Imagine buying a Rolex 6263 back in the 70s for pennies. Now it’d be worth anywhere between £50–100,000, depending on spec. That would be nice, wouldn’t it? But now, with ever-increasing prices and mark-ups appearing on new models before they’ve even been worn, it seems the days of bargain Rolexes with the potential for big appreciation are gone … but maybe they aren’t.

Oh, how I want an A. Lange & Söhne, and oh, how an A. Lange & Söhne continues to evade me. Flying this close to perfection has its price to pay, and that’s quite literally the price you have to pay for an A. Lange & Söhne. Excellent, they are, cheap, they are not, and no amount of feeling like you’d really appreciate it more than anything else in the world makes that RRP come down any lower. But can you scratch that itch for a fraction of the cost?

There’s watchmaking and there’s watchmaking, and this Master Grande Tradition from Jaeger-LeCoultre is the latter. We’ve spoken before about the minute repeater and its incredible, unbelievable capabilities—now we’re going to explore it like it’s never been seen before.

To look at two Formula One cars, aside from the distinctive paint jobs, it would be hard to tell one from the other. Yet these are machines built independently, in secret, by isolated teams working to different principles and ideas. The reality is that each car is incredibly different on a micro level, despite seeming so indistinct at the macro. The same could be said of Rolex’s Submariner and Omega’s Seamaster—two watches that seem so similar on the surface, yet differ in approach so dramatically when seen just a little closer.