Although the new year is upon us and the watch industry is once again gearing up for press releases and big announcements and so forth, we here at WristReview are taking a moment to look back upon 2018, one of the site’s most successful years since its inception in 2011. We worked hard last year to bring you the best news, we also got to see some of the latest and greatest watches in our Fortnight Reviews, and we offered constructive critique to major brands as well. However, some articles turned out to be more popular with you, our readers, than others. So, here are the ten most popular articles of 2018:
10. INTRODUCING THE 2018 ANNUAL EDITION OF THE GLASHÜTTE ORIGINAL SIXTIES WATCHES
Looking back to the 1960s with Glashütte Original and their latest Sixties line of watches which feature eye-catching green dials made in the company’s dial factory in Pforzheim. We liked these watches because of their celebration of the sixties and their extraordinary attention to detail as well.
9. A FORTNIGHT REVIEW: 2 WEEKS ON THE WRIST WITH THE ULYSSE NARDIN DIVER DEEP DIVE WATCH
The first Fortnight Review of the year for myself, the Ulysse Nardin Diver Deep Dive Hammerhead edition was a monster of a watch at 46mm in diameter, but the titanium case gave it finesse. I particularly liked the looks of the watch, big and meaty, fit for purpose and made with precision. That watch was a prototype, and so, had a couple of little niggles which I expect have now been resolved.
8. WRISTREVIEW’S TOP 5 VINTAGE WATCHES
Compared to other blogs, WristReview doesn’t have an enormous amount of focus on vintage watches. That’s not to say we don’t appreciate them, though, and when they do get published, they definitely get noticed. Our most popular vintage watch article from the year is the Top 5 Vintage Watches, which shows some of the best and rarest vintage watches you can own.
One of the big names in watchmaking is A. Lange & Söhne, and when they let you take a test drive of one of their most complicated watches for two weeks you don’t say “it’s not for me”. The Datograph Perpetual wowed audiences with its attractive looks coupled with breathtaking craftsmanship. We’re already wondering what Lange will release at SIHH this year. There isn’t long to wait now!
6. GLASHÜTTE ORIGINAL SENATOR COSMOPOLITE WATCH – PRECISION WITHOUT BORDERS
Another article focusing on a Glashütte Original watch, the Senator Cosmopolite, a complicated watch with an attractive look and a very reasonable price tag as well. This article was the most popular article for quite a few weeks, and rightly so, the watch it focuses on has lots of elegant details, I can’t wait to be able to get hands-on with it and put it under a macro lens.
5. WRISTREVIEW’S TOP 5 OMEGA SPEEDMASTER WATCHES
The Omega Speedmaster watch is one of the biggest hits in the watch world, it’s iconic, identifiable and oh so cool all at the same time. But, did you know that there are loads of different variants of the ‘Speedy’? In this article, we listed out what we thought were the five greatest Speedmaster variants.
4. WRISTREVIEW’S TOP 5 ROLEX SUBMARINER WATCHES
Perhaps the most iconic wristwatch of all time, the Rolex Submariner line is not short of different models, and while some are more desirable than others for obvious reasons, they are all a special piece of history and usually have a story to tell. The fact that there are so many variations of the Submariner means that it’s tricky to choose what we thought was the best, so we went with the tropical dials.
3. WRISTREVIEW’S TOP 5 WATCHES OF SIHH 2018
As I state in pretty much every article I do on the topic, SIHH is one of the big retail shows for watchmakers, and last year’s event brought out some seriously cool timepieces from brands like Girard Perregaux, Vacheron Constantin, Piaget and Ferdinand Berthoud. Like last year, WristReview’s Masthead and our photographer will be in attendance at the show which is coming soon, so you’ll get to see loads of live pictures from SIHH really soon.
2. THE JARGON BUSTER: WATCH STANDARDS AGENCIES – PART 2
The Jargon Buster is our recurring segment where we dissect the complicated terminology used in the watch industry. For this one, we looked at the standards that our watches are measured to and broke it down into three segments. In the second part, we saw how demanding the QF (Qualité Fleurier) test is, as well as the how the historic observatory of Besançon, France, tests watches from smaller brands such as L. Leroy to big names like TAG Heuer.
1. WRISTREVIEW’S TOP 5 WATCHES FROM BASELWORLD 2018
The biggest watch and jewellery show of the year, Baselworld, showed us loads of exciting new timepieces coming out in 2018. As such, we felt we just had to put our ten favourites into a list to make it easier for you to read. We gave five notable honourable mentions for watches to keep an eye on, and five watches which we felt stole the show this year. It’s interesting to note how very few of the watches on this list were on our Top 5 Watches of 2018 list, granted some of those came out during SIHH, Chopard’s L.U.C. All-In-One remained in second place throughout the year, impressive stuff.
Throughout 2018, WristReview had a total of 9.85 million visitors, 21.67 million page views and just over 820,000 visitors a month according to statistics from Google Analytics, our best year ever! Thank you to everyone who made 2018 such a success, we hope you’ll stick around and keep following WristReview throughout 2019.
