Did you realise that Hublot did not appear at all on last year's Friday threads? No, nor did I. Read on for more thrilling facts about watches that you have worn and our first ever pie chart (mmm pie!).

Well 2021 is up on us and, apart from a lot of needles being stuck into soft, fleshy parts of bodies (and not just for recreational reasons either) little has changed so far. I have been reminiscing about my last proper night out which was at the end of January of last year, steaks and beers with my best mates. Since then we have clocked up one divorce and three visits to hospital in the last twelve months between the four of us. Only one of those was COVID related (unless you also include the divorce). And we have got off lightly compared to so many. Hopefully things will pick up.....

Anyway, to the watches. This year we have started off like a pack of lithe whippets with a total of 821 watches and 147 different brands. Figures that, last year, would have put the month third in overall numbers and first in terms of brands shown (more on this a little later). The top three started off more slowly than they did last year, no brand broke the 100 barrier in January whereas both Rolex and Seiko exceeded that number last January (Rolex are 26% down on last January). The weekly ride is still quite thrilling with Rolex narrowly coming first for the first three weeks before drawing first with Seiko on the 22nd before being soundly thrashed by Seiko on the 29th by 13 points and beaten in to third by Omega by three points. There are other familiar faces in the top ten with Timefactors out on their own between the leading pack and the peloton which sees Panerai, Tudor, Breitling, Grand Seiko and Sinn all in shoving distance of each other. A notable mention goes to Christopher Ward who's popular release of a compressor style watch has pushed them to a new monthly high of six appearances and 24th in the rankings. We have also seen an early contender for Watch of the year, Mr Tetley's Tokyoflash Kaisan (I can't have been the only one to head to their website. I am going to buy one this year, the hard part will be choosing which).

One hundred and forty seven different brands. Five more than last year's record set at the height of lockdown boredom in May. Which probably explains January's high. The best bit is fifteen of the brands are new to the Friday Thread, none of which appeared last year. This includes the aforementioned Hublot but also Mirexal, Alsta and, of course, Tokyoflash.

The high overall numbers but lower than usual numbers of the bigger brands suggests that members have made a switch to other brands. It is difficult to tell whether this is down to lockdown 3.0, a general trend or a Friday Thread effect. But, in my book, variety is the spice of life and the more we have the merrier.

Anyway to the numbers where it is neck and neck between the top two:

1 Rolex 96
2 Seiko 95
3 Omega 80
4 Timefactors 44
5 Panerai 29
6 Tudor 29
7 Breitling 22
8 Grand Seiko 22
9 Sinn 22
10 IWC 16
11 Zenith 14
12 Damasko 13
13 G Shock 12
14 Oris 12
15 Citizen 10
16 Jaeger-LeCoultre 9
17 Heuer 8
18 Newmark (Modern) 8
19 Sterile 8
20 CWC 7
21 Garmin 7
22 Ming 7
23 Steeldive 7
24 Christopher Ward 6
25 Hamilton 6
26 Oceanx 6
27 Universal Geneve 6
28 Apple 5
29 Audemars Piguet 5
30 Bremont 5
31 Fortis 5
32 Steinhart 5
33 Undone 5
34 A. Lange & Sohne 4
35 Bulova 4
36 Cartier 4
37 Helson 4
38 Moser 4
39 Muhle 4
40 Patek Philippe 4
41 Tag Heuer 4
42 Tissot 4
43 Ulysse Nardin 4
44 Vostok 4
45 Anonimo 3
46 Blancpain 3
47 Longines 3
48 Lorier 3
49 Nomos 3
50 Orient 3
51 Squale 3
52 Vacheron Constantin 3
53 Vertex (Modern) 3
54 WMT 3
55 Wolbrook 3
56 Aevig 2
57 Alpina 2
58 Bell & Ross 2
59 Casio 2
60 Certina 2
61 Doxa (modern) 2
62 Fit Bit 2
63 Girard Perigeaux 2
64 Glycine 2
65 Helgray 2
66 Helvetia 2
67 L U Chopard 2
68 Lemania 2
69 Lip 2
70 Mappin and Webb 2
71 Ollech & Wajs 2
72 Scurfa 2
73 Sekonda 2
74 Suunto 2
75 Swatch 2
76 Tokyoflash 2
77 Aerowatch 1
78 Alexander Shorokhoff 1
79 Alsta 1
80 Anordain 1
81 Aquadive 1
82 Bali Ha'i 1
83 Ball 1
84 Baume et Mercier 1
85 ChromeFD 1
86 Chrono 1
87 Chronoswiss 1
88 Crepas 1
89 Dan Henry 1
90 De Bethune 1
91 Debert 1
92 Dekla 1
93 Detroit Watch Co. 1
94 Dornbluth & Sohn 1
95 Dubey and Schaldenbrand 1
96 Eterna 1
97 Fosters Ltd. 1
98 Frederique Constant 1
99 Geralch 1
100 Ginault 1
101 Glaschutte Original 1
102 GWS 1
103 Hanhart 1
104 Heimdallr 1
105 Helbros 1
106 Helm 1
107 Hoffman 1
108 Huami 1
109 Hublot 1
110 Iaxa 1
111 Ingersoll 1
112 J W Benson 1
113 Jean Richard 1
114 Junghans 1
115 Kemmner 1
116 L L Bean 1
117 Le Jour 1
118 Linde Werdelin 1
119 Marathon 1
120 Maurice La Croix 1
121 Meister Singer 1
122 Memocall 1
123 Mirexal 1
124 Mondaine 1
125 Montblanc 1
126 Movado 1
127 Mr. Jones 1
128 MWC 1
129 Nautica 1
130 Parmigiani 1
131 Rado 1
132 Raymond Weil 1
133 Record 1
134 Revue Thommen 1
135 Ricoh 1
136 Rotary 1
137 RXW 1
138 Shanghai 1
139 Signum 1
140 Smiths 1
141 Timex 1
142 Traser 1
143 Unidentifiable 1
144 Uno 1
145 Vulcain 1
146 West End Watch Co 1
147 Yema 1
148 Zodiac 1


"What about the pie?" you may be asking. Well, due to some changes to increase my productivity (a new macro and a mouse instead of the trackpad) it takes me less time to do the count. Instead of using that time to devote to family life or other "important" things I thought I would re-invest the time in inputting more data ("Input. More Input.", points for guessing that pop-culture reference). This year I have decided to dig into the favoured watch styles on the forum. It is tricky trying to decide what a style is and how to record it, particularly if you have a watch that may fall in to more than one category (a military chronograph for instance) but I have set a few rules (e.g. the primary role is the role which is used therefore the aforementioned military chronograph would be recorded as a military). As this under-records one style in favour of another I am still not convinced that this is the way forward and I may tweak the rules to change it the other way around. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts, perhaps you would be more interested in the complications/physical attributes over style. So here is the pie chart.

on Flickr


Unsurprising we like our dive watches, particularly when considering the popular models of the two most popular brands are dive watches. Chronographs, I would hazard a guess that 80% are Speedmasters of some form with a smattering of Daytonas and other models. Other tools tend to include GMTs, Radiomirs, Landmasters and Explorers. I was surprised to see Dress watches make up a generous proportion of the total, this category include most Grand Seikos, Datejusts, Mosers and any simple three or two hander.

Anyway, I have a real pie (Chicken, ham and leek) in the oven which is just about ready so I shall leave it there.