Unpolished Watches

Paid subscribers: Follow along with the full show notes here. To become a subscriber, join Unpolished Watches or manage your account here. Founding Members receive the 2025 Rewind Magazine, which you can learn more about here.
This week’s format is a little different.
Last year’s most popular podcast was How to Collect Neo-Vintage Watches. We’ll have more “How to Collect” episodes this year, but in addition to a podcast, I’ll write a more comprehensive Collector’s Guide for paid subscribers to follow along. Each episode will feature a dealer or expert going deep on their particular niche.
Unpolished is the newsletter for watch collectors and a top-20 Fashion Substack. Subscribe now ($8/mo) to get all the good stuff, including the show notes to follow along with this podcast:

This week: The vintage Rolex Daytona with dealer Michael Morgan of Iconic Watch Company. Michael’s a dealer based in Orange County who focuses on vintage Rolex.
Collecting is about recognizing patterns, and whether or not you’re interested in the Daytona, this episode will help you understand those patterns in vintage Rolex and how to think about originality and period correctness. We cover all four-digit Daytona references, starting with the last Pre-Daytona 6238.
The vintage Daytona can be divided into three eras:
* Pump pusher era: Refs. 6239 and 6241 (1963–69)
* Transitional era: Refs. 6262 and 6264 (1970-71)
* Screw-down era: Refs. 6263 and 6265 (1972-1988)
* “Experimental” reference 6240 (1965-69)
The Daytona’s been covered again and again, so instead of repeating what you already know, I’ll try to fill gaps I see in what’s been published and talk about the market right now.
Why now? While everyone else is going crazy for neo-vintage Patek Philippe, smart collectors are zagging, baby!
We focus on standard dials, though the exotic Newman is mentioned a few times. In 1988, Rolex discontinued the manual-wind Daytona, replacing it with the automatic Zenith Daytona.
Other Show Notes: Here’s the Patek Philippe 5004P and First Series Patek Philippe 3970 we open by talking about. Both were listed for $750k by European Watch Co. The 3970 has since sold, which I suppose shows which one the “market” finds more compelling right now.
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UNPOLISHED STORE
Check out our Matte Calfskin and Canvas Straps in the Unpolished Store. We’ll be adding 22mm Canvas Straps in the next couple of weeks (and restocking 20mm)—in the meantime, 18-19mm straps are on sale for just $65. Shop the Unpolished Store now.


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View full show notes here.
This week, I’m joined by Alfred Chan and Phil Toledano of Toledano & Chan. They’ve just announced their latest release, the b1.3r, an updated take on their brutalist integrated bracelet watch. Alfred is a talented watch designer, and Phil is an inscrutable artist and collector.
We talk about that their latest release, but also: manufacturing in China vs. Switzerland (their first releases were made in China, while the b1.3r is made in Switzerland); stone dials and the state of the microbrand space; making an asymmetrical crystal; the best watches they bought in 2025; marketing, TikTok, brand ambassadors, and Timothee Chalamet; making something that’s intentionally divisive; why their costs $10,000 (!); and what’s next for Toledano & Chan.
The case and bracelet of the b1.3r is now in titanium, and it’s been slightly shrunk down compared to previous releases. The main feature of this watch is the solid-gold “ripple” dial, meant to look like ripples on the water (very Grand Seiko).
For more, visit Toledano & Chan or find them on Instagram.
Subscribe to the podcast to get future episodes in your feed: Spotify / Apple / RSS
Unpolished is the newsletter for watch collectors, and a top-25 Fashion & Beauty Substack. Join a community of 1,000+ enthusiasts for just $6/mo:

Below: The new Toledano & Chan b1.3r, and the massive “soup bowl” Phil talks about at the start of the episode.

UNPOLISHED STORE
If you’re enjoying the podcast, head over to the Unpolished Store to pick up one of our Canvas or Leather straps. The leather straps are a high-quality french calfskin that sits right between dressy and distressed. The Canvas Straps are 100% cotton—unlike other canvas straps, they aren’t lined which means they’re thin, flexible, and comfortable:
* Shop the Unpolished Store
I’m able to keep the podcast free thanks to your support with subscriptions or buying straps!



