Unpolished Watches

Mike Nouveau joins for a rapid-reaction auction episode live from Geneva. We recorded on Monday morning while sales were still ending, but talk themes across vintage, neovintage, and independents. We look more closely at a few Patek Philippe Calatrava 96s, 1463 chronographs, Urban Jürgensens, and more. We close with the best watches we saw this weekend. Watches discussed: * Unique Pink-on-pink Urb...

Today’s guests are dealers Eric Wind and Charlie Dunne of Wind Vintage. You probably know their bona fides: Eric was an early contributor to Hodinkee, then became a specialist at Christie’s, before starting Wind Vintage in 2017. He’s one of the world’s most respected and knowledgeable vintage dealers. Charlie Dunne is Eric’s strongman, vice president, and senior specialist at Wind Vintage. He was...

This week’s guests are Adam Golden of Menta Watches and Chris Gary , the producer and director behind Chasing Time , a documentary about watch collecting premiering at the Austin Film Festival at the end of October. We start with a market update from Adam: whether the indie boom is sustainable, the institutional money driving the market, and why a headline auction result doesn’t make your watch wo...

Zach Kazan is the managing editor of Worn & Wound, and he’s covered microbrands as closely as anyone for the last decade. In two weeks, Worn & Wound puts on its Windup Watch Fair in New York (Oct 16–18) with 160+ brands under one roof. I’ll be there, along with some of you, so I wanted to get Zach on to talk about the state of the microbrand. We talk about whether “microbrand” still means anything...

Austin Rogers is a New Yorker by way of Ohio, and goes by @rehaut on Instagram. He’s also scuba certified and an aspiring mountaineer—he’s tried to summit Mount Baker three times but has encountered some truly terrible luck. Each time, he’s had a Rolex Explorer on his wrist. The first video of Austin’s I saw had him tossing a few Doxas into a hazy lake to find out whether orange really is the most...

Subscribe: https://unpolishedwatches.com/ In December 2025, a surprising watch went viral. It wasn’t from Switzerland, Japan, or any of the traditional watchmaking hubs. It was from India and cost about $42. The brand did no marketing, and it sold out more than 5,000 pieces in just 2 minutes. Maybe you’ve seen the Delhi Watch Company Terra . It’s a unique take on a field watch: monobloc titanium c...

Jeff Stein is a collector, researcher, scholar, retired lawyer from Atlanta, and the proprietor of On the Dash , the resource for all things Heuer. Since 2003, he’s meticulously documented nearly 600 watches there. In 2016, he was featured in a Talking Watches episode on Hodinkee. Ten years later, he still owns slightly more than half of the 50 or 60 Heuers that were on his kitchen table while fil...

It’s almost the end of summer . Before we head back to school and a few of you lucky folks head to Geneva Watch Days, I decided it was time for a Mid-Year Awards Show. I called up Andy Green and Felix Scholz of the O.T.: The Podcast to talk about the releases we’ve seen so far in 2026. We start by discussing trends: The rise of “economy gold,” the second generation of microbrands, outer space is b...

Full show notes : www.unpolishedwatches.com/p/what-we-want-from-iwc-and-how-to Today’s Collector Conversation is with Wesley Smith , founder of Standard H , an automotive-inspired clothing brand. Wesley has worked in fashion and menswear for 30 years, and he’s also a big watch enthusiast. During his recent visit to Chicago, we sat down to talk about both. First, we get nerdy about t-shirts. The si...

John Cote has been collecting watches since the 1990s. He learned from his dad, who collected pocket watches while John was growing up in Manhattan. He’s one of the guys that’s still out there hunting watches every single week. In addition to collecting, he’s written for Hodinkee, Fratello, in addition to being a prolific contributor on the NAWCC forums. He’s been the president of his local NAWCC...

Today’s guest is an explorer, attorney, writer, and watch collector. He’s been on five dives to the Titanic, and led the expedition that recovered the Apollo engines that launched men to the Moon. He’s a member of The Explorers Club, the society that counts astronauts, mountaineers, and famous explorers as its members. I’m excited to be joined by David Concannon . He’s also an accomplished attorne...

Full show notes: www.unpolishedwatches.com/p/meet-canadas-best-watchmaker-bradley Canada isn’t exactly known for its watchmaking, but today’s guest is changing that, one handmade watch at a time. When I saw Bradley Taylor announce his latest watch, the Ardea , I knew he’d be a good guest. It’s a well-made, time-only watch—in vogue right now—but completely his own. The Ardea ($62k in steel; $82k in...

