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Welcome to Unpolished’s year-in-review newsletter. It won’t be the last issue of 2025, but highlights some of the most popular and interesting stories of the year, while also giving an update on Unpolished. Many of you are paying subscribers and thus stakeholders in this newsletter, so you deserve it! You can also listen above or in your podcast app. To see all the numbers and enter the holiday giveaway (more below), upgrade now:
Btw, I received a press release this morning that Kari Voutilainen is stepping back as co-CEO of Urban Jürgensen, but will join its board. Alex Rosenfeld, the other co-CEO, becomes CEO.
At its best, the internet can be amazing. Unpolished launched with a few thousand people on an email list built up over 5+ years, and 12 months later, it’s a sustainable, very small business that’s replaced my previous income.
But the internet is also frustrating. It engages us, enrages us, and hijacks our attention. Today, social media, especially Instagram, is the home of the watch “community,” while YouTube is its library of reviews and opinions.
One of the common questions I get—it showed up again in last week’s Q&A—is what other watch “content” (a gross word) I consume.
But I’ve found this question is really asking something more like: How do I stop scrolling and consume stuff that actually feels worthwhile? It applies to watches, but not only watches.
I was at a dinner with a few collectors in New York earlier this month, and one of them (hi!) said to me that his favorite coverage helps him better understand and appreciate watches—even without any intention of buying them. Whether that’s understanding the innovation, craft, or culture that’s imbued in any particular object.
Because that’s the reality, isn’t it? Whether it’s a $17m Patek Philippe perpetual calendar chronograph or a new $4,000 watch from Tudor, we’ll never own most of these watches.
And that’s just fine. But they’re still ours to appreciate.
What we’re really talking about isn’t ownership—it’s attention. In a world of frictionless consumption, there’s growing value in things that reward patience, permanence, and earned understanding.
There’s something uniquely human about our ability to create abstract, symbolic tools and build on them over time. Mechanical watches are a perfect example: centuries-old instruments designed to measure an idea—time—that we defined in the first place.
As I’ve mentioned, “craft” was one of the main themes of 2025, and it gets at a feeling bigger than watches. Technology, whether it’s social media or AI or software updates to your car, has encroached on anything real.
Watches can provide a small respite. They can urge us to slow down, to appreciate what goes into making an object with hundreds of parts and centuries of history.
Like anything that sticks around long enough, watches have transformed from technology to tradition. Wrapped up in that is also all the problems that come with any tool that becomes a status symbol or luxury.
This idea, craft, has been wrought to the point of cliché, but the reality remains: People appreciate craft, whether it’s Larry Bird making 99 free throws in a row after practice or F.P. Journe harnessing the phenomenon of resonance.
Which is what’s exciting for watches. These objects can be beautiful displays of a variety of crafts, whether feats of the human hand or human engineering.
The bad news: I’m not sure the larger watch industry is really adapting to this. Some corners of the high-end and independent scene have leaned into craft, but anxiety about luxury defined the broader conversation in 2025.
That tension showed up in what people actually read, at least in this newsletter. As we’ll see below, the most-viewed articles this year were (1) about how “watch prices are insane,” and (2) expressing my complicated feelings about luxury. These weren’t celebrations of the new, but reckonings with price, value, and the uneasy state of luxury. Taken together, they provide a snapshot of where watch culture is right now—and where it may be headed, whether the industry is ready or not.
The Most Popular—and Interesting—Stories of 2025
When I look at metrics, which isn’t often, a few numbers are important: views, new free subscribers, and new paid subscribers. Interestingly, there wasn’t much overlap in which stories performed the best on each. People view, subscribe to, and pay for different things. It’s the fun, and the challenge, of the newsletter format.
This is the 91st newsletter published this year, which also includes 14 podcasts (including 7 guest chats), 4 Q&As, and 2 strap launches. Below, more on what I’ve learned about format and what that means for 2026. As always, the entire archive is available online.
2025’s most-viewed stories
* Watch Prices Are Insane — Tapping into another theme of 2025—high prices. A survival guide for collecting watches when watch prices don’t make sense.
* How to Actually Develop ‘Good Taste’ — Understanding what moves you vs. when you’re being moved for other reasons.
Stories that drove the most new free subscribers
* My Complicated Feelings about Watches & Wonders (and Luxury) — On the differences between collecting and consumption.
* 47 Unpolished Rules for Watch Collecting — Buy what you understand, and other practical & theoretical rules to guide your collecting (or not).
Stories that drove the most paid subscribers
Interestingly, the stories that led to the most paid subscribers had some of the best collector-driven “reporting”:
* The A. Lange & Söhne Conundrum — What happens when world-class watchmaking meets modern luxury.
* A ‘Paul Newman’ Daytona, CPO, and What It Means for Collecting Vintage Rolex — A closer look at a curious Paul Newman sold by 1916 Company, and the importance of “period correct.”
2 More Reasons to Subscribe in 2026
Magazines & Giveaways
Paid subscribers already get access to every newsletter, including the full update below, comments, plus (1) $50 off any service at Watchcheck, and (2) 10% off in the Unpolished Store. But here are two more reasons to join right now:
* 2025 Rewind Magazine. Become a founding member for $199, and you’ll also get (1) a strap of your choice and (2) the 2025 Rewind Magazine. It’s still being finalized, but expect about 60 perfect-bound pages of the best writing and photography of 2025, along with some stuff that hasn’t been published yet. Here’s a preview:
* Giveaway! Join or renew by January 7, 2026, and you’ll be entered into a giveaway.* I’m giving away so much stuff:
* One (1) Unpolished/Veblenist Valet Tray
* Two (2) Farr + Switt Retro Digital Watches
* Two (2) Unpolished 47 hats, and
* Six (6) straps, one of each color and lug width for the Canvas and Calfskin currently offered in the Store.
Manage or upgrade your subscription here. If you’re already a subscriber but want to become a Founding Member before you auto-renew to get your strap ASAP, send me an email.
*All current and new subscribers will be entered to win. Unpolished launched on Jan. 6, 2025, so if you subscribed then and auto-renew, you’ll be automatically entered to win.
UNPOLISHED STRAPS
Shop the Canvas and Matte Calfskin Strap in the Unpolished Store. December 19 (today) is the last day to order for shipping before Christmas (shipments will resume 12/26). Grab a Matte Calfskin for just $100 before prices increase next year. PLUS: Free U.S. shipping for the rest of 2025!
Unpolished 2025 by the numbers, and what’s in store for 2026.
Here’s what subscriber growth looks like over the past 12 months: