What makes high end watches so desirable is the artistry involved. For some watches, it is artistry in their complexity, or their superlative hand finishing, or intricate dials, and some feature actual artwork like miniature painting. Then there are a very few timepieces that offer all of that artistry and more: one such timepiece is the unique piece Louis Moinet Savanna Tourbillon Tiger.
Baselworld is no more, Watches & Wonders, while open to the public, is focused on press and retailers, and Geneva Watch Days (GWD), while growing, is still relatively small. In less than 10 years, Dubai Watch Week (DWW) has developed from relatively modest beginnings into the world’s greatest watch fair for collectors bar none. No other fair comes anywhere close in terms of access to brands, watchmakers, and fellow watch aficionados.
Well, despite ever-present COVID, the war in Ukraine, and a property crash in China, the world’s economy has held together enough to make 2023 a fantastic year for fine watchmaking. Here are Ian Skellern’s predictions for the watches to win prizes at the 2023 GPHG.
Ian Skellern usually starts explaining a wristwatch with a tour of the watch’s dial and main features, but the LM Sequential EVO is a monument to its mirror-image dual chronograph with Twinverter function movement so here he starts with the best part: its movement.
Held every two years, the Only Watch charity auction of exclusively unique pieces has grown into THE most anticipated watch auction worldwide and features some of the most creative and innovative horology on the planet.
For the 2023 Only Watch auction, the theme is ‘Rainbow’. However, while there are an incredible 62 unique piece timekeepers on offer, only a fraction of them really ran with the rainbow theme. Ian Skellern shares his favorite rainbow watches from Only Watch 2023 here.
Love them or hate them, one thing that most collectors know is that tourbillons are very expensive. That’s all changed with Patria’s Brigadier Tourbillon Subscription Edition costing ‘just’ CHF 18,000 for a beautifully hand finished Swiss Made tourbillon.
The framed aventurine central dial of this bespoke Sartory Billard SB05 has a depth that allows us to easily imagine we are looking through a maze of galaxies toward the far edges of the universe. And framing that is a ring of meteorite, a true space material. What else makes this watch so unique?
There are no photos (either real or CAD) nor sketches of the McGonigle Ogma, and there’s been no public announcement; however (surprise, surpise!), most of the watches have already been reserved. How times have changed. In the words of Dorothy to her dog in The Wizard of Oz after being sucked up by a tornado, “Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”
When Tim and Bart Grönefeld showed Ian Skellern their prototype 1941 Grönograaf during Watches & Wonders 2022, he loved it. But he didn’t think it would win “Best Chronograph” 2022 at the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève because he thought that prize would go to the then-soon-to-be-released MB&F LM Sequential EVO. Ian has since changed his mind, and here’s why.
Big brands are now making beautiful, reliable, and relatively accurate “traditional” mechanical watches, but the handcrafted work many of us value is disappearing. Highly skilled watchmakers and artisans are rare and expensive: there just aren’t enough of them available to churn out the large quantity of nice watches now being sold. And why bother when nobody seems to have noticed?