Issue 159: Six Under-Appreciated Watches from 2025 So Far
We're halfway through the year: what gems have you missed?
Hello and welcome back to The Fourth Wheel, the weekly watch newsletter that would like to remind established readers and inform new ones (quite a few lately - hi!) that every ten issues I open the floor to your questions. As this is Issue 159 we are at that stage once again, so please, tell me what’s on your mind. If it’s watch-related, I’ll answer it. If it isn’t, I’ll probably still give it a good go… You can reply to the email, message me on Substack or send me a DM on Instagram.
In the meantime, please forgive the lateness of this issue. I had to change the content at the last minute, bringing forward something I was planning for the end of the month. I’d like to blame the British heatwave, the planets’ alignment or some failing of modern society, but the truth is I got to Thursday night, didn’t like what I’d written and tore it all up and started again. So here we are!
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Here’s a little taste of what you might have missed recently:
New Podcast Episode Alert
In case you missed it last week, Episode 4 of The Watch Enquiry is now live. This episode marks a bit of a shift in tone from the first three, as Tim and I just geek out over watches (it’ll never catch on) without interrogating their cultural, historical or economical context. Much. We picked out the craziest complications ever to find their way onto a watch - and would love to know what you think we missed. There are many…
Six under-appreciated watches from 2025 so far
And because I’m terrible at making lists, six honourable mentions as well
The year has already produced a quite stunning number of interesting watches. I have gone back through my phone’s photos, logged in to Watch Insight and scoured their database and skimmed through Monochrome’s comprehensive coverage of new releases (I consider it the best journalistic resource out there, now that Hodinkee covers far fewer watches than it used to and has stopped producing its incredibly useful ‘all the new watches of 2025’ style listings page). Man there are some fascinating things out there! You want a debut regulator from a Lithuanian watchmaker? You got it! A watch containing seven different types of sand?!1 Absolutely.
I feel like social media, our weak and feeble human memories and the immense power of mainstream marketing budgets leads us to forget, overlook or in some cases never even hear about some fantastic watches. This is my attempt to say hey, here are some cool, fun, intriguing designs that you may have missed. In the course of writing this I discovered a few I’d missed myself - one of which made my list.
You might disagree. You might feel like you heard plenty about these watches when they were launched, or think they got exactly the amount of attention they deserved - i.e., not very much. This isn’t a list of watches that have been totally ignored, just ones that I think merit another look. Most of them come from brands that can get muscled out by bigger names when it comes to buying advertising or securing mainstream media coverage2 and a lot of them are unlikely to have gone wild on Instagram either.
I’m going to start with the six watches that narrowly missed out: watches that all do something cool but maybe aren’t as newsworthy - new colours or styles on an existing model, perhaps - or have some features that slightly let them down (*cough* Omega *cough*).
It’s great fun seeing Urwerk’s revived UR-101 get the T-Rex treatment - it’s like two core strands of the brand’s narrative woven together for maximum fan service. It feels to me as though Urwerk isn’t as feted as it was a few years ago; maybe there haven’t been as many genuinely new releases in the last five years, or maybe it’s just how the pendulum swings, but they still make fantastically out-there watches. The way the T-Rex scales patinate is terrific and brings an earthy, organic feel to designs that can be a little cold and clinical at times.
This Omega Seamaster Cortina, released in advance of next year’s Winter Olympic Games, is a cracking little watch. 37mm of yellow gold, a grand feu enamel dial, heritage logos, a hexagonal crown and some really cool lugs: what’s not to like? I’ll tell you what, the caseback, with its jarringly contemporary logo for the Games. It’s nowhere near as refined as the rest of the watch and could have been relegated to a tiny design around the edge of a sapphire caseback. With a display back and a handsome hand-wound movement, this watch might get close to justifying its £18,200 price tag.
(Also, something of a ‘scoop’: Omega seems to have discontinued its Museum Collection, which housed fun stuff like medic’s watches, dressy chronographs and so on. Shame.)
I’ve included this Porsche Design chronograph, produced for the FAT Ice Race, because I was expecting the brand to have a bit more of a moment following the spike in popularity for its vintage pieces a couple of years ago. That hasn’t really happened, and most of the modern stuff is still a bit too chunky and clunky, but there’s something about this black case and luminous dial that caused my hand to linger, and the racing strap is an added bonus.
There’s very little to say about the Nomos Metro x Ace Jewellers (an Amsterdam retailer) other than that it is a really cool colour - or colours - and I want one, badly. Maybe there are just too many brightly coloured watches out there now, and Nomos has more than its fair share already, but this one deserves a little more love if you ask me.
Speaking of underappreciated dials… this Seiko Presage isn’t anyone’s idea of a fine watch, but that Arita porcelain dial with its diamond-chequered pattern around the edge is so nice, and on a watch costing less than two grand it’s worth a look. There’s plenty I’d change about the rest of the design, but not that dial.
Last but not least I wanted to single out the Baltic Hermetique Enduropale. Long time readers will know my fondness for the Baltic Hermetique, which I reviewed back in Issue 101. This new version is associated with a motocross endurance race I’d never heard of, lasting three hours - hence the green and purple sectors on the inner bezel. I appreciated it because Baltic has leaned into a very affordable way of adding functionality: using an inner rotating bezel to display a second timezone. They’re not the only ones doing it, but it’s a pretty rare idea, and I liked it.
And now to the main list. We’ve got Swiss watches, British watches and a Finnish watch; two worldtimers (remember who you’re reading, after all), a tourbillon (I know! What are the chances?) and a price range from £1,150 up to six figures.
Frederique Constant x Watch Angels Manufacture World Timer
I know this did get a reasonable amount of love when it came out, but it dropped just before Watches & Wonders which makes me believe a lot of people will have had it swiftly edged out of their neurons3 by the Rolex Land-Dweller, which is a shame.
A friend asked me for advice on buying a world time watch just before W&W, prompted by this very launch. It wasn’t budget-constrained, as you might assume given that Frederique Constant’s entire proposition is about affordability, so watches from Patek downwards were in the mix - but I ended up thinking that FC might actually have the best classical world timer on the market, bar none.
Ok, best is a strong claim. Most FC Manufacture references owe a huge debt to classic Patek so to say one might actually be superior is taking it too far. But the Patek 5231G is a little old fashioned in its details, although the presence of the traditional enamel centre is to be relished, and the 5330G - with its denim strap - won’t be to everyone’s tastes. The Patek movements are far superior (duh) but taking brand power and history out of the equation, I think I want the Frederique Constant more. It’s smart, it’s 40mm (smaller than the standard FC worldie) and it’s also rare - the 718-piece run is now sold out. Elsewhere in the market, great world timers have bitten the dust - Chopard, Jaeger-LeCoultre, Girard-Perregaux and others all used to make great Patek alternatives, but no more.
Sarpaneva Supernova
This is the watch I didn’t even realise existed and I’m betting I’m not the only one.
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