This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.unpolishedwatches.com/subscribe

Paid subscribers: All winners of the holiday giveaway are being individually emailed today. If that’s you, please respond in 24 hours before I draw the next name!
Welcome back to the Unpolished podcast. Our first conversation of 2026 is with Nicholas Bowman-Scargill. He’s the 4th managing director of Fears Watches, based in Bristol, U.K., and the great-great-great-grandson of Edwin Fear, who founded Fears in 1846. Fears closed its doors in 1976, but Nicholas reopened them in 2016. This year, Fears is celebrating the 10th anniversary of its re-founding and the 180th anniversary of its original formation.
Nicholas made an early-career pivot to watches, joining Rolex in the U.K. as a watchmaking apprentice. After five years at Rolex, he set off on his own to relaunch his family’s dormant watch company. We talk about what he learned at Rolex, why the Crown makes such good movements for watchmakers, 10 years of Fears, mistakes he’s made, the state of British watchmaking, how to make a good watch case, and a lot more.
Subscribe to the podcast to get future episodes in your feed: Spotify / Apple / RSS
UNPOLISHED STORE

If you’re enjoying the podcast, head over to the Unpolished Store to pick up one of our Canvas or Leather straps. The leather straps are a high-quality french calfskin that sits right between dressy and distressed. The Canvas Straps are 100% cotton—unlike other canvas straps, they aren’t lined which means they’re thin, flexible, and comfortable:
* Shop the Unpolished Store
I’m able to keep the podcast free thanks to your support with subscriptions or buying straps!
Show Notes:
* Fearswatches.com
* What does craft actually mean to you? (last week’s newsletter
* Fears Brunswick collection
* Fears Arnos (my favorite Fears)
* A Theory of the Case, last weekend’s newsletter
Get in touch:
* tony[at]unpolishedwatches.com
* Instagram
* Tap the heart, leave a comment, or review the podcast wherever you’re listening.



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Welcome to Unpolished’s year-in-review newsletter. It won’t be the last issue of 2025, but highlights some of the most popular and interesting stories of the year, while also giving an update on Unpolished. Many of you are paying subscribers and thus stakeholders in this newsletter, so you deserve it! You can also listen above or in your podcast app. To see all the numbers and enter the holiday giveaway (more below), upgrade now:
Btw, I received a press release this morning that Kari Voutilainen is stepping back as co-CEO of Urban Jürgensen, but will join its board. Alex Rosenfeld, the other co-CEO, becomes CEO.

At its best, the internet can be amazing. Unpolished launched with a few thousand people on an email list built up over 5+ years, and 12 months later, it’s a sustainable, very small business that’s replaced my previous income.
But the internet is also frustrating. It engages us, enrages us, and hijacks our attention. Today, social media, especially Instagram, is the home of the watch “community,” while YouTube is its library of reviews and opinions.
One of the common questions I get—it showed up again in last week’s Q&A—is what other watch “content” (a gross word) I consume.
But I’ve found this question is really asking something more like: How do I stop scrolling and consume stuff that actually feels worthwhile? It applies to watches, but not only watches.
I was at a dinner with a few collectors in New York earlier this month, and one of them (hi!) said to me that his favorite coverage helps him better understand and appreciate watches—even without any intention of buying them. Whether that’s understanding the innovation, craft, or culture that’s imbued in any particular object.
Because that’s the reality, isn’t it? Whether it’s a $17m Patek Philippe perpetual calendar chronograph or a new $4,000 watch from Tudor, we’ll never own most of these watches.
And that’s just fine. But they’re still ours to appreciate.
What we’re really talking about isn’t ownership—it’s attention. In a world of frictionless consumption, there’s growing value in things that reward patience, permanence, and earned understanding.
There’s something uniquely human about our ability to create abstract, symbolic tools and build on them over time. Mechanical watches are a perfect example: centuries-old instruments designed to measure an idea—time—that we defined in the first place.
As I’ve mentioned, “craft” was one of the main themes of 2025, and it gets at a feeling bigger than watches. Technology, whether it’s social media or AI or software updates to your car, has encroached on anything real.
Watches can provide a small respite. They can urge us to slow down, to appreciate what goes into making an object with hundreds of parts and centuries of history.
Like anything that sticks around long enough, watches have transformed from technology to tradition. Wrapped up in that is also all the problems that come with any tool that becomes a status symbol or luxury.
This idea, craft, has been wrought to the point of cliché, but the reality remains: People appreciate craft, whether it’s Larry Bird making 99 free throws in a row after practice or F.P. Journe harnessing the phenomenon of resonance.
Which is what’s exciting for watches. These objects can be beautiful displays of a variety of crafts, whether feats of the human hand or human engineering.
The bad news: I’m not sure the larger watch industry is really adapting to this. Some corners of the high-end and independent scene have leaned into craft, but anxiety about luxury defined the broader conversation in 2025.
That tension showed up in what people actually read, at least in this newsletter. As we’ll see below, the most-viewed articles this year were (1) about how “watch prices are insane,” and (2) expressing my complicated feelings about luxury. These weren’t celebrations of the new, but reckonings with price, value, and the uneasy state of luxury. Taken together, they provide a snapshot of where watch culture is right now—and where it may be headed, whether the industry is ready or not.
The Most Popular—and Interesting—Stories of 2025
When I look at metrics, which isn’t often, a few numbers are important: views, new free subscribers, and new paid subscribers. Interestingly, there wasn’t much overlap in which stories performed the best on each. People view, subscribe to, and pay for different things. It’s the fun, and the challenge, of the newsletter format.
This is the 91st newsletter published this year, which also includes 14 podcasts (including 7 guest chats), 4 Q&As, and 2 strap launches. Below, more on what I’ve learned about format and what that means for 2026. As always, the entire archive is available online.
2025’s most-viewed stories
* Watch Prices Are Insane — Tapping into another theme of 2025—high prices. A survival guide for collecting watches when watch prices don’t make sense.
* How to Actually Develop ‘Good Taste’ — Understanding what moves you vs. when you’re being moved for other reasons.
Stories that drove the most new free subscribers
* My Complicated Feelings about Watches & Wonders (and Luxury) — On the differences between collecting and consumption.
* 47 Unpolished Rules for Watch Collecting — Buy what you understand, and other practical & theoretical rules to guide your collecting (or not).
Stories that drove the most paid subscribers
Interestingly, the stories that led to the most paid subscribers had some of the best collector-driven “reporting”:
* The A. Lange & Söhne Conundrum — What happens when world-class watchmaking meets modern luxury.
* A ‘Paul Newman’ Daytona, CPO, and What It Means for Collecting Vintage Rolex — A closer look at a curious Paul Newman sold by 1916 Company, and the importance of “period correct.”
2 More Reasons to Subscribe in 2026
Magazines & Giveaways
Paid subscribers already get access to every newsletter, including the full update below, comments, plus (1) $50 off any service at Watchcheck, and (2) 10% off in the Unpolished Store. But here are two more reasons to join right now:
* 2025 Rewind Magazine. Become a founding member for $199, and you’ll also get (1) a strap of your choice and (2) the 2025 Rewind Magazine. It’s still being finalized, but expect about 60 perfect-bound pages of the best writing and photography of 2025, along with some stuff that hasn’t been published yet. Here’s a preview:

