10 Worst Watch Brands Right Now

it isn't all lollipops and Daisy chains in watchland you know and so today I'm going to be doing a little housekeeping and cleaning out those watch brands that really ought to be doing better it's about to get stanky up in here to set the scene I don't want to simply pull out the most god- awful looking watches I can find point fingers at them and say ew because me telling you which brands I think make ugly watches isn't going to be particularly productive you can see that for yourself likewise there are plenty of low volume unheard of watch brands making mediocre watches that I'd rather not even draw attention to so these ones are perhaps not going to be all of what you expect and perhaps not for the reasons you expect either to show you what I mean let's start off with the first brand brega now brega has a remarkable Legacy Abraham Louie of the same name was such a legend in watchmaking that John Arnold the man who coined the term chronometer swapped Sons with him not permanent just for an apprenticeship but you get the point when the guy the man John Arnold sends his son to you to learn watch making it means you're pretty good at it it's like James Cordon shipping out his spawn to learn how to be unbearably annoying brega had more hits Than the Beatles he invented the first shock absorption to protect delicate pivots from breaking he was neck and neck with parall for the first self-winding watch the overcoil which brought concentricity to the expansion and traction of the balance spring was his the first wrist wash ever for crying out loud and of course the toron man's a legend he is said to have spiked one of his watches into the floor at a well-to-do dinner party just to prove the shock absorption worked and the watches of brega today are in a word Exquisite the complexity the finishing the artisanship all Peerless doesn't really sound all too bad and yet for some reason brega has slipped into a state of lifelessness to the point where people are wondering if the brands only hit in a decade will be made of bioceramic if brega the brand could talk it would say I used to be with it but then they changed what it was now what I'm with isn't it anymore and what's it seems weird and scary seeing brega flounder feels like browsing a nudie mag in a church it's just wrong 5 10 years ago they were a top 10 bestselling brand sharing rarified with the likes of PCH Philipe and Vashon Constantine now they aren't even in the top 20 if anything you'll find them in the airport lounge alongside tiso and Hamilton all the ingredients are there but they just aren't compounded into a brand that inspires people it's less an active contributor to the industry and more more of a mosum for a once great watch maker it would be unfair to talk about brega in this way and not bring up Blan pan like brega when when blonc pan comes up in conversation with watch type people there's always a moment's silence an array of sad farrowed brows and someone usually says something like it's a real shame what happened like we're talking about a kid with a bright promising future that died in a drunk driving accident blonc pan to put everything here into perspective is the oldest watch company in the world 1735 it was founded and it has been in action in some guys or another ever since that's getting on for 300 years ago when Mr whitebread first set up shop in villeray the British Industrial Revolution hadn't even started yet nor had the Brits yet got into a spot of bother over tea in the Americas Captain Cook never mind sailing the oceans he was still learning to swim the company is so old that when Viller was annexed to France during the Napoleonic Wars it was already a third generation business the brand as you would expect had its fair share of world firsts some less wellknown than others here's one of my favorites despite rolex's best efforts to suggest otherwise British watch maker John Harwood brought the first self-winding wrist watches to market with the automatic rotor bolted onto a movement built in partnership with none other than Blanc pan this wouldn't be the last kafuffle with Rolex as in 1950 something one of the two first made a dive watch that would become the dive watch forever and to Eternity neither seemed to argue over the fact that it was Blan pan but very clearly Rolex did the better job of actually getting theirs out there there imagine making the first dive watch and then just sitting on it whilst someone else has their way that's like donating a Ferrari Enzo to the shelter for homeless to sleep in not even a big kick up the posterior from the watch Industries Dr Frankenstein one jeanclaude Beaver could get Blan pan back up to full health right now it appears to be in the late Michael Jackson stage of its existence held together with sticky tape and propile again there's so much there such a strong Foundation to build on but no oh well imagine buying into a brand that has a built-in rapidly dedicated fan base that traces its Origins back to perhaps the first military commission for Rolex and has one of the purest and most iconographic designs in