February's Friday Watches 2021

[Wimm]

As always happens with this, the shortest of months, February has passed in a flash. We are still in a COVID induced limbo but never fear, there is light at the end of the tunnel. Or at least a Crocus of Hope. For a week we had a spot of cold weather and much fun was had in the snow. However, I saddened to report some serious cases of watch abuse. A number of members thrust their beloved watches in to the nearest patch of snow just so that they could take a photo. Such thoughtless behaviour against the wellbeing of these precision engineered timepieces made me want to cry. Anyway, enough snowflakery, on to the numbers.

Perhaps last months analogy of lithe whippets was the wrong one, as beautiful as they are they don't have the stamina that we are showing this year by carrying January's momentum into February. Perhaps a team of hardy huskies is more appropriate. During February's four weeks we posted a total of 650 watches, at an average of 162.5 per week (only 2 lower than January). This is 47 more watches than last February. A total of 124 brands were represented of which 41 were new, 31 were new to the year but 10 were new to the Friday thread.

Another pattern that has carried over from January is the gentle decline of the top three brands. On the 5th Rolex recordeed their lowest ever weekly total of 10 only three ahead of Tudor in fourth place. The first week was a very low scoring week with only 136 watches posted, none of the top three broke into the 20s. The following week Rolex rocketed to the top with 25 with Omega and Seiko following someway behind with 17 and 15 respectively. Then Omega took the top honours the following week with 22, Rolex scored 20 and Seiko 19. In the last week it was time for Seiko to top the table with 25, Rolex came in second with 23 and Omega a way behind on 15.

With the high overall totals and the lower than usual totals for the big three there is a chance for some of the other brands to shine. IWC had their best week ever with a total of 7 posted on the 26th. Sadly this wasn't enough to propel them to a monthly record (which currently stands at 18 set in May last year). Panerai continue their strong start to the year, in January they equalled last years monthly record of 29 and they were only four behind that this month. Grand Seiko have scored higher in both months this year than in any month last year. At the lower end of the table Zodiac also recorded their highest monthly total of 4. Conversely G Shock are down, hitting new monthly lows in both January and February.

There were some exciting first appearances, including the first Corum and S.U.F of the year. However I never cease to be amazed that we can dig out brands that have yet to be shown on the Friday thread. Some of these are, or were, pretty big names. We saw our first Favre Leuba in the form of Toshi's beautiful Deep Blue. Habring, Nivada and Franck Muller were among those brands which also made their debut on the Friday thread.

With the appearance of a Xeric and a Q+Q we have achieved in two months what it took almost the whole of last year to achieve. We have already recorded a brand from every letter of the alphabet. Any suggestions for any more arbitrary challenges will be much appreciated.

I'll stop the analysis there before I bore you all with too much detail. Here are February's numbers:


