The Ten (Or So) Watches I Want Most in 2024 (Part 1)
And what it would take to dethrone them.
This is part one in a series taking a look at the watches on my mind as we come into 2024 in earnest. Part two will come tomorrow, so keep an eye out.
This past weekend I had the absolute pleasure of attending the inaugural meetup of the Lehigh Valley Watch Club. Sitting in the private back room of a Mexican restaurant about an hour outside of Philadelphia, we went around the table and each took turns to answer what should be a fairly simple question: “What’s the next watch you’re looking for?”
As you would expect from a random assortment of collectors, we had a plethora of different answers and options come up. This got me thinking, what watches would I actually want to add to my collection in the coming year? So this is that list — or at least, this is a version of that list as I consider the question in the middle of January 2024.
There is little to no chance that I add this many watches this year. If I were suddenly to go after so many watches so quickly, it would be a radical departure from the way I have collected watches for well over a decade. I should also say that this list is by no means an exhaustive look at watches I love or a detailed roadmap for how I plan on operating in the coming months.
All that said, this list is probably a decent look into my collecting brain — a real and honest reflection on what watches have a shot of making it into my collection in 2024. In no particular order, and with my preamble out of the way, I suppose there’s nothing to do but dive in.
1. Rolex Explorer II Polar Ref. 16570
Well, it comes as no surprise that the first watch to spring to mind when I think of holes in my collection is the watch I’ve been thinking about for longer than just about any other. The 16570 is my favorite modern Rolex (by my definition, 5-digit or more recent), and is a watch I have coveted for nearly as long as I have been collecting watches.
If I could pick any 16570, I’d like one with drilled lugs and solid end links. Watches with this precise configuration were only produced in short order between 2000 and 2003, but I suppose the longer I’ve been thinking about the watch, the more specific I’ve gotten.
The other benefit to getting one of these early aughts 16570s is that they are also lumed with Super-Luminova. As much as I love earlier tritium dialed examples (and the porcelain dials that come with them), the 16570 is a watch I am unlikely to ever sell, and if I’m going to have it around for the rest of my life, I want lume that won’t fade.
What could bump this off the list?
While I’m sure there are plenty of other watches on this list that could be pushed from my mind with the right new release, 15 years of interest in the Explorer II are unlikely to be superseded by anything new to the market. Rolex returning to a 40mm case size for the model line could make for a tempting alternative, but I would be beyond shocked to see that happen.
A white dialed Tudor Black Bay Pro seems like a more likely release, but the slab-sided nature of that watch and rivet bracelet don’t quite work for me, and maintaining the luminous ceramic markers on a white model would sacrifice the black surrounds, which I would cite as a loss.
2. Omega Speedmaster Professional Moonwatch
What NASA-obsessed watch nerd doesn’t want a Speedy? If there’s one out there I have yet to meet them. The Speedmaster has been high on my list for years now and I increasingly am running out of reasons not to own one. Well, I do have one good reason — price.
My two favorite Speedmaster references, the panda dialed “Mitsukoshi” LE for the Japanese market and the Apollo 13 45th Anniversary (Silver Snoopy II) have each seen prices rise astronomically over the last few years. Honestly, I just can’t see myself spending upwards of 30k on a steel Speedmaster, so I think I can be happy with the standard black dial variant.
What could bump this off the list?
Unless, that is, Omega releases the new white-dialed Speedy we saw on Daniel Craig’s wrist back in November. What I eventually realized after trying on a truly insane number of Speedmasters is that I just prefer that watch with a white dial. I love the contrast between the bezel and the dial (though I don’t particularly care which colors the sundials are). If and when Omega drops this new variant, I’m fairly certain it will jump to the top of my Speedy list.
3. My New Year’s Resolution Watch(es)
Earlier this month, I contributed to a roundup of watch-related New Year’s Resolutions over at Worn & Wound (read here), and put it out there that this year I want to patch two very specific holes in my collecting. For years, I have been saying that Tudor and NOMOS Glashütte are among my favorite brands. But I have never owned a watch from either brand.
I’ve convinced other people to buy them, and I’ve considered pulling the trigger myself, but for one reason or another, it has never quite happened. This year, a big part of me wants to rectify that problem. This then begs the question, which Tudor or NOMOS should I get? For me this feels easier on the Tudor side — Pelagos FXD MN.
If there is one style of watch that has defined Tudor since their relaunch a decade ago, it has been divers and the FXD is, to me, the ultimate Tudor dive watch. I don’t need another dive watch, but the FXD carries with it a totally different feel than any other in my collection, and the flat blue is spectacular. I’ll admit readily that when this launched I kind of scoffed at it, but I have done a complete 180 and this will almost certainly be my first (but likely not my last) Tudor.
