It’s no secret that the price of watches is rising. Gone are the days when a Rolex Submariner cost just a few thousand; with every passing wave of new releases comes a little kick in the pants of the RRP, and there’s no sign of it slowing. Whilst this seems like a blow to the average enthusiast, it’s just one perspective on the industry—take a different view, and you might be pleasantly surprised.

The in-house movement seems to be the be-all and end-all of modern watchmaking. If you’re a watchmaker and you don’t got an in-house movement, you’re going to struggle. Some of the biggest brands in the world, who up until recently have made do with tickers of the bought-in variety, have had to invest huge sums into the design and development of their own movements to cater for the demands of the watch-buying public. And that’s because the in-house movement is understood to have been a staple of the watchmaking of old—the truth, however, is a little different.

Baselworld 2019 was an interesting event for a number of reasons, and not all them good. The big headline was the retraction of the Swatch Group, which left a lot of empty space in the display halls, followed by the disappointment in Rolex’s meagre turnout, with no big, exciting announcements made. Funny thing is that in amongst all the hubbub, Rolex quietly added a watch to its website that is unlike anything anyone ever expected—and that’s the watch we’ve got here today.

They say that something valuable is worth its weight in gold, and in watchmaking there’s a lot to be said about having some heft. So, given that—and despite having a fully integrated bracelet and costing a gasp-inducing £12,100—the Bulgari Octo Finissimo Automatic, at just 73 grams—less than the weight of a bag of Doritos—might just be, pound-for-pound, the very worst value watch in the world.

What is a watch? It’s a timekeeping device, primarily. Perhaps this statement is obvious to you, perhaps you think it’s something that doesn’t need clarifying—but yet when a watch can cost £250 or a quarter of a million, the obvious no longer seems quite so obvious. How can two watches that both quite simply tell the time have such a disparity in their prices?

The Yacht-Master was, once upon a time, Rolex’s least popular model. Reportedly a botched attempt to rejuvenate the Submariner line for a wealthier audience, it languished for decades at the bottom of the pile, unloved. But something has changed in recent years, something that has revitalised the Yacht-Master into a watch people actually want. Could the latest addition to the collection be the best yet?

When Audemars Piguet released the Royal Oak in 1972, everyone thought the watchmaker had gone mad. The watch was big, it was basic and it was expensive—and it sold by the bucket load. Patek Philippe got in on the action four years later with the Nautilus, and not wanting to be left out, Vacheron Constantin joined the club a year later, completing the 70s trifecta of steel sports watches from the top three. Today, such a watch will set you back from £17,000 and as much as £23,000—but is there something we’re missing that’s just as good for half the price?

It wouldn’t be hard to put forward a good case for the A. Lange & Söhne 1815 Chronograph being the best chronograph ever made. Looks, heritage, workmanship, intricacy, it’s got it all—but it’s also got a hefty price tag, too, some £50,000. For almost everyone, that’s out of reach, but maybe there’s something that will fit the bill for less—much less.

Let’s say you’ve got £1,000 to spend, and you want to blow it on a watch that’s going to turn some heads from fifty paces. Endless budget, no problem; you’d grab yourself a Jacob & Co., or a Richard Mille perhaps—with £1,000, however, the task is a bit more difficult. Not impossible, though …

The dress watch is perhaps the hardest watch to master. It has to be simple, it has to be manual wind, it has to have no complications—small seconds at a push—and it has to be small, both in diameter, but more importantly, thickness. This leaves very little for a watchmaker to hide behind, only the quality of the watchmaking itself left to do the talking. How do the very best brands in the world do it?

Being the best known and most popular luxury watch brand in the world, Rolex watches have little trouble selling themselves. Many, many people are quite happy to buy one just because it says ‘Rolex’ on it, paying little mind to what that name really stands for. Well, before you buy a Rolex, here are three things you should know.

Ever since it was discovered that combining iron, chromium and carbon made a material that could be used to make almost anything, stainless steel has been king of construction. It’s strong, it’s malleable, its hardy—and that’s why it’s also used for making watches. What more could you ask than that? Well, apparently you can get watches made of other, more exotic materials as well. But why?

Doppelchronograph, rattrapante, split-second—you’ve probably heard of one if not all of these terms, and maybe you even know that they all mean the same thing. But what exactly is a split-second chronograph, and how on Earth do they work?

Two years ago, we investigated just how far fake watches have come when we compared a real Rolex Submariner with a fake one. For anyone thinking that fake watches were the easy-to-spot domain of the seaside tat shop, we demonstrated that it’s harder to spot a fake than you might think. Two years on, and it’s got even harder.

Sometimes answers are so obvious it’s barely worth asking the questions. If you want a sporty two-plus-two, for example, that handles like a racer yet will happily sit in a Monday morning queue, you get a 911. Or, if you want a 3-hander that’s both rugged and elegant, you get a DateJust. It’s practically written in the stars, but yet—sometimes what seems to be the right answer isn’t always the best answer. That’s why cars like the McLaren 540C, Aston Martin Vantage and Audi R8 exist, and it’s why the watches you’re about to see exist as well.

The world timer is one of those complications that’s actually pretty useful. For someone who travels or liaises with people in other countries frequently, a quick wrist-worn reminder of who’s awake and who’s asleep can be the difference between sealing the deal and calling the CEO of a multinational corporation when they’re at home … in bed … asleep. Many competent world timers include a globe to aid use, but the trouble is, the two-dimensional nature of the dial doesn’t lend itself to the sphericity of our planet—Montblanc, however, thinks it’s found a solution.