A Night in Bienne Watching David Beat Goliath
Bienne is globally renowned for its watches. As a place to live though, its image in Switzerland is uneven. A bad reputation developed during the quartz crisis era, when the city was at its lowest. It oddly seems to persist in some minds,
Amid Second Hand Drills and DVDs, My Little Secret for Watch Deals in Bienne
I wrote last month about the pleasure of purchasing affordable watches in Bienne. Some of you have since asked for my go-to places. While there are a few, none come close in their abundance of choice – and frequency of my visits –
The Best Watch Museums in Switzerland
As Watches & Wonders kicks off on Tuesday, professionals and enthusiasts from around the world will converge around the industry’s latest novelties. Living in a city where thousands of folks depend on the global watch market to make ends meet, I certainly respect
Understanding the Paradigm Shift in International Aid – A Conversation with Stéphanie Simpson of Terre des Hommes
As regular readers of this blog know, I try to modestly support an NGO close to my heart, Terre des hommes, the leading Swiss organization for children’s rights. If you remember the charity watch sale a few of us organized at the end
WristTrack, the App for Watch Nerds You Didn’t Know You Needed
As someone who works in “tech” and is obsessed with watches, the Instagram Story Robert-Jan Broer posted about the WristTrack app last month immediately caught my attention. The notion that other people are both down the watch rabbit hole and geeky enough to
A Walk Through Humanity at the Red Cross Museum in Geneva
In a few weeks, folks from around the world will be heading to Geneva for Watches & Wonders, the trade’s most anticipated annual event. Beyond just watches, the city of Geneva is often associated with luxury and wealth. That’s why I’ve always found
Independent Watch Writing: Understanding Tony Traina’s Bold Move
When I learned, towards the end of last year, that former Hodinkee writer Tony Traina was launching Unpolished – his paid, independent newsletter – I got curious on a few levels. First, can such a business model succeed? After all, there’s a bunch
The Secret Sauce Behind the Value Proposition of Formex Watches
If you’re not a watch nerd, you may have never heard of Formex. Within the community though, the brand has developed a reputation for consistently punching above its weight on mechanical and material performance. For a few years now I’ve been wondering: how
A Peek Inside A Twisted Collector’s Mind (Mine)
Every collector has their quirks. I have many. More than most? I’ll let you decide. For one, I don’t like to call myself a collector. I typically consider myself a “user”, and refer to my accumulation of watches not as my collection but
About Last Sunday
When my alarm rang at 5 am on a Sunday morning, I wasn't sure how to feel. I was excited, but also pretty anxious. What if, 4 hours later, no one showed up? What if the 56 watches on sale - even more
