Published Monday, November 09, 2026 at 07:09 AM PT

Burbank · Monday, November 9, 2026 · 7:09 AM · 54°F, 73% humidity, wind 1 mph ESE, 29.50 inHg, UV 0, PM2.5 5

Good morning, Little Mister. It’s Monday, and the watch internet has decided to spend it the way it spends every Monday: a tidal wave of Rolex certified pre-owned walkarounds, one man declaring G-Shocks aren’t horology so he can feel something, and a price comparison that makes your 401(k) look like a tip jar. You’re welcome. Ferengi Rule of Acquisition #157 says you are surrounded by opportunities, you just have to know where to look. I looked, and the opportunities are priced like a Daytona.

The Market: What a Watch Costs, and What It Costs You

The best number of the day comes from Brand Radar’s “What 10 Watches Cost in 1990 vs Today.” The thesis is that most of what you could buy then costs less in real money now, and the Rolex counter is where that falls apart. In the department store case, five of six watches cost less in inflation-adjusted terms than they did: the Casio, the Iron Man, the G-Shock, the Seiko, the Citizen. The Swatch tracked inflation exactly, which is the most honest thing any luxury-adjacent object has ever done. Over in the jeweler’s case, the Datejust held level, the Submariner more than doubled in real money, and the Formula One more than quadrupled. Quadrupled! Someone was cooking the books on that one, and it wasn’t the Swatch.

Rolex now lists the steel one at $16,900, and Bob’s Watches puts the gray market around $26,500 this month. Brand Radar measures this in weeks of a typical full-time wage: about eight in 1989, about 13 and a half at list today, and about 21 on the gray market. The video notes the list price still doesn’t buy one for most people, because the Daytona was reportedly hard to get at list in 1990 and is hard to get at list now. Ecclesiastes 1:9 says there is no new thing under the sun, and apparently that includes waitlists.

The video also flags a 1980s Patek price list, reproduced by collectors, that reportedly had the steel Nautilus 3800 at about $4,000. Patek doesn’t make a steel Nautilus anymore, so there’s no fair comparison, which is the polite way of saying nobody should look at that number and cry. I’ll cry for you.

Britt Pearce gives us a smaller, more human version of the same pain in “I’ve Reviewed EVERY Rolex: Here’s the Best Ones.” She loves one of the pieces on her list and says flatly, “I don’t have 13 grand sitting around.” The price has been “an active obstacle.” Even a woman who has handled every Rolex ever made can’t just buy the one she likes. The market is undefeated, and all of us are the practice squad.

Releases and Novelties

The 1916 Company’s T. First up is the 2026 DB25 Digitale, the DB25VD. Masso calls it perhaps the most wearable De Bethune yet, with 30 meters of water resistance (about 100 feet, so rain and splash, not a swim) and a caliber DB2144V3 with 416 parts. The punchline is the delivery date: “lots to love, but not until 2027.” Here’s your invitation to express interest, Little Mister, in a watch you can’t have for a year. I’ve seen pre-orders for the Second Coming that were less patient.

The second De Bethune is the DB25 Monopusher Chronograph, the DB25VXSS2. Masso is clearly in love with the movement: the DB3000 caliber is manual wind, 4 Hz, 31 millimeters (about 1.2 inches), with a 60-hour power reserve. The older De Bethune monopushers, the DB1 and DB8, used a version of the THA chronograph movement that Denis Flageolet and F.P. Journe developed when they were partners. This one is De Bethune’s own caliber, “a pure manufacturer effort.” He compares the pusher feel to the Lange Datograph’s L951, which is the watch-nerd equivalent of comparing someone’s singing to Sinatra. The details are the sort of thing that make a collector go quiet: mirror-polished bridges, chamfered screw slots, a patented titanium-and-white-gold balance, a silicon escape wheel, and the signature De Bethune hairspring, which is a flat spring with the terminal curve cut off, reshaped and clamped back on so it breathes concentrically like an overcoil. Thirty meters of water resistance again, so “sporty, but not a submersible.”

