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Oystersteel, Cerachrom, Everose… why Grand Feu?

Rolex invents their own name for everything. So why, for the most discussed dial of the decade, did they choose not to?

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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

Swiss Made or Swiss Charade?

Nov 13, 2024 • kingflum

A Personal Update

Jun 25, 2025 • kingflum

SDC Weekly

SDC Weekly 143; Rolex gives us a clue; Sotheby’s has a ‘new’ way of borrowing money; Wei Koh launches Legare Chapter One

Rolex patent with a novel big date; W&W 2026 reflections; Why Sotheby's 7% offer is not a favour; Wei Koh launches new watch brand, Legare; and more.

12 hrs ago • kingflum

SDC Weekly 142; Nautilus - the 50-year-old porthole; Georges Kern on Universal Genève; Dominique Renaud - building a village around a genius

50 years of Patek's porthole, the LTM detail at Universal Genève, Dominique Renaud's corporate scaffolding, and why your kids can read a spider dial…

Apr 13 • kingflum

SDC Weekly 141; Beyer Chronometrie, 1760-2026; The Watch Industry’s Quince Problem

The world's oldest watch retailer is gone. What Beyer's closure reveals about retail's future, and a DTC death spiral most microbrands won't escape.

Apr 6 • kingflum

SDC Weekly 140; HSNY at 160 - A Dispatch from The Plaza; Meylan at Moser Loves Margin

A surgeon's-eye view of the HSNY gala at The Plaza - from Journe's absent acceptance speech to the empty chair that changed the evening. Plus: can Moser…

Mar 30 • 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

WatchPro on Conglomerates and Indies

Armando Zuccali's Veblen 2.0 idea is full of holes. Good macro analysis, dodgy framework, and a case study that contradicts its own thesis. Classic SDC…

Mar 31 • kingflum

The Review I Said I'd Never Write

I don't like doing reviews because most are spec sheets riddled with adjectives. But after a couple of months with the Rolex titanium Yacht-Master, here…

Mar 25 • kingflum

The Art of Spending Money - Book Summary

Morgan Housel's new book is really about why we buy things we don't need. As watch collectors, we're the target audience whether we like it or not.

Mar 19 • kingflum

Analogue Intelligence Meets the Sinners and the Commons

Open source developers and watch collectors are driven by the same hidden motivations. A Harvard professor's framework reveals why that should worry us.

Mar 14 • kingflum

Your Brain Is a Defence Lawyer

You've seen the Rolex vs Omega threads. Hundreds of replies, zero minds changed. Turns out your brain works like a defence lawyer; it constructs…

Mar 11 • kingflum

Loot Boxes, Long Degeneracy, and the Watch World's Gambling Problem

Luxury Bazaar and Courtyard.io just launched $10,000 mystery watch packs. We ran the maths, checked the valuations, and found Long Degeneracy lurking…

Mar 6 • kingflum

You Can Now Bet on Whether Rolex Will Release a Coke GMT

You can now bet on whether Rolex releases a Coke GMT. We discuss what's going on, who benefits, and what the watch community should be worried about.

Mar 4 • kingflum

How Scarcity Creates Desire

What do an 18th-century Prussian king's potatoes and a Rolex Daytona have in common? This is about the psychology of manufactured scarcity.

Feb 25 • 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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