This is a wonderfully honest mid-1950s Longines dress watch powered by the legendary Longines Caliber 23Z, freshly serviced and regulated and running with excellent performance. It is a watch for the true patina lover: the dial has aged into a heavy, mottled vintage texture that reads like parchment, giving the piece a one-of-one character that you simply cannot replicate.

This is a beautifully preserved 1961 Bulova Selfwinding dress watch powered by Bulova's Caliber 11AFAC automatic movement, freshly serviced and regulated for reliable everyday wear. The star of the show is the dial: a clean silver sunburst finish in excellent condition that catches the light beautifully, paired with warm gilt markers and classic mid-century typography. At 31mm, this is a particularly good fit for smaller wrists or anyone who prefers a more traditional vintage profile.

This is a striking 1960s-era Waltham dress watch with a genuinely rare feature for the period: a deep blue dial that has survived in excellent condition. Blue dials were far less common than silver or champagne in mid-century everyday watches, and this one delivers a rich, even tone with a subtle sunburst effect that makes the applied baguette-style markers and small-seconds register pop. The watch has been fully serviced and regulated and is running well, making it a very wearable vintage piece despite honest case wear.

Continuing my streak of finally publishing long-promised watchmaking guides, I have just published two new guides. The first, my Regulation Guide, goes into great detail on regulating a watch, including a number of troubleshooting tips if things don’t go as easily as you might have hoped. Of course, before you regulate a watch you first have to address any issues with low amplitude, and I have published a separate, practical Amplitude Troubleshooting Guide that delves into that topic. Neither of these guides are truly exhaustive, but if they help a lightbulb go off for you when you’re struggling with a challenging watch, I’ll like they’ve accomplished their purpose.

This is a clean, mid-century Helbros Invincible dress watch built around a high-grade 21-jewel manual-wind movement and restored for confident everyday wear. With its bright silver sunburst dial, sharp applied markers, and freshly replated casework, it delivers the classic 1960s look in a very wearable 34mm size.

It’s been quite a long time coming, but I’ve finally published my Advanced Tools Guide. This will be helpful for anyone relatively new to watchmaking who is really ready to double down on the hobby and improve their ability to address challenging situations.

Just a few quick site updates for my Collection and Shop pages.

This is a beautifully preserved late-1940s Gruen Veri-Thin tank wristwatch, freshly serviced and regulated, and representing one of Gruen’s most important postwar dress-watch designs. Compact, elegant, and mechanically refined, it captures the restrained sophistication that defined American watchmaking in the years immediately following World War II.

This Helbros chronograph is a fantastic slice of mid-century timing hardware, built around the legendary Venus 170 column-wheel movement. Here, it is the star of the show. Fully serviced, regulated and running strongly, it is in exceptional condition for vintage chronograph movement from this era and helps make this piece a great value.

This Elgin is pure mid-century charm: a clean silver dial with raised gold Arabic numerals, slim baton hands, and a playful red arrow seconds hand sweeping around the edge. Hidden safely in the monoblock case is Elgin’s grade 777 – a 19-jewel, U.S.A.-made manual movement with an extremely innovative free-sprung balance design.

This charming mid-1960s Longines takes the classic dress watch formula and gives it a subtle twist. It’s just been fully serviced and regulated, so you get the pleasure of winding a crisp 1960s Longines without worrying about what’s happening under the hood.

If you’ve been looking for an attractive, affordable vintage chrono with real 1950s charm – and freshly serviced for regular wear – this Olma is ready to get back on a wrist instead of living in a drawer.

I finally got around to a project I’ve been meaning to do for some time - sharing my own personal watch collection on the site. The new pages have detailed photos and information on the watches I’ve restored for my own appreciation. I’m hoping this will be interesting for fellow vintage watch collectors, and also serve as an “idea page” for folks looking for a vintage watch that suits their tastes. You can visit the collection by clicking on the link in the nav bar.

This 1950s Longines has developed a gorgeous honey-colored patina on the dial which really makes for a fantastic vintage look. Inside the 10K gold fill case is a beautifully made Longines 23ZS manual movement, so nice looking that it’s really a shame watches from this era didn’t have exhibition case backs.

Hamilton Illinois co-branded watches, which were only produced for three years from 1953 to 1955, are relatively rare. Hamilton Illinois watches in good running condition are even rarer, so this elegant men’s tank is a great collector’s watch. Perhaps ironically, given both Hamilton and Illinois were storied American brands from the pocket watch era, this watch uses a Swiss ETA movement.

This great looking late 1940s Gruen has a striking guilloche dial with a distinctive cross pattern that contrasts nicely with the gold plated case and a classic sub-second configuration. The Swiss-made 17 jewel Gruen 435 manual movement is small, but a strong runner nonetheless.

This vintage Bulova is highlighted by a full stainless steel case - a relative rarity for the brand - with a matching dial and gold numerals. Inside, the 23 jewel Bulova 10BZAC automatic movement is in fantastic condition.

Sporting the signature red pointer second hand, a calendar display, and a dial with some really interesting and cool numerals at the 6, 9 and 12 o’clock positions, this attractive Waltham makes a great vintage watch statement. It is powered by a relatively rare R614 manual wind movement. Both the case and movement were made in Japan.

An attractive vintage Tissot ladies dress watch in excellent condition. The 17 jewel Tissot 2403 movement powering this beauty is tiny but mighty, with a high 28,800 bph rate for accuracy and a 36 hour power reserve.

This tiny powerhouse Tissot from the 1950s has classic looks coupled with great timekeeping. The Tissot 717 21-jewel movement is unquestionably the smallest fully automatic movement that I have worked on, but it doesn’t skimp on functionality, sporting a sophisticated automatic mechanism with jeweled reversing wheels.