The Less Glamorous Side of the Watch Business
Notably absent from the brands mentioned in this piece from the New York Times? Rolex.
Few, if any, other watch brands on the planet treat their watchmakers & technicians with the same reverence & respect as Rolex. All of the service centers under their purview that I have ever visited have been pristine & well-appointed.
Deauther Watch
Hacked together by DSTIKE & Spacehuhn, I'm sure glad this watch didn't exist when I was a kid. The lack of executive functioning in the underdeveloped prefrontal cortices of my peers & myself likely would have resulted in a trip or two to the principal's office—provided the staff in the IT department were savvy enough to catch on. Packet sniff, run deauth attacks, & Rick Roll available Wi-Fi networks, all from your wrist. It even has a built in flashlight.
Cartier Clash [Un]limited Glove Watch
While not impressive horologically, as it's running a small, quartz watch movement under the hood, the amount of craftsmanship that went into imbuing solid, rose gold with fabric-like properties in this pièce unique, cuff-style watch is remarkable.
Development of the Watch Fingerprint System
Henry B. Fried on the development of the watch fingerprinting system he devised with one of his early employers, using carbon paper and ink pads to create 1:1 scale references of the setting components of watches, which they later published to great acclaim and success in the horological community.