watchmaking history and then doing worse by it than an old lady and her Fresco you had one job panai one don't break it I don't know if perhaps mommy and daddy Panerai went out for a well- needed break away from the kids and left their teenage son in charge what I do know is that this project P has been less than ideal only this time it's not mcosta County Michigan where it all started going wrong but Brooklyn New York in 2011 panai released a 150 piece limited edition of its iconic lumor maren but this time with a solid caseback engraved with a depiction of the famous Brooklyn Bridge it's the Pam 00 318 and it's still listed on the panai website if you search for it look it up it was a special Boutique only Edition containing the caliber op XX iix now some context this was an era before the in-house movement became the hype thing many many manufacturers used basic bought-in movements and really the watch makers inhouse prowess came from distinguishing finishes applied to the movement Panerai to be historically accurate frequently used the ETA 6497 a big handwound movement with a pocket watch lineage it's a fine movement and when well decorated ated a worthy addition to any watch only trouble was the op xxix was not a well decorated movement to be clear it wasn't even a decorated movement the manufacturers of these calibers offer up their wees in different states of decoration from bare boned fresh out of the wash nothing to exquisitely elaborate graining beveling and polishing in the case of the 4,900 lb 318 panai chose death the caliber op xxix was nothing short of the most basic iteration of the 6497 possible with not only less finishing than the 1996 Monaco Grand Prix and edges so raw they' leave Gordon Ramsey speechless this thing was Flatout beaten and scratched like it had spent the first part of its life as a hockey puck Lord Knows Why one of the 150 people who bought one chose to take the case back off but in doing so they uncovered the start of something rocked in a Panerai that just hasn't gone away today it's almost like the brand overcompensated by driving towards luxury and and sustainability with elaborate in-house movements and everything that didn't get people zealous about the brand in the first place it's a wicked shame because whilst the design is not to everyone's tastes it's a wholly unique and historic thing that stands out completely from everything else on the market there's nothing contrived or artificial about those original designs but somehow Panerai has gone on to manage it anyway oh sorry I've just heard the box is recycled I'll have two please join me if you will on the tale of a watch maker and not just any ordinary watch maker but one so gifted with Talent he would have had Simon Cal booking in another round with his plastic surgeon he was one of the last of the Old Guard a shining example of those Master Watch makers who fettled only the finest Machinery cutting his teeth at lene in the 1950s and quickly Rising through the ranks to the protect Philipe High complications Workshop those watches you see fetching helicopter money at auction some of those could well have passed through his hands for the few watch makers that get that far which is almost entirely none of them that's the Holy Grail working for protect Philipe in the high complications team isn't just like getting a seat in F1 it's like getting the seat table Crockery and all the silverware too but genius never settles for settling and so our Plucky hero ditched the big PE PE to go fix old watches and clocks instead and by fix old watches and clocks I mean restoring the finest and rarest examples in the world he did this for collectors auction houses and even the brands themselves and he was the best he was Periscope proof still it wasn't enough not content with making the best watches in the world for someone else or fixing the most important watches in the world either he decided to make his own brand there were two main models one a chronograph and the other at its most complex containing a world first that he had developed for Harry Winston the by retrograde wait for it perpetual calendar now that's just showing off everyone knows the perpet ual calendar is protect Philip's thing and here's this doing whatever that is and it's just outrageous rubbing it in their face like that is just poor taste like fragrantly dancing at a man in a wheelchair so time to reveal all who is this mystery watch maker one Roger dub wait Roger du as in the Lamborghini tie tread nights of the Round Table Roger du the very same aligning those two visuals in the Mind's Eye Tak some real mental parkour I imagine this is what being John malovic is like especially when you see that those original watches are going for upwards of £60,000 collectors love them auctioneers love them and yet what the brand is actually making couldn't be further from any of that I haven't met a single person who's heard of Roger dub bu who doesn't say the same thing they should be making what they used to make in the way they used to make it did you know that famed watch designer Gerald Charles Genta founded his own