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Invisible Forces Shaping the Watch Market

In Q1 of 2026, the market seemed stable, auctions were breaking records, and gold was flying. But what is going on beneath the surface? Has the consensus missed anything?

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Ben Clymer, Hodinkee, and The Chairman Who Wasn't There

Jan 17, 2025 • kingflum

What Your Watch Is Actually Worth

Feb 13 • kingflum

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Nov 13, 2024 • kingflum

A Personal Update

Jun 25, 2025 • kingflum

SDC Weekly

SDC Weekly 149; What You Lose When Your Watch Gets a Ticker; Rolex Mirrored Latour's 25-year Escape Plan (Part 2); How Collecting Habits…

Kalshi brings prediction markets to fine art, on NYCwatchguy's bull case for watches, how Rolex copied a wine producer to skim off every resale, and…

19 hrs ago • kingflum

SDC Weekly 148; Stern's McDonald's tell; Quality won, luxury lost; the 17th-century bundling tax on your Daytona

Patek's CEO compared themselves to McDonald's. Luxury lost 50m customers. And the Bordeaux wine trade figured out your Daytona waitlist in 1680.

May 25 • kingflum

SDC Weekly 147; Royal Pop or Royal Flop?; Thierry Stern, again; Georges Kern, snippets

AP x Swatch Royal Pop launch turned into shut stores and riot police. Was the $50m of free PR worth it? Plus Stern, Kern, Stumpers and Anti-shock.

May 18 • kingflum

SDC Weekly 146; Three quarters of nice; Moser's D2C maths; New Interview with Thierry Stern

Morgan Stanley x WatchCharts show recovery in the Swiss watch market, Edouard Meylan's D2C maths, charm pricing origins, second-order effects, and more!

May 11 • kingflum

Why most of your watches are technically jewellery

If your Rolex had no movement, would it still be a Rolex? A reply to The Lost Spring Bar on dummy watches, jewellery, and what defines a watch.

May 24 • kingflum

Watch Collecting in the Anti-Social Century

Why watch collecting might still be one of the few antidotes to isolation in the anti-social century. On Derek Thompson, Nick Epley, and the dead space.

May 22 • kingflum

Royal Pop, Two Possibilities

Imagine you're in November 2027 and Royal Pop either saved or ruined Audemars Piguet. Two stories, plus some maths, trademark logic, and research.

May 14 • kingflum

20 Lots from the Geneva Auctions, Spring 2026

Hong Kong just banked an all-time Asian watch auction record. Now Geneva's four houses bring their catalogues, and we review 20 interesting watches.

May 8 • kingflum

AP's Royal Oak in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

AP appear to have done the cleanest possible deal - keep the silhouette but avoid the wrist. Hypothetically, a Royal Oak pocketwatch will protect the…

May 7 • kingflum

Wrist Laundromats

From Hezbollah to Hushpuppi to 1MDB, luxury watches keep showing up in major money laundering cases. Let's talk about watches and moving dirty money…

May 1 • kingflum

Self deception and Survival Instincts

Robert Trivers argued we lie to ourselves so we can better lie to others. Applied to watch collecting, the idea is disturbing - but rather liberating…

Apr 22 • kingflum

Oystersteel, Cerachrom, Everose… why Grand Feu?

The Daytona 126502 is beautiful and inventive - but technically it is not Grand Feu enamel. So why did Rolex, for once, borrow a word instead of…

Apr 16 • kingflum

Saturation Problems

Your phone has been lighting up all week. By this weekend, most of those launches will be forgotten. A look at why launch strategies are broken for low…

Apr 15 • kingflum

Cleguer's Innate Escapement Explained

A 35-year-old Breton watchmaker recently matched Rolex's most advanced escapement using 19th-century materials. Five years, 20 prototypes, one CHF…

Apr 10 • kingflum

Prediction season

Here are five questions to approach Rolex predictions differently, along with my own predictions for Rolex releases at Watches & Wonders 2026.

Apr 8 • kingflum

What Your WhatsApp Group is Doing to Your Opinions

More than just being a place to share opinions, your WhatsApp group is in fact, manufacturing enthusiasm. Cass Sunstein's research on group polarisation…

Apr 3 • kingflum

Newsletters

SDC Weekly is a newsletter containing my thoughts on the world of watches, and any other interesting material I’ve consumed since the last edition. It will likely cover a wide range of subjects in addition to watches including, but not limited to technology, nature, geopolitics, energy economics, parenting and history.

Top posts

Ben Clymer, Hodinkee, and The Chairman Who Wasn't There

Jan 17, 2025 • kingflum

What Your Watch Is Actually Worth

Feb 13 • kingflum

Swiss Made or Swiss Charade?

Nov 13, 2024 • kingflum

A Personal Update

Jun 25, 2025 • kingflum

The Review I Said I'd Never Write

Mar 25 • kingflum

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This is a blog exploring why collectors of luxury items (mainly watches) believe and do what we do, why we pretend otherwise, and how we might do better.

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ScrewDownCrown

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