Feature: 5 Unloved Watches That Are Unexpectedly Brilliant

Not every great watch gets its moment in the spotlight. Trends, tastes, topics all shape what we as a buying audience love and loathe, and when that spotlight does shine on a watch, it can shine bright enough to dazzle us into missing some otherwise brilliant options. Fame can be fleeting, but greatness is forever. Here are five luxury watches that prove that.

Tudor North Flag M91210N-0001

It’s 2015, three years after the Black Bay was launched and five years after the Heritage Chrono. Tudor’s emergence from hibernation has been an unmitigated success, drawing on its colourful history and the trend for vintage Rolex collecting to capture the world’s attention.

But Tudor has something even bigger planned, a new phase in its re-emergence as an eminent watchmaker. The North Flag. A unique design inspired by the 1970s, cutting edge materials, an in-house movement—ingredients, I’m sure you’ll agree, for a knockout victory.

It didn’t quite go down like that, however. In steel, with an integrated bracelet, the 40mm case topped by a ceramic bezel and a dial inspired by the historic Tudor Ranger, the watch was a complete flop. Even the introduction of Tudor’s very first in-house movement, the calibre MT5621—which was jam-packed with features like a 70-hour power reserve, silicon hairspring and chronometer certification—was not enough. The North Flag was discontinued just five years later.

This is a moment in history that appears to have aged very poorly. Everything that deterred audiences from the North Flag in 2015 would be absolute gold now. All I can say is that the watch was too ahead of its time, both for us and for Tudor. Tudor wasn’t ready to take such a bold direction and we weren’t ready to accept it. The Audemars Piguet Royal Oak was still considered by many to be an ugly watch and in-house movements with high specs weren’t quite as important. Ah well. You win some, you lose some.

Omega Dynamic III Chronograph 5290.50.00

When the Swiss watchmaking industry was turned on its head in the 1970s by a new, electronic technology that bested mechanical in almost every single way, Omega was left with two choices: stick or twist. Omega chose to twist, pivoting into a new era of innovation by reviving its Dynamic collection.

The Dynamic was first introduced in 1967, a watch designed with science to find the perfect shape for the human wrist. This interesting and innovative approach yielded an unusual elliptical case, setting the scene for the Dynamic to house Omega’s most forward-thinking ideas.

So, come 1995, when the third Dynamic line was unveiled, you can imagine the disappointment when there was no dynamism to speak of whatsoever. An uninspired, off-the-shelf modular chronograph whose crown and pushers don’t align? An undersized 38mm case housing a pilot watch-inspired dial, littered with flashes of yellow? A scaled down, twin sub-dial chronograph arrangement controlled by enormously oversized pushers, again borrowed from the pilot’s watches of yesteryear?

It’s a hodgepodge of nothing in particular, and—rightly so—went unremembered. Yet, in all this watch’s insignificance lies something very important: familiarity. Not everything needs to be innovative and challenging and dynamic. Sometimes safe and comfortable are exactly what we need, and this Omega Dynamic has exactly that. For its objective flaws, it is, today, subjectively brilliant. What was inspired from a collection of novel and diverse watches has ironically mellowed into something of a visually cosy relic. It’s not dynamic, but it’s what we need.

Grand Seiko Ceramic Spring Drive Chronograph GMT SBGC223G

There are a lot of reasons why Grand Seiko’s chronograph watches don’t join the rest of its collection in the limelight. They are aesthetically challenging, financially challenging and, well, to be honest, everything about it is challenging. This is a Japanese quartz chronograph that costs more than the mighty Rolex Daytona. That takes some nerve.

But to paint it like that is to be, frankly, rude. This watch looks like an instrument straight from the International Space Station, and that’s exactly the mentality that willed it into existence in the first place. This watch wasn’t made—it was engineered.

Let’s start with the calibre 9R65. Unveiled in 2007, it extends the Spring Drive collection by adding a chronograph to the already impressive tech. Spring Drive, a combination of mechanical and quartz, takes the power source of a typical watch movement and combines it with the accuracy of a quartz regulator, the result of which is a battery-less watch with accuracy of a half-second per day—oh, and that satisfyingly smooth sweep.