1 Rolex 79
2 Omega 73
3 Seiko 73
4 Timefactors 37
5 Panerai 25
6 Tudor 22
7 Grand Seiko 17
8 Breitling 16
9 G Shock 12
10 IWC 12
11 Sinn 12
12 CWC 10
13 Damasko 9
14 Zenith 9
15 Hamilton 8
16 Garmin 7
17 Bell & Ross 6
18 Bremont 6
19 Citizen 6
20 Ming 6
21 Tissot 6
22 Blancpain 5
23 Bulova 5
24 Jaeger-LeCoultre 5
25 Oceanx 5
26 Steeldive 5
27 Sterile 5
28 Fortis 4
29 Heuer 4
30 Tag Heuer 4
31 Vacheron Constantin 4
32 Wolbrook 4
33 Yema 4
34 Zodiac 4
35 Anordain 3
36 Apple 3
37 Audemars Piguet 3
38 Christopher Ward 3
39 Glycine 3
40 Luminox 3
41 Mappin and Webb 3
42 Moser 3
43 Newmark (Modern) 3
44 Orient 3
45 Oris 3
46 Rado 3
47 Steinhart 3
48 Swiss Watch Co. 3
49 Ulysse Nardin 3
50 Zeno 3
51 Boldr 2
52 Certina 2
53 De Bethune 2
54 Dornbluth & Sohn 2
55 Doxa (modern) 2
56 Eterna 2
57 Franck Muller 2
58 Frederique Constant 2
59 Habring 2
60 Hoffman 2
61 Longines 2
62 MkII 2
63 Muhle 2
64 Patek Philippe 2
65 Poljot 2
66 Rotary 2
67 Scurfa 2
68 Squale 2
69 Sturmanskie 2
70 A. Lange & Sohne 1
71 Aevig 1
72 Altair 1
73 Android 1
74 Apeks 1
75 Aquadive 1
76 Aquastar 1
77 Archimede 1
78 Borealis 1
79 Cartier 1
80 Casio 1
81 Chronoswiss 1
82 CJR 1
83 Cortebert 1
84 Corum 1
85 Dacor 1
86 Davosa 1
87 Favre Leuba 1
88 Glaschutte Original 1
89 Helson 1
90 Iaxa 1
91 L U Chopard 1
92 Le Forban 1
93 Le Monde 1
94 Leandri 1
95 Lemania 1
96 Linde Werdelin 1
97 Lorier 1
98 Luch 1
99 Melbourne Watch Co. 1
100 Mido 1
101 Minase 1
102 Montblanc 1
103 Movado 1
104 Nivada 1
105 NTH 1
106 Parnis 1
107 Pinion 1
108 Pulsar 1
109 Q & Q 1
110 Rdunae 1
111 RLT 1
112 San Martin 1
113 SarpanevaUhrenFabrik 1
114 Smiths 1
115 Spinnaker 1
116 Swatch 1
117 Techne 1
118 Timex 1
119 Torgeon 1
120 Traska 1
121 Undone 1
122 Vratislavia 1
123 WMT 1
124 Xeric 1


This week I'd thought I would treat to you all to a doughnut rather than a pie (strangely enough I do have two pies in the oven tonight, one venison (shh don't tell Mrs. Wimm) and a chicken and ham pie for her. As you can see there isn't much movement compared to last month, perhaps pies and doughnuts aren't the best way of showing this. I'll have a bit of a rethink about this.

on Flickr

[Kamakazie!]

Great write-up as always. Really good to see some new brands as well.

[tommyzzj]

Thanks for this as always, surprised to see that there were only 2 Longines!

[sish101]

Great write up - thanks.

Sent through the ether by diddling with radio waves

[Bonny Marco]

Great analysis, really interesting. Thanks very much for doing this every month.

Sent from my TA-1012 using Tapatalk

[Rinaldo1711]

Always enjoy this - thanks!

[JonRA]

Crocus of Hope

[RyanB]

Thanks for the stats Wimm.

An early alphabetical achievement ticking off the full A-Z already.

I agree we need a new challenge for the rest of the year. Countries?

Sent from my SM-G973F using TZ-UK mobile app

[snowman]

Thanks Wimm.

I always look forward to your summations and read them thoroughly.

Your efforts are appreciated here!

M

[alfat33]

Thanks Wimm, as always.

Only one Smiths? What’s happening to us?

[ataripower]

Thanks for this, really interesting and loving the doughnut!

[williemays]

Venison pie sounds good. Have you tried a word cloud?

[earlofsodbury]

Mmmmmmmm... Doughnuts...

[Wimm]

Thank you again for the kind words, I am glad to hear that you all enjoy these.

Thanks for this as always, surprised to see that there were only 2 Longines!

Two is the lowest they have been but they generally range from three to six. Although, last February, they leapt up to the dizzying heights of thirteen. I wonder if that coincided with a new release.

Thanks for the stats Wimm.

An early alphabetical achievement ticking off the full A-Z already.

I agree we need a new challenge for the rest of the year. Countries?


Sent from my SM-G973F using TZ-UK mobile app

Good idea, that is something that can be easily added to the spreadsheet, it might also shake out some more vintage watches. I'll see what I can do.

Venison pie sounds good. Have you tried a word cloud?

I haven't, LibreOffice doesn't seem to have that function but I am sure there will be an easy way of producing one, I'll look into it.

Thanks Wimm, as always.

Only one Smiths? What’s happening to us?

Sadly Smiths are poorly represented here, the maximum they reached last year was only three. Last year took until March for the first to appear so they aren't doing too badly this year.