Full show notes : https://www.unpolishedwatches.com/p/bonus-ep-collecting-the-1990s-with Subscribe to Unpolished : unpolishedwatches.com Today’s a bonus episode with Trevor Wynn, host of the Paré Paré Podcast . Trevor was in Chicago during Memorial Day weekend, so we sat down for a short chat at Huckberry after filming a YouTube video. We talk about Trevor’s brief foray into acting, leaving your p...

This is the audio edition of the April 28 newsletter, a visit to Geneva’s newest independent watchmaker . Show Notes * Subscribe to the podcast to get future episodes in your feed: Spotify / Apple / RSS * Unpolished is the newsletter for watch collectors and a top-20 Fashion & Beauty Substack. Join for $8/mo or $80 year: unpolishedwatches.com . * Chicago events : I helped organize a small get-toge...

One of the reasons I find watch collecting so fascinating is that it puts on full display the entire breadth of human psychology: Why we want the things we want, and how to be happy with what we already have. Today’s guest is kingflum , who writes the newsletter Screwdown Crown . He’s known just as much for his diversions on psychology as he is for calling out the BS he sees in the watch industry....

Paid subscribers can see the full Unpolished Guide to Selling a Watch: https://www.unpolishedwatches.com/p/the-unpolished-guide-to-selling-a In early February, I went to Miami for a small vintage meetup . While there, I sat down with Wes Wynne of Collectors Corner NY to discuss a question we’re both asked often: How do you sell a watch? We discuss the who , what , when , where , why , and how of s...

Paid subscribers can see the full newsletter and show notes here: https://www.unpolishedwatches.com/p/precision-and-the-protection-of-disbelief Welcome back to the newsletter for watch collectors. A few notes: * Canvas Straps are now available in 20mm and, for the first time, 22mm. Shop the Unpolished Store here —all paid subscribers get 10% off. Pick one up at the launch price of $65 for the next...

For full show notes, visit this link: https://www.unpolishedwatches.com/p/notes-from-tudors-quiet-100th-birthday This is the podcast version of the Unpolished newsletter from February 23, 2026. * To subscribe and get full access to the newsletter and show notes, head to: unpolishedwatches.com * Shop straps in the Unpolished Store: shop.unpolishedwatches.com (Canvas Straps on sale this week!) Subsc...

Paid subscribers : Follow along with the full show notes here . To become a subscriber, join Unpolished Watches or manage your account here . Founding Members receive the 2025 Rewind Magazine, which you can learn more about here . This week’s format is a little different. Last year’s most popular podcast was How to Collect Neo-Vintage Watches . We’ll have more “How to Collect” episodes this year,...

View full show notes here . This week, I’m joined by Alfred Chan and Phil Toledano of Toledano & Chan . They’ve just announced their latest release, the b1.3r, an updated take on their brutalist integrated bracelet watch. Alfred is a talented watch designer, and Phil is an inscrutable artist and collector. We talk about that their latest release, but also: manufacturing in China vs. Switzerland (t...

Paid subscribers: All winners of the holiday giveaway are being individually emailed today. If that’s you, please respond in 24 hours before I draw the next name! Welcome back to the Unpolished podcast. Our first conversation of 2026 is with Nicholas Bowman-Scargill . He’s the 4th managing director of Fears Watches , based in Bristol, U.K., and the great-great-great-grandson of Edwin Fear, who fou...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.unpolishedwatches.com Click here for podcast show notes Welcome to Unpolished’s year-in-review newsletter . It won’t be the last issue of 2025, but highlights some of the most popular and interesting stories of the year, while also giving an update on Unpolished. Many of you are paying subscribers and thus stakeholders in this newsl...

Jack Forster is the global editorial director of the 1916 Company. You can also find his writing on his newsletter, Split Seconds . Jack joined me to look back on 2025 in watches. Jack names his “Escapement of the Year,” “Chronometer of the Year,” and we talk about some of the biggest trends in watchmaking—finishing, craft, complications, technical innovations, and more. Before that, we also look...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.unpolishedwatches.com [Note: Today’s audio edition for paid subscribers is different from the newsletter below. It’s a travelogue of my 8 days in Geneva: Some auction talk, manufacture visits, and sights & sounds. Listen above or on Spotify / Apple . The newsletter below is a guide to Geneva focused on watches. But not only!] Arrive...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.unpolishedwatches.com I. Pink Gold 2499 There was a pink-gold Patek Philippe 2499 behind me , at about my 7 o’clock. On the Friday morning of the Geneva auction weekend, I was drinking a 12-franc cappuccino in the Mandarin Oriental’s restaurant with a friend. Pink Gold 2499 was at the table behind us, enjoying the CHF 42 continental...