Grand Seiko could have taken a traditional chronograph layout and gone with that, but oh no. That is not the way. Instead, we have over 400 parts arranged in sync to give us a very new and unexpected solution to the chronograph problem. So, instead of uniformly spreading the chronograph sub-dials across the main dial, the running seconds for the main timekeeping element is clearly to the left, whilst the jumping minutes and hours sit clearly to the right. And, for utmost readability, the main chronograph second hand sits exactly 0.15mm from the dial markings.

But that’s not all. Unsatisfied with the inclusion of just the chronograph, the Grand Seiko engineers managed to find space to squeeze in a date, power reserve indicator and a GMT hand too.

Roger Dubuis La Monegasque RDDBMG0001

Watchmaker Roger Dubuis has been on a bit of a wild ride. Founded by the late, great master of complications himself in 1995, Roger Dubuis draws its lineage from the halls of Patek Philippe’s grand complication division where Dubuis honed his skills.

It was always Dubuis’ intention to rival Patek Philippe watches when he went it alone, but never as a copycat. His watches, as well as being beautifully engineered and mechanically flawless, didn’t just carry his talents as a watchmaker, but his personality as well. There was no mistaking a Roger Dubuis, then or now.

Since his passing in 2017, the brand’s direction has taken on a bold visual challenge, which—while in keeping with that original ethos—has been strongly divisive. Fans of the increasingly popular early watches would suggest this is a tale of two halves—but there’s a middle that’s been overlooked.

In that transition period came a collection called “La Monegasque”, so named after those native to the Principality of Monaco. It’s a simple, elegant, beautiful watch, inspired by Dubuis’ love of rounded square cases and going to every length to exhibit the finest in watchmaking. On the front, you get a chameleon-like sunburst dial that shimmers green and red below the grey, with every detail in and around it finished immaculately.

On the back is where things really shine, in all senses of the word. The calibre RD821 is not only a hand-crafted, in-house movement to rival that of Patek Philippe or Vacheron Constantin—it’s also received the Geneva Seal. There is no higher mark of watchmaking perfection than that.

F. P. Journe Élégante 48

When it comes to world-renowned watchmaker F. P. Journe, nothing will do but the best. Founded and led by the notoriously grumpy perfectionist François-Paul Journe, the brand has earned admiration from leading collectors for its nothing-but-the-best approach to watchmaking.

So, in 2015, when the watchmaker announced a collection of ladies’ watches in quartz, the Élégante, people were left bamboozled. The sound of collective head-scratching could be heard 30,000 feet above Switzerland. And if that wasn’t mad enough, things took a turn for the downright bizarre when a year later, F. P. Journe announced a follow-up in 48mm, in titanium, for men.

In the simplest terms, you can perhaps imagine why the Élégante was released for ladies. A high-end watch, with diamonds, minus the mechanical movement. It’s a trend many watchmakers follow to bring in some extra cash. But aimed at the brand’s typical audience of high horology-collecting uber-nerds?

The response was, as you can imagine, lukewarm. People didn’t want to outright say that Journe had lost it for fear of finding themselves unable to purchase another watch from the man again, but the air wasn’t exactly filled with praise.

Technically, the Élégante 48 gets the same lavish attention as any other F. P. Journe. There’s full dial lume, striped rose gold plates and even a motion detector that senses inactivity and saves the battery, extending its life to over eight years.

Here’s what makes this watch brilliant: F.P. Journe is a master watchmaker, and his challenge is to demonstrate the greatest example of his trade. That includes quartz, and so the Élégante is his mastery of a technology that will, in the next few decades, start to gain more attention as the first few vintage quartz watches start to become collectible. Then this watch will be hailed as genius.

Five watches, five glimpses into corners of watchmaking that sat in the shadow for far too long. It goes to show that there’s so much more out there to enjoy than what the great spotlight illuminates, and hopefully we can continue to reveal those to new audiences over the years. What watch do you think deserves a chance in the spotlight?

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