* Giveaway! Join or renew by January 7, 2026, and you’ll be entered into a giveaway.* I’m giving away so much stuff:
* One (1) Unpolished/Veblenist Valet Tray
* Two (2) Farr + Switt Retro Digital Watches
* Two (2) Unpolished 47 hats, and
* Six (6) straps, one of each color and lug width for the Canvas and Calfskin currently offered in the Store.
Manage or upgrade your subscription here. If you’re already a subscriber but want to become a Founding Member before you auto-renew to get your strap ASAP, send me an email.
*All current and new subscribers will be entered to win. Unpolished launched on Jan. 6, 2025, so if you subscribed then and auto-renew, you’ll be automatically entered to win.
UNPOLISHED STRAPS
Shop the Canvas and Matte Calfskin Strap in the Unpolished Store. December 19 (today) is the last day to order for shipping before Christmas (shipments will resume 12/26). Grab a Matte Calfskin for just $100 before prices increase next year. PLUS: Free U.S. shipping for the rest of 2025!
Unpolished 2025 by the numbers, and what’s in store for 2026.
Here’s what subscriber growth looks like over the past 12 months:

Jack Forster is the global editorial director of the 1916 Company. You can also find his writing on his newsletter, Split Seconds. Jack joined me to look back on 2025 in watches. Jack names his “Escapement of the Year,” “Chronometer of the Year,” and we talk about some of the biggest trends in watchmaking—finishing, craft, complications, technical innovations, and more.
Before that, we also look at Breguet’s new magnetic escapement in the Experimentale 1. We discuss what it means to be a “collector,” and whether there’s a difference between collecting and accumulating; whether we should bring back real chronometer awards; and the best thing Jack’s had on his wrist all year. It’s not all sharp internal angles and technical innovations though, we also talk about some of our favorite releases of the year
Follow Jack’s newsletter, Split Seconds, and find him at the 1916 Company.
Subscribe to the podcast to get future episodes in your feed: Spotify / Apple / RSS.
Subscribe for $99/year ($8.25/mo) to get all the good stuff, plus 10% off in the Unpolished Store and $50 off any service at Watchcheck:

VISUAL NOTES
SHOW NOTES
* In Conversation with Philippe Narbel, Fourth Wheel
* The Sharp Inner Angle And The Limits Of Machining, Split Seconds
* Breguet Launches The 250th Anniversary Expérimentale 1, With Magnetic Escapement, 1916 Company
* Breguet Experimentale 1: Anatomy of a Magnetic Escapement, Relogios Mecânicos
* Some Quality Time With The Grand Seiko Spring Drive UFA, 1916 Company
* Zenith Introduces The GFJ Caliber 135, An Old School Champion Of Precision, 1916 Company
* Daniel Roth, a surprising breakout watchmaker of 2025, Unpolished
Get in touch:
* tony[at]unpolishedwatches.com
* Instagram
* Like this post or leave a comment if you’re enjoying the podcast interviews and want to see more in 2026:


This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.unpolishedwatches.com/subscribe