It s Sunday morning! Grab a fresh cup of coffee, and prepare for another fierce battle. This week s edition of Sunday Morning Showdown features two different beasts operating in the same universe. What if we put the dress watch of the most popular brand out there against a traditional timepiece created by watch royalty? Yes, this is the first matchup of 2024, and, as always, you are in charge of the result. Will the Perpetual 1908 be able to beat the Breguet Classique 5157? After defeating the Audemars Piguet Code 11.59 last year, can the Perpetual 1908 also topple the Breguet Classique 5157? Let s find out!While reviewing last year s releases during one of our year-end Fratello editorial m...

Today, we ll take a look at a lovely vintage watch. An Eterna 852 has graced the pages of Fratello previously but in a different format. Our subject for this article isn t a famous reference or even a military piece. Heck, it doesn t even have a proper model name. It s just a great-looking watch with a nice movement. It s also a reminder that a wealth of under-the-radar opportunities still exist.We often forget that within the world of vintage watches, wanting something and then making it happen isn t a matter of snapping one s fingers. Sure, it s relatively simple to find a nice vintage Speedmaster or a 1675 due to their immense popularity and high production numbers. When it comes to some...

Instagram is often touted as a significant factor in the current popularity of mechanical watches. Whether it is celebrities and influencers normalizing expensive watches or aficionados sharing wrist shots, the platform is flooded with horological content. Some of my colleagues - primarily Daan, Morgan, and Nacho - are very deeply involved in the Instagram watch community. Compared to accounts of such aficionados, the actual brands accounts can feel a little clinical at times. We felt it was about time to have a look at them and see whats what.With pretty much all brands present on Instagram, their approaches differ from one to the next. At the same time, there are some big common denominato...

Another Friday, another Top 5! It might be a new year, but our weekly lists are going nowhere. We completed our Best Of 2023 series last week with our top dress watches of last year. This week, we move on to our regular series of lists covering various topics. In this first Top 5 of the year, we will look at what we feel are the best mechanical watches under $1,000. What five watches would we buy that tick all our boxes? This is our collective answer to that question.It seems like an easy question to answer. But finding the best five watches under $1,000 that we collectively agree on is quite the task. Many of our writers covered personal picks in a series of articles last year. I then wrote...

Its a small world. No, Im not starting a Disney song; Im simply stating a fact. The world is a village. In other words, the two most recent Seiko 5 Sports GMT watches - the Ice Blue SSK029 and the Passion Red SSK031 - might be Asia-only limited editions, but if you set your mind to buying either one of these creations while living in, say, Bulgaria, that should not pose an insurmountable problem. The two newest travel watches from the Japanese watch powerhouse kick off 2024, the unofficial Year of the GMT.If you ve read Jorgs The Best GMTs Of 2023 article, you might be under the impression that last year was the Year of the GMT. But youre mistaken. Last year was a warm-up year, and 2024 is g...

Unfortunately, due to time constraints, I missed out on our Most Worn Watches Of 2023 article. Furthermore, at the beginning of last year, I didn t publish my watch resolutions. But let me correct both issues now and explain my intentions for 2024 simultaneously.Although I didn t make it public, my idea for last year was to downsize my watch collection in numbers and consolidate it in value as much as possible. And I must say, that worked out pretty well. I sold or traded some watches of lower financial value and acquired some with, for me, greater emotional and/or historical value.What I did last yearBesides the condition of my bank account, there s hardly a financial influence on additions...

A year ago, downsizing my watch collection was just an idea, a concept that I had never explored thoroughly before. It sounded rational and inevitable since my budget wasn t endless. I knew it had to happen so that I could keep featuring new watches in my #TBT column. But I honestly couldn t imagine it happening…Looking forward and making new plans for 2024 without providing a proper retrospective of what happened in 2023 wouldn t be right. Last year, Nacho caught me unprepared when he asked me to write down my 2023 watch resolutions. I felt a bit surprised, even guilty, that I didn t have any. When I put pen to paper, I realized that it helped me understand how I would like to shape m...

Staying objective as a writer on something as unnecessary as wristwatches is difficult, and 2023 made it worse. Brands seemed to be shrugging off post-pandemic woes with a vengeance and for good this time, despite sales lagging behind expectations. So for me, picking the best watches of 2023 was never going to be easy.But we need something to keep our mood positive, and many of the watches I pick for my best-of lists are pure daydream material. The same goes for commissions and picks from press releases that refuse to keep to the big release weeks like Watches and Wonders and Geneva Watch Days. With great difficulty, I ve picked three watches from this deep basket of goodness. The first is a...

For todays edition of Pre-Owned Spotlight, I am looking at watches that represent the softened market. Plenty has been said about the pandemics effect on the watch market and the influx of investment buyers. Secondhand prices skyrocketed to a ridiculous zenith in the spring of 2022. But then the bubble burst. Investors suddenly wanted out, and prices steadily fell, leaving watch lovers in uncertainty. This raises some questions today. Is this perhaps the right time to buy? And which watches were prime investor bait and have since seen a hard correction?Of course, my imaginary crystal ball is just as good as yours, so take the following with a grain of salt. But there are a few cues to go by....

Welcome to the first episode of Fratello Talks of 2024. We hope that the new year has been treating you well so far and that you re as excited as we are to kick off this second season of the podcast. Here at Fratello HQ, we decided to tackle the new year head-on, discussing our watch wishes and making predictions for what we ll see over the coming 12 months. You join your host Nacho alongside Morgan and Lex, who voice their expectations and wishes for the new year. From educated guesses to wild predictions, the guys have the bases covered. And who knows? Maybe some of their wishes just might come true before the year is up! But before we get into it, it s time for the first wrist check of 20...