The NOMOS side of the equation is a little trickier. The new re-edition of the Club 701 (cleverly named the 701.1) would be an easy option. It’s relatively affordable, remarkably handsome, and I have had my eye on it since around 2016. It’s a fantastic watch and one I could see wearing for years to come. But if I’m being honest, the watch I want is far more specific.
I have been obsessed with NOMOS’s travel watch since the first time I saw it in person on the wrist of a friend of mine. It is a fantastic, legible, intuitive, and satisfying take on my favorite complication, the GMT, while also being thin and dressy (not the most common aesthetic for travel watches. So the NOMOS I really want is the Fratello Weltzeit “Blue Panda” limited edition. The color palette, with its bi-color dial and pops of orange, feels quintessentially NOMOS, and I will for sure be keeping my eyes open for this one.
What could bump these off the list?
On the NOMOS side of the equation, I feel pretty settled. For as much as I love the brand, they rarely drop new releases that turn my head in an instant. This is far from a commentary on the quality of their novelties, more just that my style and the brand’s are more a Venn diagram than they are a circle, so I feel a need to be slightly more particular. The watch that could bump the Blue Panda will come up on this list next, but if I get that I’ll just get the 701, so it’s an easy problem to solve.
The Tudor is more of a challenge, and slightly more existential. The FXD is my favorite Tudor by a country mile, with a tightly packed race for second following behind it. So the biggest obstacle between me and an FXD is an FXD that has yet to be made. What I want is an MN26. 26 has always been my number, and waiting two years for a dive watch when I already have plenty seems easy enough to do. Picking another Tudor to get in the meantime may be too hard a decision to make, especially since each of their novelties seems to capture my attention, at least for a little while.
4. Grand Seiko SBGM221
The SBGM221 is a watch with which I have had sort of an up-and-down relationship — that is, every time I see one in person I fall in love and then I slowly talk myself out of it. There is a lot to like about this watch, and I’m clearly not the only one who thinks so. I know plenty of collectors for whom this is the only Grand Seiko they would even consider owning.
While that may not be the case for me, it is definitely the GS I have been flirting with the longest and I think it’s about time for me to commit and see what having this watch around would be like.
There is something inherently appealing about the concept of a dressy GMT watch to me. The reality is, most of my travel isn’t going off to climb a mountain on another continent or dive in another time zone. Most of my travel is for work, and even most of my travel for fun is to cities. The SBGM221 is the perfect travel watch for my kind of travel. That the watch can easily be transformed from a dress piece into what essentially amounts to a field watch by throwing it on a green NATO makes it even better.
What could bump this off the list?
Despite their carrying entirely different aesthetics, the biggest completion for the SBGM221 is the Blue Panda NOMOS. The two watches would undoubtedly compete for the same wrist space when traveling so it feels daft to pick them both up (at least initially).
The other big hurdle for the SBGM221 is the inevitability of more versions of the Elegance Collection GMT with new dials and details. The SBGM241 “Toge” with its deep green textured dial already offers some stiff competition, and there will always be another great limited edition Grand Seiko coming down the pike.
I find that navigating GS is about finding the watch that feels right and diving in, but sometimes navigating the subtle variations can make that hard to do. Maybe it is best to just go for the original.
5. An Oris With Some Color
Okay, rounding out today’s selections is a brand I probably should have mentioned in my New Year’s Resolution — Oris. Oris is another one of those brands that I love, but don’t own any watches from, which is something that probably needs to change. And if you’re gonna go Oris, you might as well get something with some color.
If you’ve been paying the slightest bit of attention to Oris over the last few years, it should come as no surprise that Oris is seemingly having more fun than just about any other brand. The way they have been experimenting and playing with color has been a blast to watch and has yielded some truly wild watches.
Multicolored dials, vibrant pinks, and wild pastels in bronze cases have all made appearances in recent years. Still, if I were to pick from the current Oris catalog, three watches more than stand out: the Oris x Bracenet Aquis Upcycle, the ProPilot X Laser, and the ProPilot X Kermit.
It should come as no surprise that I would include an Oris dive watch on this list, given my predilections, and while the Bracenet Aquis Upcyle may well find its way into my collection at some point or another, the ProPilot X is clearly the standout model in the current Oris lineup, and I would be hard pressed to choose between Kermit and the new Laser treated dial options.
What could bump these off the list?
A ProPilot X GMT. Or, more specifically, an Oris ProPilot X equipped with an Oris Cal. 690.
For those unfamiliar, the Oris Cal. 690 is a trigger-actuated GMT that jumps forward and backward. Most notably, it was the movement that powered the 36mm Hölstein Edition “Full Steel” back in 2022, but Oris has been using it in travel watches for years. They even put the actuator in the bezel of a Big Crown ProPilot a few years ago. Slap that into the ProPilot X’s 39mm titanium case and you’ve got a customer, especially with a wild dial to match.
You can read Part Two here.