to haute horlogerie, and the village's concentration of family-run and group-owned houses is what keeps German watchmaking's premium positioning intact.
Monochrome Watches
Twelve on Time – PS Horology’s Peter Speake and his Personal Relationship with Time and Watches
Monochrome's "Twelve on Time" Q&A puts veteran independent watchmaker Peter Speake (PS Horology) on the couch, ranging from his restoration years on Piccadilly to his reverence for Nicole Nielsen's movement design and the Japanese notion of shokunin. The through-line worth noting for the trade: Speake frames independent watchmaking as a thirty-year effort to recover the hand skill lost to turn-of-the-century industrialisation, and flags the industry's real challenge as making a credible value case to phone-wearing younger buyers.
Reviews
SJX Watches
Breguet Classique Tourbillon 7357
SJX Watches reviews the Breguet Classique Tourbillon 7357, the overdue successor to the 1989-era 3350/3357, now the entry point to Breguet's tourbillon range at CHF140,000 in Breguet gold and CHF154,000 in platinum, housed in a compact 35mm by 9.2mm case with the new cal. 187B (60-hour reserve, silicon pallet lever, Nivachron hairspring). They find it a handsome, quintessentially Breguet watch whose finishing and reworked observatory-style tourbillon bridge make it competitive with the likes of Vacheron Constantin, preferring the Breguet gold version. The one caveat for trade readers: SJX faults the movement as fundamentally old architecture unlikely to be upgraded further, arguing the cal. 187B may be the last evolution of a platform Breguet needs to replace.
Worn & Wound
The Bernhardt Captain
Worn & Wound went hands-on with the Bernhardt Captain, a $749 dress-adjacent range (38mm, Miyota 9039, three dials: Fog silver, Cove blue, Cypress green) and concludes it's a perfectly nice everyday watch that doesn't quite meet strict dress-watch criteria, praising the guilloche dial and applied Breguet numerals while noting it won't wow on finishing or value. The trade takeaway: they frame it as evidence that sub-$1,000 is the maturing new "value" tier, since a Miyota-powered watch in this style would have run $500 or less a few years ago.
Monochrome Watches
Armin Strom’s Orbit in Midnight Purple Regalia
Monochrome Watches goes hands-on with the Armin Strom Orbit Midnight Purple, praising the on-demand column-wheel date complication (a "world first" that activates or retracts a retrograde central date hand at the push of a button) and the way the purple now extends into the frosted mainplate for the first time. The 43.4mm steel piece runs the in-house ASS20 with a 72-hour equal-force barrel; it is limited to 20 pieces and retails for CHF 36,000, a price point that positions the entry-level System 78 line squarely in serious independent-collector territory.
Revolution Watch
A Closer Look: Credor Goldfeather Porcelain Dial
Revolution Watch takes a closer look at the Credor Goldfeather Imari Nabeshima (ref. GCBY991), a €15,000, 60-piece limited edition that marks the first internationally offered steel Goldfeather, pairing a 37.1mm x 8.3mm case with a layered painted porcelain dial from the Hataman Touen kiln and the old-school manual Cal. 6890. They come away fans, praising the elaborate dial, slim profile, and solid construction while faulting the smallish movement, short 37-hour power reserve, and cold, machine-like finishing, though they note the steel model gets roughly the same finishing as the precious-metal versions, making it good value. For the trade, the takeaway is Credor deliberately carving a very thin dress-watch niche distinct from (and thinner than) Grand Seiko as it opens to the international market.
New Releases
aBlogtoWatch
The CIGA Design Hunter Vintage Watch Adds Golden Warmth To Its Futuristic Design
CIGA Design has added two warmer colorways, rose gold and a chocolatey "Brown Gold," to its tonneau-shaped Hunter series skeleton, now dubbed the Hunter Vintage: 43mm steel case, sapphire front and back, the in-house CD-07 automatic (40-hour reserve, 28,800 bph), matching H-link bracelet, and 30m water resistance, out now at $599 through the brand's e-commerce. The play is straightforward: CIGA is stretching a proven full-skeleton platform up-market on color alone to keep courting a wider audience at an aggressive price.
Fratello
Seiko Doesn’t Rest On Its Laurels: Introducing Two Seiko Presage Classic Series “Craftsmanship” Watches
Seiko adds two Presage Classic Series "Craftsmanship" watches inspired by the 1913 Laurel: the HCC005 with a hand-made white enamel dial and red "12" (€1,400), and the HCC006 with a black Urushi hand-lacquered dial in a yellow-gold-toned PVD case (€1,600). Both use the 39.6mm case (12.4mm thick, 30m WR) with the 6R5H automatic (72-hour reserve), and land as continuous-production pieces at Seiko boutiques and select retailers worldwide from September 2026. The play here is Seiko leaning on artisanal Japanese dial craft to push Presage upmarket at a sub-€2,000 price where hand-made dials are a genuine value flex.
Also at: SJX Watches · Monochrome Watches
Time + Tide
Omega x Swatch quickly follow up the 1969 with a new, very limited Mission to the Sun – Solar Eclipse
Swatch has followed up the Mission to the Moon 1969 with the Mission to the Sun – Solar Eclipse, a MoonSwatch timed to a solar eclipse crossing Spain, distinguished by a black Bioceramic pusher at 2 o'clock and a New Moon motif on the battery cover. It's a Spain-exclusive dropping August 12, 2026 for one day only, via the Spanish website, select Swatch stores in Bilbao, Ibiza, and Valencia, and the in-store digital catalogue nationwide, plus a Rolling Planet activation through León. The relentless cadence of region-locked, single-day MoonSwatch drops keeps manufacturing scarcity and travel-fueled hype doing the commercial work that a mass-market quartz chrono otherwise couldn't.