We here at Fratello do love a good story of an issued watch. Some of the most iconic and desirable watches out there have come from the humble beginnings of being developed for or especially sold/issued to the military. The MilSub or Seamaster 300s issued to the British Royal Navy come to mind when thinking about iconic tool watches. The military-issued Seamaster 300s are probably even the best-looking iterations of the entire Seamaster line if you ask me.Its not just dive watches, though. Consider the Dirty Dozen timepieces, which trace their lineage back to WWII. My colleague Thomas did a great write-up on the subject, which you can find here. These were watches that needed to meet certai...

Happy New Year, and welcome to 2024! With the new year barely started and the hangover only just conquered, it s back to everyday reality. Almost every January, watch brands take the opportunity to update their prices. We re starting this year with a look at the price increases at . As it is the biggest brand, many buyers will have to pay more for their targeted timepiece this year. This article looks at some of the most popular models to see how their retail prices have developed over the last 12 months.Price increases in the world of luxury watches are a fact of life. Every year, we see one or multiple updates in pricing for most brands. Most brands will raise their prices several times in...

It was a very eventful year for my watch collection in 2022, and 2023 showed me that I made the right choices. But who knows what will happen in 2024? I m certainly not ready to consolidate and sell some of my watches yet. On the other hand, I don t think that Ill add many either since renovations for my family s new house are putting pressure on the budget. However, I do feel that I m a little more open to looking at new opportunities. That doesn t mean there s a clear objective, strategy, or plan at all, though.My watch resolution for 2023 was basically to sit back, relax, and enjoy all the newcomers in my collection. And that s more or less what I ve been doing. Apart from the occasional ...

A few days ago, Chrono24 published a short overview of the best-selling watches on the platform in 2023. The three brands that sold best were , Omega, and Seiko. Quite surprisingly, Swatch ranks number four on the list. But Chrono24 also did a drill-down per model, and then it turned into a slightly different order.Chrono24 salesChrono24 has approximately 100,000,000 page views per month, and it sold $2,000,000,000 worth of watches (figures based on 2020), so it s by no means a small player. Today, there are over 550,000 watches for sale on the website, so it made me wonder if there s a link between the supply and the demand (or sales). If there are a lot of Datejusts on offer, it might ind...

Welcome to Exploring Evergreens, a new series here on Fratello in which we get our hands on watches that have been around for over a decade - or long enough to feel ubiquitous - and ask ourselves if they ve managed to stand the test of time. We ll address whether they re still relevant, how they feel today, and, ultimately, if they re worth their current prices. In some cases, when the authors own/have owned the specific pieces, they ll dig into how their feelings about them have evolved and whether or not they still deserve a spot in their collections. We ll cover anything from the truly timeless and budget-friendly classics to vintage and neo-vintage heavy hitters. Today, I m happy to kick...

A very happy new year to all of you from your co-hosts at Fratello On Air! We re back with our first episode of the year. Now that 2024 is here, we discuss some of the trends we expect to see while sending out 2023. It was quite a year with plenty of drama and plenty of new watches. We hit the high and low points. This podcast player is blocked because you did not accept marketing cookies. Change cookie settings Sending out 2023 - the year that was! In some ways, we re ready to move on, but it s worth taking some time to look back on some of the key events. We cover both vintage and new topics and then look ahead to what may come in 2024. Enjoy the show!Handgelenks KontrolleBefore sendin...

Happy New Year, everyone! I have the honor of kicking off a new series with my watch resolutions for 2024. We started writing down our watch resolutions in several articles last year. This year will be no different as the Fratello writers will look back at last year s resolutions to find out what happened to them. Additionally, they will share their plans for this year regarding watches. I am pleased to kick this series off with my plans for 2024.Let s start with a small confession. When I think about my plans for the year ahead, they are somewhat the same as in 2023. The past year saw a major change in my personal life, so I did not have a strong focus on buying new watches, let alone makin...

Were going to leave it up to you this time. You be the judge. To put the watch year 2023 to bed, were going to present you with a selection of watches that caught our attention last year. Some are surprising, some are baffling, and others are both. In any case, these are watches that kept haunting us and creations that we cant quite put our fingers on. Are they brilliant or bogus? Strokes of genius or lucky hits? Flukes or flops? You decide.On the first day of the new year, you probably dont want to read a long story that analyzes a watch or a trend in timepieces. We get it. Therefore, well present you with a very simple story looking at some of the most surprising and/or baffling watches of...

Happy New Year, everyone! I wish you and your loved ones all the very best for 2024, and hopefully, all of your wishes will come true. Before I give you an idea of what will happen here on Fratello in 2024, let me take this opportunity to reflect on 2023.In early 2023, I purchased one of my watch resolutions for 2023 pieces, the Breguet 7027Goodbye, 2023Let me start by saying that 2023 was a great year for Fratello in general. We published 1,547 stories on the Fratello website, and our audience grew tremendously. So we thank you very much for not only reading our articles but also for leaving your thoughts in the comments below them. Thats very much appreciated.Not an incredibly exciting yea...

In this video, RJ and Timo sit down with Emmanuel Gueit to celebrate 30 years of Royal Oak Offshore history from Audemars Piguet. Join us as we talk about the creation of the Offshore collection and unravel some fun mysteries surrounding this refreshingly punk take on luxury watches.The Royal Oak Offshore no. 39 that once belonged to designer Emmanuel GueitIn 2023, Audemars Piguet celebrated the 30th anniversary of the Royal Oak Offshore, the (more) masculine version of the iconic Royal Oak watch designed by Gerald Genta. Back in 1993, Audemars Piguet introduced a 42mm version of the Royal Oak, bigger and bolder than ever before, from the hands of a young designer by the name of Emmanuel Gue...