Mayfair

We've talked before about the wave of quartz watches that hit the west in the 1970s, but it's in the aftermath that things really get interesting. With established watch brands crumbling left, right and centre, unable to compete with the prices of their eastern counterparts, the mechanical watch industry was forced to pivot, to realign its business objectives into something that would keep it alive. What followed was a move so bold and so risky it should never have worked. What resulted was the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak and the Patek Philippe Nautilus.

It's not every day you turn 60. It's quite the milestone. With the Speedmaster hitting 60 in 2017, Omega could have slapped a birthday badge on the current Moonwatch and been done with it—and we know from experience that they're not above that—but for this particular birthday, they've pulled out all the stops. This watch here may seem like a very well looked after 1957 CK 2915, but it's not—it's the 2017 Omega Speedmaster 60th Anniversary Limited Edition.

If you were to simply read the specs of this Patek Philippe 5170R and A. Lange & Söhne 1815 Chronograph, they'd seem almost identical. They're both around 39mm, both hand wound in-house chronographs and both fashioned from rose gold, yet these two titans of watchmaking are startlingly different. Let's find out just why these chronographs are the chalk and cheese of the chronograph kingdom.

Even if you've only been interested in watches a short while, you'll likely already know that mechanical is king. It's traditional, exceptional, nostalgic; a far cry from the cold, industrial efficiency of quartz. Quartz nearly destroyed traditional watchmaking after all, and is the bastion of the cheap, plastic digital watch that took over the industry in the 1970s.