Sinn announced the EZM 19, a mission timer developed with Tomas Stanke, senior fire director and head of the Hattingen Fire Department, aimed at the command room rather than the cockpit or the dive site. Sinn builds for emergency crews and I’ll take that over another “inspired by the sea” limited edition any time.

Rado, meanwhile, is out here with two DiaStar Original Skeleton watches, and the headline asks “Have You Ever Seen A Gold UFO?” The gold-colored Ceramos bezel is a cermet, 90% high-tech ceramic and 10% binder metal, with a hardness of 1,750 Vickers. I haven’t seen a gold UFO, but I’ve seen a lot of Jordan’s receipts, and they look scarier.

Also in the wires: the Garrick S8, billed as compact, skeletonised and hand-made, and Revolution’s “Freedom to Create: The Pioneers of Independent Watchmaking,” which gave me a headline and nothing else. I won’t invent what’s in either, because I’m a professional.

The Rolex Reference Desk

Three Rolex certified pre-owned reviews from The 1916 Company landed today: the Explorer 39mm 214270-0003, the Sea-Dweller 4000 126600-0001, and the Submariner “Hulk” 116610LV-0002. Masso reads the same CPO script on each, and it’s a decent one. The two-year, globally valid, Rolex-backed warranty is “not a retail warranty” but is actionable at authorized points of sale and service, and any reconditioning is done to a Rolex certified standard with factory-original parts. The package comes with an outer box, a leatherette travel pouch with suede lining, a warranty card, a wallet with the terms and conditions, a holographic hang tag, and a manual. If the original box and papers survived, they ship with the watch too.

The watch-specific talk is where it gets fun. On the Explorer, Masso notes the screwed-down Twinlock crown, a Worcester-style case back, and 100 meters of water resistance (about 330 feet) from “a very vertically integrated manufacturer.” On the Sea-Dweller he gets deep into the Rolex supply chain: its own foundry, its own steels and alloys, even its own lubricants, and the Paraflex shock protection of its own design instead of the more common Kif or Incabloc. The hairspring is the blue oxidized niobium-zirconium alloy Rolex calls Parachrom, which Masso describes as “highly, highly, highly anti-magnetic.” On the Hulk he explains the superlative chronometer standard of minus two to plus two seconds per 24 hours and notes there was “no physical change in the watch.” Every six-digit LV, he says, can keep that time because it’s mechanically that spec.

Compare this with Omega’s approach in his Seamaster Diver 300M green dial (210.32.42.20.10.001) review. The Master Chronometer test, developed with METAS, certifies the fully assembled watch at zero to plus five seconds per 24 hours, with power reserve, water resistance and anti-magnetism over 15,000 Gauss, which Masso says is “a minimum, not a maximum.” Rolex tests tighter on rate (plus or minus two) and Omega tests more things. Both have a tidy answer to “why is it expensive,” and they’d both be delighted to hand you a bill.

Meanwhile Chisholm Hunter’s “This Watch RUINED My Dream Rolex” is the human counterpoint to all that spec-sheet worship. He has dreamed for years about the Yacht-Master and the Daytona, then put a GMT Rolex on his wrist and decided it wears “better than both of them combined.” He’s not a fan of the Cyclops, but “I can’t really imagine it without a Cyclops Eye now that it has one.” His real advice is the useful part: online photos lie, and the real question is what you’re pairing it with, your skin tone, your jewelry. Try before you buy. Glorious. He also complains that polished links trap dirt and scratch easily, which is the first honest maintenance note anyone gave a polished bracelet in the history of the hobby.

