Author: WhoWatchWear

This complication often gets overlooked in favor of its “big brother,” the perpetual calendar. The latter is certainly not undeserving of said recognition. It is indeed the calendar complication that does the most work for the least amount of user effort. Until the last decade, however, acquiring one of these horological gems was always a venture to the tune of tens of thousands of Euros. Not only that, perpetual calendars have a reputation for their extremely delicate internal construction. But what if you could have a mechanical complication that did only slightly less work than the perpetual, but with greater…

We will start this edition of How Watches Work with good old-fashioned steel, before navigating from functional titanium to precious alloys (such as gold in many of its variations), and finish up with fashionable bronze — a metal with the smell of money… Another steel Patek Philippe, the Nautilus Ref. 5726/1A How Watches Work — Steel is the real deal! A watch case has to endure a lot. This is why, typically, most watches are made of a robust-yet-affordable material — steel. For the production of cases and bracelets, Rolex uses Oystersteel, an alloy developed by the brand in-house. Oystersteel belongs to…

Patek Philippe stands at the very top of the luxury sports watch pyramid. Just below you will find Audemars Piguet. Both the Nautilus and Royal Oak were famously designed by the legendary Gérald Genta. He firmly believed an integrated bracelet transforms a watch into a perfect object and looking at the current state of watch affairs, it looks like he wasn’t wrong. The 1972 Royal Oak was the first true king of luxury sports watches, but now in 2021, the Nautilus (introduced in 1976) reigns supreme. Both in terms of desirability and in its (preposterous) gray market prices. In a…