The Fourth Wheel, Issue 43

An important announcement!

Hello and welcome back to The Fourth Wheel, the weekly watch newsletter that this week has Big News To Share. Further down you’ll find the usual content that you know and love, but the first order of business is to tell you that… as of April 1st, I will be taking over as the new CEO of Audemars Piguet. No, wait, that’s not right. What was it again? I’m sure I wrote this all down…

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It has been nearly a year since I started publishing The Fourth Wheel. The reaction to it has been fantastic: I continue to be touched and - because I am British - rendered awkward by your praise. I have to say a huge thank-you to everyone who reads it week in, week out, and especially to the dozens and dozens of you who have shared it, spread the word and sung its praises beyond my modest network¹. 

I knew when I started it that I was adding another task to an already busy life, and one that could not be delayed, deferred, delegated or otherwise excused when I couldn’t quite get it done in time². Sure, I allowed myself a couple of weeks off for Christmas, and the occasional week off at other times. But it’s my aim to get a newsletter out to you as near as dammit every single week, and for it to always be worth reading. 

Putting each week’s issue together has become a fairly time-consuming process. That’s not a complaint - I love doing it, and I concede it could be shorter. But when I get going, it turns out I usually have a lot to say, and I know myself well enough to realise that isn’t going to change any time soon³. 

I want The Fourth Wheel to continue indefinitely, and I want it to grow both in terms of its reach and its scope. I want you all to continue enjoying it, and I am committed to maintaining its independence. 

So, I am hereby announcing that from its one-year anniversary, April 28th, The Fourth Wheel will be introducing paid subscriptions. 

The first issue of every month will remain open to all free subscribers, but the full weekly newsletter will be reserved for paying readers. 

The good news is that for you, my loyal year-one subscribers, I am offering the chance to subscribe for the first year at a discounted rate. From today, you will notice the newsletter now includes the option to ‘pledge’ your support, meaning that when paid subscriptions are enabled on April 28th, that is the amount you will pay. This discounted rate will remain on offer for one month thereafter, until May 26th. So you have just over two months in total to snap up this offer - after which point the standard price will come into effect. You’ll see the pledge button at the top of the screen, or be given the option when you subscribe.

You may have questions at this point. I thought I’d try and anticipate most of them - anything else you’d like to ask, please, get in touch. 

What do I get for my money?

You get the best newsletter in the watch business, every week. You get, guaranteed, a minimum of 48 newsletters a year. You get a monthly watch review and an almost unlimited volume of insight, analysis and sarcastic comments, honed over 12 years of full-time work as a watch journalist.

You get exclusive access to the archive: once paid subscriptions are enabled, old posts will be available online only to full subscribers. That will be nearly 50 issues of animated reaction and insider nonsense.

You will also be the first to hear about future projects - for which I have several ideas bubbling away on the back burner - and the incomparable sense of smugness that can only come from belonging to a exclusive club of no-bullshit, well-informed watch freaks. 

What don’t I get?

Great question. You won’t be seeing any advertising, for one thing. One of the reasons for doing this is that I believe the strength of The Fourth Wheel lies in its independence, and turning it into a reader-supported publication guarantees that. No advertising, no sponsored content, no partnership posts, and no-one else influencing what I write. I won’t sell your data on or spam you with emails asking you to buy things, either.

Is the newsletter going to change?

Not drastically, no. While I am committed to taking The Fourth Wheel as far as it can possibly go - as I say, there are a number of ideas for ‘special projects’ up my sleeve - that will happen over time. It’s my modest belief that what I already put out there every week is worth something - certainly worth the equivalent of a couple of coffees a month in a major city - and I am not suddenly going to promise you professional photography or a slick, shiny design, because those are not my areas of expertise, and turning TFW into a website to compete with the Hodinkees of this world is not my aim. I promise to keep the standard of writing high, and to keep bringing you a newsletter that makes you laugh, makes you think and keeps you informed. I look back and think today’s newsletter is better than it was a year ago, and I expect the same to be true in years to come. 

How do these pledges work?

It’s very simple. The pledge system is unique to Substack, and is set up to let you commit to supporting a publication ahead of its official launch date. The price you pledge is the price you will pay - no funny business - and once it comes into effect, you have all the normal options available to you that any paying subscriber would have. You won’t be charged until April 28th when the first paid newsletter goes out. If you like, you can read more about it here.

What is a ‘Founding Subscription’?

This is something else unique to Substack. If you love The Fourth Wheel more than Kari Voutilainen loves guilloché dials, if you feel moved beyond measure to show your support, you can pledge to support at a higher level. Right now, I don’t have anything extra to give in return, but trust me, if there’s ever a way to repay this support and show my appreciation, the founders will be the first to know.

Other newsletters are free. Why do I have to pay to read this one?

I can’t speak to other people’s strategies, but as the saying goes, nothing’s truly free. I also can’t force you to pay me a penny; if you don’t want to subscribe, you can still read The Fourth Wheel once a month. But you’ll be missing out on at least 75 per cent of it. My more in-depth reads, monthly reviews, AMA columns and my best Dad jokes will be reserved for full subscribers. As a Brit, I’m not a natural self-promoter, but the truth is I am one of a mere handful of full-time professional watch journalists in the world, I’ve been reporting on this industry for 12 years, and I believe that my writing - and the thought and experience that goes into it - has a value. I’m hoping you agree.

