Friday Watches - December 2022
December man looks through the snow to let eleven brothers know they're all a little older.
For once we did see some snow, a proper cold snap (although we don't want to see the resulting energy bills). Again the distressing practice of cruelly snatching watches from their cosy safes and unceremoniously dumping them in the snow for photographic kicks was carried out. Happily it appears that fewer watches were subject to this mal-treatment this time around.
So what, if anything, can be made of our watch wearing habits in the final gasps of the year? We did try to haul the numbers up from November's depths although that wasn't difficult, especially for a five Friday month. We scraped together 627 watches which pushed the weekly average up to a still relatively lowly 125.4.
December started off with a rare win for Omega, pushing Rolex and Seiko down into second and third respectively. Unfortunately that was a high point for Omega, the second week saw them lose two thirds of their earlier total and plummet to fourth behind the usual suspects and Timefactors. Things didn't get any better for Omega on the sixteenth where they recorded one fewer watch to reach a low of five. This loss of one watch pushed them down to seventh behind not just Rolex but Seiko, Sinn and Panerai with eight and Timefactors and Grand Seiko with seven. Unsurprisingly a lot of Rolex were worn on Christmas Eve as we all tried to impress Santa. They reached twenty which was the first time those dizzying heights have been reached buy a single brand since the 16th of September. Seiko came second with ten and Panerai (eight) kept Omega (seven) out of its usual third spot. The final Friday of the year was a good one for Seiko, topping the table with just one more than Rolex. Omega, after a yo-yo journey over the preceding four weeks, returned to its safe space at number three.
There were plenty of ups and downs elsewhere. LU Chopard recorded not only a new all time weekly high of three but also a new monthly high of six. Conversely not a single Bremont was worn in December, the first time that has happened since September 2021. After a quiet year Ming ended on a monthly high for the year (six) and after a successful year Longines also finished off on a high of ten (the last time they saw double figure was February 2020 when they reached thirteen).
Even if overall numbers remained subdued there was a welcome increase in variety. The 121 brands shown in December was eleven percent higher than in November . This was only the second time since April that numbers of brands exceeded 120. Another seven brands returned to the Friday thread including Helvetia which must mean that Alfat33 popped in ever so briefly to say hello. We also saw our first Jenny and Enoksen this year. Another six brands made their first ever appearance on the Friday thread among those were Orfina, Limes and Studio Underd0g (no that isn't a typo, well not on my behalf at least).
With awards season just around the corner there was some last minute jostling for positions on the shortlist for WOTY. There was Papa hotel's gorgeous Ming 37.05, by far my favourite implementation of a moonphase complication. helidoc's patients rewarded him with a beautiful Dornbluth 99.1 (without applied indices), paw3001 wore his award winning JLC Master with Sector Dial in the vain hope of seeking a nomination (a previous watch can not win again but fear not your Salmon dailed Kurono-Toyko is in the mix). At the vintage end of the spectrum Pacifichrono put on his 1967 Glycine Combat and we were also treated to mariod's lovely vintage Citizen auto dater. The 30th saw a seemingly uncommonly high number of vintage Submariners with deepreddave's Tudor showing that Rolex don't have all of the sub fun.
And that is 2022 finished. Watch this space for the annual gala (pie) dinner and awards ceremony. In the meantime have some numbers.
1 Rolex 86
2 Seiko 67
3 Omega 45
4 Sinn 29
5 Tudor 29
6 Timefactors 27
7 Panerai 26
8 Grand Seiko 19
9 Breitling 15
10 CWC 15
11 Damasko 13
12 IWC 12
13 Longines 10
14 Christopher Ward 9
15 Hamilton 8
16 Citizen 7
17 G Shock 7
18 Zenith 7
19 Bulova 6
20 L U Chopard 6
21 Ming 6
22 Patek Philippe 6
23 Victorinox 6
24 Blancpain 5
25 Farer 5
26 Jaeger-LeCoultre 5
27 KMK 5
28 Suunto 5
29 Casio 4
30 Dornbluth & Sohn 4
31 Helson 4
32 Heuer 4
33 Nomos 4
34 Squale 4
35 Universal Geneve 4
36 Audemars Piguet 3
37 Cartier 3
38 Doxa (modern) 3
39 Garmin 3
40 Glycine 3
41 Tissot 3
42 Vacheron Constantin 3
43 Apple 2
44 Breguet 2
45 Helm 2
46 Limes 2
47 Muhle 2
48 Nodus 2
49 Porsche Design 2
50 Pulsar 2
51 Revue Thommen 2
52 Rotary 2
53 Safari 2
54 Stowa 2
55 Ulysse Nardin 2
56 Aerowatch 1
57 Airain 1
58 Alpina 1
59 Android 1
60 Anonimo 1
61 Bell & Ross 1
62 Beuchat 1
63 BND 1
64 Boldr 1
65 Bund 1
66 Chronoswiss 1
67 Corum 1
68 Credor 1
69 Darwil 1
70 Davosa 1
71 Dekla 1
72 Draken 1
73 Dunhill 1
74 Enoksen 1
75 Eterna 1
76 Formex 1
77 Fortis 1
78 Frederique Constant 1
79 Glaschutte Original 1
80 Halios 1
81 Heimdallr 1
82 Helvetia 1
83 Incipio 1
84 Jenny 1
85 Kurono Tokyo 1
86 Laco 1
87 Lemania 1
88 Lorier 1
89 Maen 1
90 Mathey-Tissot 1
91 Maurice La Croix 1
92 Moritz Grossmann 1
93 Movado 1
94 Nike 1
95 Nivada Grenchen 1
96 NTH 1
97 Oceanx 1
98 Orfina 1
99 Orient 1
100 Oris 1
101 Pagani Design 1
102 Pequignet 1
103 Rado 1
104 Roamer 1
105 Schofield 1
106 Scurfa 1
107 Seestern 1
108 Siduna 1
109 Smiths 1
110 Steinhart 1
111 Studio Underd0g 1
112 Synchron 1
113 Tag Heuer 1
114 Timex 1
115 Traska 1
116 Unimatic 1
117 Ventus 1
118 Von Doren 1
119 Wm Forbes 1
120 Wolbrook 1
121 Yema 1