Also at: WatchTime
Hodinkee
The TAG Heuer Formula 1 Solargraph Limited Edition Inspired By Zandvoort For The Final Dutch Grand Prix
TAG Heuer marks the final Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort with an orange-dialed Formula 1 Solargraph limited edition, running the solar-quartz TH50-00 in a 38mm steel case with a grey dial, orange bezel and red accents. It comes two ways: 1,500 pieces on rubber at $2,150, and 1,000 pieces on bracelet (an e-commerce exclusive) at $2,250, both available August 2026. A tidy bit of nation-and-driver flag-planting for TAG, which timekeeps both F1 and Verstappen's Red Bull, at an entry price meant to funnel new buyers into the catalogue.
Hodinkee
Panerai’s Luminor Marina PAM01707 Is All Classic Everything, Except For The High-Tech Composite Case
Panerai has released the Luminor Marina PAM01707, a 44mm, 14.5mm-thick no-date Luminor cased in Carbotech (carbon fibre and PEEK composite) with a DLC titanium caseback, black sandwich dial, beige Super-LumiNova, and 300m water resistance, running the three-day P.9010. It ships on brown calf leather with an extra Officine Panerai rubber strap and a screwdriver to swap the DLC titanium buckle, priced at $15,600 and available now, not a limited edition. The launch tracks Panerai's ongoing push toward spec transparency, revised pricing, and a slimmed-down catalogue aimed at its tool-watch base.
Worn & Wound
Brew Introduces the Limited Edition Retrograph Stone Blend
Brew's Retrograph Stone Blend Automatic pairs a pietersite stone dial (meant to evoke milk swirling into cold brew) with a 38mm gold PVD-coated steel case running a Miyota 9015, priced at $775 in a limited run of 250 pieces. At the top of Brew's catalog, it's a bet that a coffee-native brand can make the fading stone-dial trend feel on-narrative rather than opportunistic.
Fratello
Play It Classic, Or Make It Loud: Unpacking the Grøne Horologium’s Dual Identity
Grøne, the more accessible sister brand from Grönefeld brothers Bart and Tim, has launched the Horologium in two versions, "Something Quirky" (Dutch orange and baby blue) and "Something Classic" (salmon sunray), each limited to 188 pieces. Both share a 39mm steel case, 10mm thickness, small seconds, a La Joux-Perret manual-winding movement with 60-hour power reserve visible through a sapphire caseback, and 5 ATM water resistance. The play is clear: import the atelier's hand finishing (Côtes de Genève, anglage, heat-blued screws) into a watch aimed at younger collectors who want an independent name without the €100k-plus barrier.
Fratello
Budget-Friendly With Vintage Charm: The Updated Wolbrook Skindiver 38 Automatic
Wolbrook has updated its Skindiver 38 Automatic, a 38mm vintage-inspired diver running the Miyota 9015 with 200m water resistance, priced at €559 on a Tropic-style rubber strap and €599 on a steel bracelet. Buyers can spec the dial (white, black, orange, or yellow), numeral count, and lume style, and the first 949 pieces (a nod to Wolbrook's 1949 founding) get a special engraved caseback. Designed and assembled in France, it slots into the crowded sub-€600 microbrand diver segment where value and configurability are the whole pitch.
WatchPro
Shinola loves triangles
Shinola has expanded its Detrola family, led by two 41mm quartz three-hand-date models with dials built from boldly-coloured triangles (one in pink and blue on a blue rubber strap, the other mixing oranges, reds, ochres and greens on an orange strap), each with a glossy white resin bezel, pumpkin-style crown and an exhibition case back. Both are on sale from today at £455, joined by two more muted pilot-leaning Detrolas with green or pale gold sunray dials, applied hour markers and a polished steel case and brick-link bracelet, all showing the Argonite 705 movement. The Detroit-assembled line takes cues from the Runwell silhouette and signals another mass-market maker chasing the design-led energy of the microbrand scene.
Fratello
They Grow Up So Fast! Meet The Casio Edifice Automatic EFK-200
Casio has launched the third generation of its mechanical Edifice, the EFK-200, in five integrated-bracelet variants: three full-steel models (black forged carbon, blue, burgundy dials) at €299, a gold/brown PVD version at €369, and a carbon/steel EFK-200XPB-1A on resin strap at €449. All run the Miyota 8215 (21,600vph, 41-hour reserve), with sapphire crystal, display case back, and 100m water resistance; steel models measure 38mm across, 43.6mm lug-to-lug, 11.9mm thick. Notable for the industry: Casio is iterating its automatic line at roughly one generation a year, positioning the Edifice as a cheap mechanical gateway rather than chasing an in-house movement.
aBlogtoWatch
The Zenith Defy Extreme Ultraviolet Watch Combines Radical Horology With Avant-Garde Color
Zenith rolls out the Defy Extreme Ultraviolet, a 45mm micro-blasted titanium chronograph rated to 200m, running the El Primero 9004 with its 360,000 bph 1/100-second chronograph and COSC certification, all under a translucent violet skeleton dial with yellow accents. It ships with three straps (purple rubber, black textile, titanium bracelet), available now through authorized dealers at $20,100. In a market chasing demure vintage silhouettes, this is Zenith betting the other way, monetizing horological spectacle and clear-tech nostalgia at a price where the movement, not the trend, does the selling.