watch brand actually he founded did several Board of Designing the most iconic watches for odmar p PCH Philip Omega Cartier IWC Bulgari Hamilton and so on and so on he thought he'd let loose and have a crack at sticking his own name on a watch Instead This was the Gerald Genta brand and he really let loose like Mom's been on the Bailey again loose from the cutesy Mickey Mouse to the Bona's Grand soner he let his mind leak out onto the sketch pad without restraint but all good things come to an end and in 2000 aging Genta decided it was time to sell up kick back and get some much needed Beach time yeah that lasted all of about 5 seconds because also in 2000 jenta founded a new watch brand Gerald Charles in 2006 he released the Maestro a name that had been gifted to him by the industry for being so damn good at designing watches too good in fact calling the watch Maestro like that is just rubbing it in the industry's face like fragrantly singing at a man with a hearing aid but all good things really do come to pass as jenta did in 2011 and the Maestro was no more until it was revived in 2020 that is the watch I mean not the man and in a world of cynical business deals done to capitalize on the names of since gone Legends I actually think this is a good thing the Nautilus and Royal Oak are so far beyond the means of ordinary people that genter fans looking to own a piece of the action are left unstuck but the Maestro that's a simple time only watch in stainless steel with a nice but affordable vouer caliber inside the same one found in the 4,870 Hermes h8 it's the makings of the perfect fairy tale the Revival of genta's Legacy in a way that re-energizes a tired cynical Community or it would be if the Maestro weren't £4,200 but wait there's more Jump Ahead to the Maestro sport Skillet in matte finish titanium and you'll spy a skeletonized version of the vower micro rotor movement found in the £2,000 parmesan Tunda only from Gerald Charles it'll cost you £ 53,500 this is the first watch I saw the price of on the Gerald Charles website and I remember seeing the deposit option of £ 5,350 and thinking they'd have a little trouble moving them at that price when I realized that was just the deposit I damn near ruptured my spleen okay okay so let's be measured about this it's not the standard vower micro rotor it's been skeletonized but look closer and you'll see this work is done entirely by machine with rounded inner angles and CNC marks on all the bevels and it's at this proximity you'll also realize that much of the complexity in the skeletonization isn't even in the movement it's done to a plate laid on top of the movement see how the jewels and screws peer up from their hidey holes like little timmies stuck down a well the conversation always goes something like this have you heard of bom B Mercier no Bal are you having a stroke that's exactly what I just said and such a response is as warranted now as it was back in 2018 when Bal not B Mercier was announced the perpetually cautious will immediately be thinking the same thing how did Bal not get sued into the next Dimension Ah that's because the company that owns B Mercier created B do you see but wait they're different companies then I don't know what you're not getting about this B Mercier is a watch brand got it B is a different watch brand owned and created by the same company simple this was very clearly emphasized at launch that the two Brands were entirely separate with no overlap or crossover or any other synonym to suggest otherwise so if that's what balm isn't what about what it is well I'm glad you asked because BM is a hip new brand focused on customization and sustainability bringing watchmaking to a younger cooler audience featuring trendy recycled materials and a quartz movement from the other side of the planet the B brand launched with two collections the optimistically titled iconic series and the kid it's Friday let's go home custom time piece series yes the custom time piece in bal's collection is called custom time piece this level of Blue Sky outside the box brain sharting came hand inand with the most how do you do fellow kids marketing campaign since that school assembly on wearing seat belts after crunching the data deliberating the board meetings and focusing the groups the people at Barm decided the best way to appeal to the hearts and minds of a younger generation with £500 to blow on a watch was skateboarding yes like a badly informed politician looking to assuage a youthful demographic they chose cringe and I don't think you'll be surprised to learn it didn't work and so in 2020 it was announced that bone would become part of B Mercier after all in the biggest Retreat since Dunkirk I want to take this moment to highlight what I think is the biggest problem with the Legacy watch brands and groups today Association why do I say this because Bal was quoted to have been targeted at Millennials who in 2018 were as old as 37 time to get some new blood folks right so when it comes to associations with World War II there are some gray areas panai made watches for the Italian Navy an Axis power IWC