Results of the Best Dress Watch for Under $10,000
Well, another competition has come and gone and there are some interesting results to discuss. $10,000 is a lot of money to have to spend on a luxury watch. And dress watches are probably not a common category that people look for with the craze of sports watches right now. But, we did crown a winner so lets take a look at the road to get their.
Round 1
We had four heavy hitters start off the competition for us. Honestly, we were expecting the Grand Seiko SBGK005 to go much further. But, it did come up against a highly desirable Rolex Oyster Perpetual and it was a relatively close end score. In the other game, the Jaeger LeCoultre Master Moonphase Ultra Thin took a sweeping victory against the Nomos Ludwig 175 Anniversary. These two watches were fairly different price points, but in our mind they are equal in terms of how much watch you get.
Round 2
Round two featured a whole host of more watches and really interesting results. The Rolex Oyster Perpetual came up against the classic IWC Portofino. When I think of dress watches, the Portofino is the typical watch that comes to mind. Simple dial layout, date complication on a leather strap - what more do you need? But, the power of the crown continued into round 2 and the Rolex squeaked by a 4% margin. The next match up between the Cartier Tank (quartz) and the Slim D’Hermès was an interesting one. Both watches pack so much value into their watches. We think the Hermès lost because it may have reminded people more of an everyday watch. But hey, the people spoke and the Cartier moved on.
Our third match up was between the Omega De Ville Trésor and the JLC Master Moonphase Ultra Thin and wow, did the JLC continue its run. The Omega has become a real classic and hugely desired watch but the JLC’s classical style and incredibly high finishing pulled it through with another big victory. Our last match up of round 2 was between the JLC Reverso Classic and the Longines Heritage Tuxedo. We really thought the Longines would win this dual. Not because we thought the Reverso was inferior, but because the Tuxedo is by far one of the best watches Longines has released in a while. But, the power of the Reverso came through and they convincingly beat the Longines.
Semi-Final
And so we move on to the Semi-Finals which had four excellent watches. The first dual was between the favourite Rolex Oyster Perpetual 36 and the Cartier Tank (quartz). It is probably no surprise but the Rolex won by some margin. Rectangular watches are not for everyone, and everyone knows Rolex so it really wasn’t to surprising of a result. Our other semi-final, however, definitely would have interesting results. The battle of the JLC’s! The Master Moonphase Ulra Thin ended up winning this round. I think again this was a story of rectangular watches not being for everyone. It was interesting to see that the incredible heritage of the Reverso didn’t give it a big enough boost. But hey, these were the results.
Finals
And just like that, we are into the finals! We did have a 3rd/4th place match up where the power of the Reverso’s heritage really came through. The JLC took the third place spot fairly convincingly. But the big game was our finalist, the Rolex Oyster Perpetual 36 and the JLC Master Moonphase Ultra Thin. And wow, did we not see this coming. Rolex has a ton of brand recognition, we’d argue more than JLC. But for a dress watch, the JLC took a sweeping victory of the final. It really is an incredible watch, especially how classical its styling is. One gets incredible finishing from one of the best watchmakers out there with this watch. I guess when compared to the Rolex, one could also argue the Rolex, with its oyster case, might fall to much into the sportier style.
And so, there we have it! Our winners of our second competition. If you want to participate in our next competition be sure to head over to our Instagram.
Enjoy!
