Friday Watches - December 2021

[Wimm]

Happy New Year to you all. Decorations have been taken down (or possibly "requestioned" by the Tax Man), unwanted gifts listed on Sales Corner and the last remaining Christmas treats surreptitiously ingested contravening short lived resolutions. So, pour yourself a "moist" January drink and discover more about the watches we wore in December.

There was plenty of drama to finish the year off but I'll get to that. Numbers continued to grow, hitting 695 watches, levels we haven't seen since July. This quantity works out at a weekly average of 139 which is the same as last month. A total of 124 different brands were represented which is also the same as November.

The recent predictable nature of the top three placings was less so, beginning as we did with a frissant of excitement on the 3rd as Seiko, having closed the gap with Rolex at the end of November, drew level with them recording twenty one. Just to give the Swiss an additional jab to the kidneys Timefactors beat Omega into fourth place. On the 10th the tension increased as Seiko took first spot off Rolex, who ended up in second place by two, and Omega reclaimed the third spot. On the 17th Seiko repeated the same feat but this time Rolex was beaten to third place by both Timefactors and Omega in joint second. However, with members putting on their fancier watches for the 24th, Rolex came storming back in to first place and Omega came in at second place with Seiko only just holding on to third place, fending off Timefactors by one. As the 31st dawned it was all to play for. Omega were quick off the blocks and a seemingly endless parade of Speedmasters left them in first place on the last day of the year. It looked like Seiko may beat Rolex and potentially knock them off top spot for the month. Eventually Rolex just pipped them by two and took the month by twelve watches. This was the closest finish since Seiko came first way back in April.

After that excitement I'll let you catch your breath and top up your glasses (don't worry, it still counts as one drink if you didn't quite empty the glass first time around).

What do the unlikely bedfellows Mr Jones, Hublot and Kemner have in common? All three have only appeared twice this year, first in January and again in December. All three bookending the year rather nicely.

Another unlikely trio is Grand Seiko, Bremont and Timex. Each has finished the year with all time highs of twenty five, nine and seven respectively. Timefactors finished the year with their highest monthly total for the year with forty eight, only three short of their all time high. Other strong finishers include Tudor, CWC (also scoring an all time high with seventeen), Heuer, Farer and Patek. Omega bounced back from last month's all time low of forty three by hitting the mythical sixty nine, their highest count since May. Even G Shock have recovered well from last month's all time low.

As with many bull markets there haven't been many poor performances as most brands, if they haven't been dragged up by the general increase in numbers, have at the least remained steady. But perhaps the likes of Moser, Seestern and Vostok could be said to have had quiet ends to the year.

Even at the end of the year we managed to drum up eight entirely new brands to the Friday thread. These included Ancre (in the form of SteveDSSD's rather lovely compressor), Tournek-Rayville and, a little surprisingly, Jenny. Four brands which, so far, had yet to make an appearance this year managed to squeeze in a last gasp cameo, including Mr Curta's nixie tubed Cathode Corner, Dugena and an Elliot Brown.

As it is the end of the year I will list all of the watches that caught my eye in December. Starting on the 3rd we had levkov's immaculate digital Omega and Tetlee's blue dialled Tissot PR 516 GL. On the 10th Jim W treated us to his 1968 Enicar Sherpa Graph. The following week Rajen wore his gorgeous Aquastar Deepstar and hhhh his unusual ArtyA Liquid Dial. On Christmas Eve we saw SteveDSSD's aforementioned Ancre and also Kaffe's beautiful vintage Citizen dress watch. Finally, on the 31st, waiteu2 threw in a last minute contender for watch of the year with his stunning PP Calatrava sector dial (a 5296?).

I shall stop there as I need to make the final preparations for this year's gala awards dinner, the treats the team and I have been spending literally a little time agonising over will not fail to disappoint.