made watches for the German air force again an Axis power they both still make those watches and we as a community have decided that the object at self has enough separation from the actions of those who wore them to dissociate the two without that we wouldn't be able to enjoy things like the Fantastic 911 where I think we stray too close to the line is with a certain watch brand based on plans for a submarine instrument that was revived following the success of panaray to create a new business opportunity to be clear all that so far is fine with me as are the lumor and big pilot which and this really tickles me IWC refers to as being built in response to demand they're pieces of historic technology that can be appreciated in isolation and in the case of IWC went on to benefit the British royal Air Force as soon as the war was over but here's the issue I have if you were to take the Panerai and call it the ship Destroyer or the big pilot and call it the City bomber it might be a little too much that didn't seem to stop youo who simply decided to name their brand after one of the Nazis most successful war machines in the entire conflict read the room guys [Music] the next one is aimed less at one particular brand although I shall name a few and more at a group that in my eyes takes advantage of the free market a little too much for my liking yes we're all adults and we should do our own research and be responsible for our own actions but sometimes you just want to buy something nice without having to be cynical about it and so when you're looking for a nice simple affordable watch and come across the Sleek shiny websites of the likes of Daniel Wellington or movement you feel safe just to go ahead and enjoy the purchase rather than sweat bullets over it let me tell you something in my life so far I've been robbed beaten received death threats run over by a car knocked off my bike and temporarily paralyzed and all by the same person but none of those things none of them come close to the horror of realizing I've been conned this is the weirdest thing ever but of all those things that have happened to me it's buying something I thought was great and realizing it was some piece of dog later on that pops into my head just when I'm about to fall asleep this group of Brands I'm talking about are the ones that sell you a 20 AliExpress watch for £200 on the promise of slick advertising and a video of some 10 20 somethings having fun in Daddy's beach house maybe I'm alone in this but the contrast of naive hope and excitement against the sickening realization of being taken for a ride makes me feel smaller than a quark at a proton party maybe I just have a crippling fear of failure that's exact acerbated by the bearing money has on success I'm not a psychologist even picturing the scene makes me feel icky You' got to raise you're doing well it's your birthday you get a watch which you really like and then you find out it's a rebadged AliExpress job for 10 times the price and now you either have to ditch it and upset all involved or keep that secret to your last dying breath you're not wearing your watch anymore honey I could just hear it now there are more Legends in this feature than anep episode of ker enthusiasm only this next one still telling his story he's done more for the watch industry than Thomas Midgley Jr did for the progression of Transport just minus the millions of deaths in irreparable damage to the environment I'm talking about jeanclaude Beaver he's got quite the list of achievements to his name omega as we know it today the third largest watch brand in the world exists as it does because of this man it would have otherwise languished into nothingness Daniel Craig isn't allowed to enjoy a Rolex because because of this man then there's blon pan which he revived and is now the um greatest um okay so that one doesn't really work but hublo he took the Reigns of hublo to turn it into um the biggest something okay so that's a little bit reductive beaver's work with blon pan in the 1980s turned the tide on quartz Reviving the idea that a mechanical watch could be a beautiful emotive thing it was an uphill battle with Beaver dubbed by the PR as a Nostalgia salesman and not just any press but the Swiss press I've got a feeling that sentiment is going to bite them on the ass 50 million in sales soon changed their tune and caught the attention of the Swatch group too who not only bought blon pan from Beaver but kindly asked him if he might do the same for dead duck Omega see Omega had put every last egg in a basket made of quartz and finally enough people didn't want to pay big money for quartz watches and so Omega went uh-oh and that's when Jun claw Beaver stepped in he recruited a crack team of watch marketing hot charts that would go on to become brand CEOs in their own right including Rolexes and together they tripled omega's Revenue then Beaver got really sick and then he came back with a bang that was big for hublo with the hublo Big Bang watch say what you want about hublo and the Big Bang it is still the 12th biggest watch brand in the entire world Beaver could