Brands, Grumbling, and the Great Zenith Question

Talking Timepieces With Tony’s “Hollywood Walk” video proclaims the Casio G-Shock is “not considered horology” in his opinion. I’ll leave that one alone, because the G-Shock would survive a decade of my attention, which is more than I can say for most Swiss watches. The meatier segment is a worried discussion of a brand he’s weighing a purchase from. He says “I don’t know if I could commit to spending the money now” on the new Zenith, though he still thinks the original El Primero Chronomaster is “a sick watch.” At $50,000 or $60,000, he argues, buyers go with what they know: Patek, Vacheron, AP, Laurent Ferrier, F.P. Journe. The brand “really [has] to do something,” LVMH has to put marketing money behind it, and maybe LVMH should sell it to Richemont or Swatch Group. I can’t confirm the brand from the clipped transcript beyond his Zenith talk, so take the specifics as Tony’s opinion rather than gospel.

Sun Tzu said all warfare is based on deception; in the watch trade, all marketing is based on convincing you the $12,000 option is the sensible one.

Vintage, Complications, and the Pinnacle

Andrew Morgan Watches’ “I’ve Reviewed Every Watch. These Are The Best.” ends with his pick for the masterpiece of masterpieces, the Vacheron Constantin 57260. It has 57 complications, 2,826 parts, three master watchmakers, and eight years of work. It celebrates 260 years of continuous operation by Vacheron. It’s 100 millimeters across (about 4 inches), 50 millimeters thick (about 2 inches) and weighs a kilo (about 2.2 pounds), which is why it’s a pocket watch. His joke is that the only pocket that could fit it might be a Jinko, and I’m stealing it. He admits some of the listed complications “feel a bit woolly,” as though Vacheron is over-egging its efforts, but he calls it “the ultimate answer to the ultimate what-if.” He also gushes over the LM101 and its escapement, “a design I deeply, deeply wish I had come up with.” I admire a man who has reviewed every watch and still wants to steal one design.

Collecting Advice

The 1916 Company’s “The 7 Deadly Sins of Watch Collecting” is the serious, grown-up lecture of the day, and it’s funnier than it should be. The service rant: some fine watches, Patek and Rolex included, are said to keep terrible time while boasting that no service is needed for decades. “Think about that.” The line that stuck with me is the one about a watch that “keeps terrible time, but it hasn’t needed service for decades” followed by the world’s least reassuring “What a great watch.” His advice is simple: service your watches and don’t wait more than ten years, because the more complex and expensive the watch, the more disastrous the bill. The second sin is failing to seat and secure a spring bar before putting the watch on your wrist. Give the strap a tug, or Tom Petty will have something to say about it. The viewer wrist shots include a vintage Breitling Aerospace, a ‘67 Rolex Explorer determined to run its original hands into the ground, a Sky-Dweller, an Ulysse Nardin Freak, and a Tudor Black Bay 58 GMT coming home from Yosemite.

The Industry

WatchPro’s “Women in Watches hits Miami” is the industry-gut-check piece. Editor Mae Garland hosted the event at TimeLux, with partners including Timex Group and Rado. The standout stat: Deloitte and WatchFem found that 85% of industry professionals and experienced watch consumers surveyed felt that watch advertising still relied too heavily on gender-specific products and imagery.

One last stop: the Watch Hangout’s “$3 BILLION Scandal! Luxury Watches SEIZED & Auctioned!” stream. The transcript I have covers only the tail end of the show, a prize giveaway with Duco in Louisiana winning the night’s prize and Turtle Knight taking the entry for the monthly. The $3 billion scandal itself isn’t in the captured text, so I’m not going to pretend I know the details. The crew’s back Tuesday at 9pm Eastern with a large “in charge” guest whose name the host couldn’t share.

That’s the day, Little Mister.

Fishbowl / Hate Streams

Little Mister, the Fishbowl had a slow Sunday, and by that I mean the usual poison got watered down with a lot of nothing. I track this scene as data, not endorsement. It’s a toxic little aquarium where the fish pay by the superchat to watch each other bite.

The Headline: A Hate Streamer Reviews Himself

The DOXX Report’s “Midterm Madness Sun Nov 8th” stream, broadcast from The Villages in Central Florida, is the closest thing to a self-portrait the genre has produced. The host describes himself as a “big loud mouth knuckle dragging illiterate” with street smarts and no use for book smarts. He says critics call it “trash streaming” and claim “these guys all have mental problems.” His rebuttal: “i don’t have any mental problems okay believe me that’s what my therapist said when i buried her in my fucking crawl space.”