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Quick Links

1. “Better Than Tinder”: How To Find Love Through Watches, at GQ
   
   This is a perfect example of a watch story that’s not really a watch story. It is on the one hand quite unremarkable (it boils down to ‘Like-Minded Couple Bonded Over Shared Interest And Ended Up Together', which I’m pretty sure is a headline on The Onion) and yet also perfectly enjoyable to read. Maybe it’s as simple as taking a minute to hear a simple story about two people’s happiness.⁴

2. She Adds Flair To Workaday Watchmaking Tools, at the NYT (paywall)
   
   I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, the NYT is absolutely killing it these days: every month there are six or seven stories that are varied, interesting, always revolve around interesting people rather than just interesting products, and best of all aren’t just following the PR agenda. I think there are a couple of newspapers in the UK that could take a leaf out of that book. This story entertained me, but there are a few others worth a look too - here’s another example, about a London-based watch and jewellery customising couple.

3. Why This Early Roger Dubuis Is Worth Knowing About, at Hodinkee
   
   Thanks to the likes of A Collected Man, I feel like I see early Roger Dubuis chronographs everywhere these days. But I hadn’t heard of the time-only Hommage Condottori - and now, thanks to Tony, I have. Every day’s a school day. This article’s noteworthy because it also ushers in a business change for Hodinkee, which I had heard rumours of already - a move away from e-commerce retail and into a more rarified, private-sales model. Something I might come back and say a little more about soon.

4. What Time Is It On The Moon, And Why We Need To Know, at Mr Porter
   
   Over in self-promotion corner, I found myself really enjoying writing this silly little story. Not least because of the satisfying realisation that if you want a timekeeper that’s in line with the lunar ‘day’, it already exists in the form of any moon-phase complication watch.

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And Finally…

There have been some interesting watches released this week. I haven’t had time to write on any of them in depth, so we will do a very rapid-fire run-through. In a future issue I hope to give them a bit more airtime.

Girard-Perregaux x Aston Martin Laureato in green ceramic
I went on the launch for this, so I can tell you first-hand that it is exceptionally green. The 38mm is a great size, except with the 42mm next to it I still wanted the larger one. It’s expensive, some people are saying (e.g. the Bamford Watch Dept Laureato in white ceramic was a lot less).

Angelus x Massena LAB Chronographe Medical
Be still my beating heart, this really raised my pulse, etc etc. Tachy jokes aside⁵, this is just extremely nice. The movement is the headline act, but the dial design and printing are also really talking to me. The only tiny detail for me is that the numerals and small seconds dial are packed quite tightly into the centre of the dial, which is necessary to fit the full scale around the edge. It's roughly the same price as the G-P above, which is an interesting choice. A G-P, or a GP's watch⁶? Ok, I'll stop.

H. Moser Pioneer 40mm
A watch people like, at a size that’s more in line with current tastes? It’ll never catch on. Love the blue, too.

Ressence Type 8 Sage Green
I want to see this up close before really passing judgement - from the pictures, I prefer the blue, but it does look good. The Type 8’s biggest problem might be that it’s making all the other Ressence designs look a bit… soft? It’s so sharp-edged, so polished and reduced in its design… it’s the Ressence that’s been on a training montage and got lean. And now green, too.

Czapek & Cie Antarctique Titanium Dark Sector
I know I’m dishing out praise like confetti this week⁷ but honestly, I am all over this as well. It’s not rocket science - same watch, new dial - but so what? I likes what I likes, and I likes this very much.

Malaika Crawford is right: Omega and Cartier have carpet-bombed the red carpet to the extent that the good old art of spotting a cool watch at an event like the Oscars is all but dead. It says something about the PR-media machine in operation, too: something like 2,000 people attend the Oscars, I would bet the vast majority of them are wearing a pretty nice watch, and yet every article about ‘The Best Watches Spotted At The Oscars’ has the same six guys in it. I’m guilty of the same, because for Mr Porter this is the kind of thing that you just gotta do every now and then. At least we found the marvellous Mr NTR Jr, with his Vacheron Constantin Overseas Skeleton Perpetual.

Today I learned that Carole Forestier-Kasapi is named on 27 patents. That’s…. a lot.

Rolex is building three ‘pop-up’ factories to handle demand, to be running by 2025, while it builds a long-term additional factory that will come on-stream in 2029. Whether this will have any appreciable impact on waiting lists, who knows. Are watches subject to the law of induced demand?

IWC is trialling an in-store customisation programme, of sorts, in Singapore and Dubai. As the SJX article notes, it is expensive. But I think this is the future.

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1. The rest of you, I know it’s on your to-do list. Go on, cross it off. You’ll feel great!

2. If you’re reading this and you’re my boss, I do not do this with my real job. Honest.

3. Exhibit 94 for the prosecution: this very newsletter

4. What’s come over me? Normal cynicism will resume shortly I promise

5. Come on - tacky jokes, tachy jokes, that’s not bad.. oh, I give up. Tough crowd.

6. This one might only work in the UK

7. In the interest of balance, let me tell you that the new Louis Vuitton Tambour Opera Automata does not do it for me at all. Shock horror, I know.