Without any further ado here are December's numbers:

1 Rolex 88
2 Seiko 76
3 Omega 69
4 Timefactors 48
5 Tudor 35
6 Panerai 26
7 Grand Seiko 25
8 CWC 17
9 Zenith 14
10 Sinn 12
11 G Shock 12
12 Damasko 10
13 Heuer 10
14 Bremont 9
15 IWC 9
16 Breitling 9
17 Blancpain 8
18 Squale 8
19 Patek Philippe 8
20 Jaeger-LeCoultre 7
21 Citizen 7
22 Timex 7
23 Hamilton 6
24 KMK 5
25 Steinhart 5
26 Longines 5
27 Glaschutte Original 4
28 Doxa (modern) 4
29 Ming 4
30 Serica 4
31 Tissot 4
32 Christopher Ward 4
33 Vacheron Constantin 4
34 Bulova 3
35 Bell & Ross 3
36 Cartier 3
37 Enicar 3
38 Tag Heuer 3
39 Fortis 3
40 Nomos 3
41 Farer 3
42 Orient 3
43 Universal Geneve 3
44 Eterna 2
45 Marathon 2
46 Baltic 2
47 Cyma 2
48 Siduna 2
49 Sterile 2
50 WMT 2
51 Casio 2
52 Huawei 2
53 Ollech & Wajs 2
54 San Martin 2
55 Spinnaker 2
56 Ancre 2
57 Anonimo 2
58 Armida 2
59 Audemars Piguet 2
60 Cortebert 2
61 Ebel 2
62 L U Chopard 2
63 Seestern 2
64 Aerowatch 1
65 Dekla 1
66 Dugena 1
67 Junghans 1
68 Mr. Jones 1
69 Pobeda 1
70 Titoni 1
71 Unidentifiable 1
72 Victorinox 1
73 Zeno 1
74 Crepas 1
75 Dan Henry 1
76 Helgray 1
77 Offshore Professional 1
78 Pulsar 1
79 San Marco 1
80 Swatch 1
81 Unimatic 1
82 Anordain 1
83 Aquastar 1
84 Artya 1
85 Axes 1
86 Bertucci 1
87 Breguet 1
88 Bulgari 1
89 Cathode Corner 1
90 Certina 1
91 Corum 1
92 Darwil 1
93 Dornbluth & Sohn 1
94 Dufa 1
95 Dunhill 1
96 Eberhard 1
97 Elliot Brown 1
98 Evant 1
99 Garmin 1
100 Geckota 1
101 H2O 1
102 Hanhart 1
103 Helson 1
104 Hublot 1
105 Jenny 1
106 Kemmner 1
107 Kurono Tokyo 1
108 Linde Werdelin 1
109 Mappin and Webb 1
110 Moser 1
111 Movado 1
112 Obris Morgan 1
113 Omologato 1
114 Oscar 1
115 Philip Watch 1
116 Roamer 1
117 Signum 1
118 Skmei 1
119 Smiths 1
120 Steeldive 1
121 Tiger 1
122 Tornek-Rayville 1
123 Tribus 1
124 Vostok 1
125 Zelos 1

[Sinnlover]

Entertaining as always, must try to get CWC further up the list.
Thanks.

[dkpw]

Thank you for your work and the stats. We love facts here on TZUK. :)

[Rinaldo1711]

I always enjoy this - thanks for all the trouble you take putting it together.

[DigitalSeb]

Thanks for the write up always interesting!


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[ASW1]

As ever, thanks. A great write up and reassuring that the watch world (here at least) seems to be in good order. Happy New Year.

[SteveDSSD]

I love the Friday threads as they are always an opportunity to see an incredible variety of watches and often inspire the purchase of the "final" watch for the collection. The monthly summary is a really interesting read and all the time that goes into producing it is really impressive. A bit of a bonus this month, in that my little super compressor got a mention! Thanks for all the hard work, it's really appreciated.

[Bondurant]

Thanks as always for taking the time to do this Wimm

[Jon Kenney]

Thanks Wimm. Lovely jubbly.

[Griswold]

Enjoyed reading that. Many thanks for taking the time to do this.

[DMC102]

Bravo. I always look forward to this - thanks for doing it!

[sish101]

Great summary and always entertaining to read. Thanks.

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[97BlackC5]

Another fascinating write up, it amazes me how Heuer beats Tag Heuer every time when you consider how prominent Tag are on the high street. Also interesting from a personal point of view, 3 brands I own didn't make it onto the list, Baume et Mercier, Rado & Frederique Constant, what does that say about my taste in watches? Lol. Clearly I am going to have to start wearing them on a Friday, keep up the good work, much appreciated.

[RAJEN]

Fantastic as always Wimm. Thanks again for the effort and the best of year to you.

[SCH74]

This was interesting. Thank you for putting that all together. Must have took some time.


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[RogDen]

Very well written and informative as always


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[Bonny Marco]

Thanks Wimm. Always interesting and informative.

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[JGJG]

Always great!