It’s also the most honest customer review of a hate stream I’ve ever seen, delivered by the product itself. He then explains the business model: “we know our audience and we know the content that they like,” and the channel’s purpose is “to always exude hate.” He complains that his preferred material can’t survive the YouTube partnership program, which is a rare example of this scene admitting it has a content policy problem and not a persecution problem. Most of the rest of the segment is locker-room talk I won’t repeat, because I have a hard line and also standards, in that order. The stream’s title also crams “NYSE SELLOFF” next to “Ron DeSantis” next to “FAFO.” That’s the algorithm being fed with a firehose.

Fishbowl lore holds that a stream’s title should be a hostage note. This one is.

Archie Luxury’s Sponsor Hostage Video

The better comedy came from ArchieLuxury’s “AC3 LIVESTREAM - Does anyone care about the GPHG Watch releases?” It’s on the channel’s main feed, and a second copy of the same broadcast turned up under the ArchieLuxuryLivestream handle, so the algorithm clearly wanted to make sure nobody escaped.

The title asks whether anyone cares about the GPHG releases (the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève, the industry’s big awards show). Judging by the transcript, the answer was a brisk “not as much as we care about our sponsor.” The segment I caught is Archie speaking directly to America: “if you are looking for a Rolex watch of your dreams… I strongly advise you to look at David SW.” He tells viewers not to “play the dealer games,” not to “bring in chocolates or Krispy Kremes for your dealer hoping to get a Rolex at retail,” and to “save your dignity.” He then says “David SW” about eight more times, like a man being paid per repetition, which I’d bet he is.

Elsewhere in the same stream, a co-host (the transcript is noisy, so I won’t guess who) notes “we’ve done our contractual agreement with Uzi Puzi,” then wanders off into whether a James Bond NATO strap should be 18 or 19 millimeters. I don’t have the metric-to-American conversion energy for that. A contractual agreement read aloud on air is the most Fishbowl sentence of the week, and I’m not even counting the ad.

Rule of Acquisition #84 from the Ferengi: “She can touch your ears but never your Latinum.” The Ferengi meant that affection is cheap and the money is sacred. Archie’s version: chat can have his love and his “wear your watches, please,” but the sponsor gets the repetitions. There was also a passing aside, “i feel sorry for hoax but he’s lived a good life a long life,” and I can’t tell from the fragment who or what Hoax is. Maybe it’s a pet, maybe a feud, maybe a Sunday.

The Franchise Club: Town Hall, No Transcript

The Franchise Club held a “POLITICAL TOWN HALL AT TFC, 2027 THE START OF A GOLDEN AGE, OR THE END OF FREEDOM” on November 8. The transcript I got is a few words of Cyrillic-and-German static, which tells me the captioning machine fainted. I won’t invent what was said. All I can report is the title, and the title is a coin flip between hope and doom, which is on brand for a political town hall. Whatever they argued, I’m not handing the algorithm’s garbage to the good guys as their words.

Everyone Else, Quiet

Watch Nicholas, our resident antagonist, doesn’t appear in today’s material at all. No loops, no car-alarm “I don’t know,” not one “dude.” Absence is not evidence of virtue. He’s a villain, and villains take weekends too. Mostly harmless, as the Guide says, until he plugs back in.

The rest of the weekend’s watch talk was refreshingly civil: Original OC called a Phillips Geneva auction where a Cartier went for a 3.9 million sale price and a record, Oisín O’Malley mused about a Seamaster 300M versus a Vacheron, and Tim Write packed for Singapore. No beefs, no superchat wars, and no one buried anyone in a crawl space, which in this scene counts as a ceasefire. Not endorsing the peace, either, just noting it’s rare.

Sources

Watch News

Fishbowl / Hate Streams