sell methane to a mukow and proving his point with hublo like that is is just rubbing it in the industry's face like flagrantly looking at a man with a guide dog all he touches turns to Gold even he has remarked on his good business Fortune describing himself as a cat that always lands on all four pores even when chucked out of a window upside down and so as all the greats are want to do when it came to releasing a watch under his own name the world waited with baited breath only to find themselves face to face with what can only be described as a half million doll AliExpress watch the craftsmanship I'm sure is wondrous the complication with the toron and minute repeater is world class and the Finish which will be even further improved into the production versions is absolutely astonishing shame it looks like an invictor to be fair to Beaver the guy is such a good sport he's taken all this and more on the chin with a smile and if I were him I would be smiling too because he's sold enough of these to keep his cheese farm going until the Rapture I may not like it but once again he's proven that what I think really doesn't matter one jart the last worst brand is also the best brand and for reasons that I hope will soon become clearer than simply my mind having been lost to the ether I'll cut to the chase I'm talking about Rolex and it is for me the epitome of worst out of all of these Brands let me explain why I've owned now three Rolex watches some I really liked some I liked a little lesser than others but there's one constant throughout they were all fantastic watches with the balance of everything that that makes a singular watch great they aren't the best at anything there are better more prestigious Brands there are watches with finer craftsmanship there's better value to be had elsewhere but actually put all those things together and you'll struggle to find a better balance than Rolex brand for example goes without saying people will pay more than Rolex wants for one and that's all you need to know it's the byproduct of many great decisions made over rolex's Lifetime and frankly makes its competition look like amateurs quality no they're not hand beveling and polishing and striping and all that good stuff but there's still a certain heft and shine to a Rolex that feels a bit extra whether it's the gleam of the metal or just the crown logo on the dial I can't be sure but it's hard to say they don't feel luxurious despite the Simplicity and value you might brand me crazy for calling a Rolex good value but you take a look at the prices others like Omega brightling and Cartier are charging now and all of a sudden a 36 mm op especially with those residuals feels like a decision you can make as much with your head as you can with your heart this all very much sounds like I adore Rolex and I do even the business side the move to CPO is genius and will help stem the spikiness we've seen lately the purchasing of bukura to streamline the customer experience is peerless and should stem the tide on Shady dealer practices and the expansion of its manufacturing will hopefully shrink weight lists to a more reasonable duration so why is it the worst because when I first bought a Rolex I got to do so on my own terms I was a customer with money who wanted to feel special and I did buying a Rolex was without doubt a very rewarding experience but now it's different the watches are fantastic still Sublime even but the experience makes me feel like a little orphan boy begging for more I really don't like my enjoyment being at the behest of some bloke in a shiny suit who can barely even spell Rolex I'm not saying I want red carpets and glasses of champagne and Performing circus lions I just want to leave the transaction feeling like I supported them and not the other way round that makes Rolex bad but what makes it the worst is that even the idea of receiving a Rolex on bended knee is still a hypothetical to even get to that point there's a whole load of servitude that comes before it like I'm not looking to get knighted here I just want to buy a nice watch like I used to be able to is that so much to ask those are my worst watch brands what are yours let me know down in the comments a big Thanks goes out to my patreons for supporting me and to all of you for watching as well and remember if there's a job you want but you don't have the qualifications just make it up who's going to check [Music] goodbye

Channel: Andrew Morgan Watches | The Talking Hands

Views: 194,405

Keywords: hodinkee, swiss watches, watches, watch, watchmaking, watch review, luxury, lifestyle, men's fashion, review, rolex, breitling, omega, asmr, satisfying, top, 100, most, talking hands, watchfinder, trainer ham bridge, luxury watches, andrew morgan, andrew morgan watches, reacts, watch expert, expert reacts, gq, AMW, Andrew Morgan watches, Watchfinder, nico Leonard, Teddy Baldassarre, Breguet, blancpain, panerai, Roger Dubuis, baume, u-boat, Gerald Charles, Daniel wellington, mvmt, Biver, Jean-Claude Biver

Id: -nayP0auY78

Length: 25min 23sec (1523 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 30 2024