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.

One of the industry’s most famous—or infamous, depending on how you feel about it—designs, the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak set new standards for luxury watchmaking in the face of complete annihilation. It’s been heralded as an icon, a milestone, a game-changer—but does a tourbillon make it better, or worse?

A Rolex and the sea are like, well, a duck to water, the brand having kickstarted the entire dive watch legacy pretty much singlehandedly. As far as credentials go, there’s only one you need to know: a Rolex watch has been to the deepest part of the ocean and survived—and that was back in 1960. A watch literally cannot go any deeper than that. And so, Rolex dive watches have come to be heralded as the very best, and we’ve got three of them. But which is the best of the best?

We take for granted today that the wristwatch, a milestone of such events as the first visit to the bottom of the ocean, the top of the tallest mountain, an alien world, is such a popular and endearing device—but it hasn’t always been. In fact, at one point, a wristwatch, or ‘wristlet’ as it was known, was derided as a fashion faux pas, a silly trinket no man would be seen dead wearing. Change, however, comes at the most unexpected of times.

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.