The tourbillon is perhaps the most impressive complication in watchmaking. It’s also not really a complication, nor is it, in a wristwatch, particularly useful. So, what is it, how does it work, and if it’s so useless, why are we so obsessed with it?

So, you want a Rolex Submariner. You’ve got your £6,550, and you’re out the door on the way to the shop—but when you get there, you’re told there’s a waiting list. Yet out of the corner of your eye, you see something else, the Grand Seiko Sport SBGA229. Here’s the dilemma: do you stick, and wait for the Submariner, or twist and buy the Grand Seiko instead?

As a watchmaker, Breitling has changed its direction a few times over the years, trying—and in some cases failing—to keep up with the demands of consumers in an ever-changing environment. One thing has remained true through all of it, however, and that’s the Navitimer, the meat and two veg of the Breitling diet. It’s good, it’s wholesome—and now it’s been changed to something completely different. Has Breitling finally lost it?

When you’re travelling from one celestial body to another within the 100 billion or so stars that make up our galaxy, which itself is one of 100 billion galaxies within the observable universe, it’s nice to have something to remember your place amongst it all. Interstellar hitchhiker Arthur Dent had his towel to remind him of home; perhaps if he’d had £220,000 to spend, he could have had this instead: the Patek Philippe 6102R.

The apocalypse is coming. It’s a fact of life. Whether it’s of the four horsemen or mushroom cloud variety is yet to be seen—what’s for certain is that we need to be prepared. So, with the stockpiling, bunker building and survival training, we’ll need a watch—a watch that can survive the end times.

Perhaps it’s self-indulgent on my part, but I’m sure we can all identify with the dream of owning a collection of the most impressive and desirable watches in the world. As far as getting to experience and enjoy such delights, if only for a while, it’s a good enough excuse for me for another instalment of the dream watch collection.

If you’re looking for a complicated watch to beat all other complications, perhaps you’d consider a tourbillon. Bold, dramatic and more fiddly than inserting an HDMI lead without looking, it’s surely one of the most impressive visual displays of high watchmaking. And the perpetual calendar, with its ability to tell you your precise location in time for many, many decades without adjustment, is surely one of the most staggering feats of micro engineering achievement. How about this little Cartier, then? It seems tame, but looks can be deceiving, because inside it hides the most incredible complication ever made.

They’re everybody’s favourite watches at everybody’s favourite prices: that’s right—it’s time for some bargain divers. Make room in your bedside cabinet, because you’ll be wanting at least one of these to take pride of place there.

The Rolex GMT-Master II 126710BLRO is undoubtedly one of the best and most desirable watches of today—just try and buy one new if you don’t believe me—but aside from its scarcity, there’s a single complaint owners have had that stands out as a tiny blemish on an otherwise perfect watch: the bezel, or to be more specific, the colour of the bezel. Well, we’re going to try and fix it.

When you’ve seen as many watches as I have, things can start to get a bit repetitive. Rolex this, Rolex that—it’s fine, but sometimes it’s nice to take a bit of a break and try something different. Who knows, if you do, you might find something you really love.

What should have been a momentous day for Bremont, the launch of both a watch with an actual piece of the Wright brothers’ Wright Flyer and the brand’s first in-house movement, turned sour after it was revealed that the calibre BWC/01 was not, after all, in-house. This is the story of how the Wright Flyer became the most controversial watch ever, and what that means not just for Bremont, but for the industry as well.

There are pros and cons of owning a vintage watch. The pros, you get a piece in period style and—perhaps just as important if not more—proportions, something that modern watchmaking just seems to have no time for anymore, even the reissue pieces. The cons, you’re looking after something built at a different time with different materials and different techniques, and that can be a whole undertaking in itself. But what if you could have the best of both worlds?

Little known and often overlooked, Grand Seiko has for years undercut Swiss quality with a collection of watches that have earned a loyal—if compact—following. For any one of the few people who have ever so happened to come across a Grand Seiko, the reaction is always the same: astonishment. The legend is true. But has it all been undone?

The search for the perfect watch is an endless one. It needs to be historically important, it needs to be aesthetically unique, it needs to demonstrate watchmaking excellence—and importantly it needs to offer good value as well. Some say the perfect watch doesn’t actually exist; here are three examples that get incredibly close.

Ever been lying in bed, sick, staring up at the ceiling? You notice all sorts of things. Perhaps there’s a cobweb blowing about, or a crack in the corner that looks like a cat. For Dutch scientist Christiaan Huygens, he noticed something strange: the two pendulum clocks on his wall, regardless of how they were set, would always sync up with each other. There are two mysteries to be solved here: the first is why Huygens had two clocks in his bedroom in the first place, and the second is why the pendulums kept syncing up. The first remains a mystery and always will, but the second? It took 350 years, but the answer was finally found—and F.P. Journe has used that answer to make its watches even more impressive.

The chronograph. It’s both accessible and incredible, one of the most complicated mechanisms found in watchmaking and one of the most affordable. The fact that so many manufacturers have them in their collections is a testament to the popularity of the function, and whether we really use them or not, there’s no denying that they look pretty damn good. With that being said, here are five choice chronographs for five different budgets.