Each year I find it surprisingly difficult to crystalise what I want to see from Watches and Wonders – perhaps I find it hard to hope for things I know will never come. Sometimes dreams aren’t logistically possible. For example, a compact Spring Drive chronograph probably isn’t reasonable given Grand Seiko already has its hands full scaling production of another new Spring Drive movement. At other times, imagination is bound by brand strategy: Cartier could easily steal the show with a quartz Crash Must priced along the same lines as a Tank Must – but never will. But I believe that the following watches, which I’d like to see from Patek Philippe, Grand Seiko and Credor, and Tudor are plausible enough to hope for.

The following images were created without the use of generative AI.

Patek Philippe

In 2023, Patek Philippe launched the ref. 5316/50P, a minute repeating tourbillon with retrograde perpetual calendar and smoked sapphire dial. It remains among the brand’s best complicated offerings, other than the ref. 6301p, at least in my view. Last year Patek Philippe followed up with the ref. 6159G, which featured a smoked sapphire dial and the same perpetual calendar on a more pedestrian base movement. But if there is one reference more deserving of the smoked sapphire treatment than any other, it is the ref. 5236p in-line perpetual calendar, as imagined below in platinum.

In 2021, Patek Philippe revived the historic in-line perpetual calendar, which is strongly associated with American-market pocket watches of the 20th century, in a wristwatch form factor with the blue-dialled ref. 5236P-001, followed by the ref. 5236p-010 in salmon a few years later. Patek Philippe will probably add a third iteration to the catalogue this year, the ref. 5236P-011 (based on the brand’s numbering scheme). A smoked sapphire dial would also make a good jumping off point for coloured gold, as envisaged below.

Of course, Patek Philippe needs to be careful to avoid diluting a very special look, but the inline perpetual would arguably step on the ref. 5316/50P minute repeater’s toes less because of the different calendar module. In a perfect would this would also come with an updated movement, allowing the displays to be set through the crown, as on Audemars Piguet’s latest generation of perpetual calendars. This technical update is not realistic in the short term, but a wish is simply that.

Grand Seiko

Previously, a circa 40 mm Grand Seiko Spring Drive dive watch would have been an unrealistic wish, but that changed with last year’s cal. 9RB2 which is the same diameter as the ubiquitous cal. 9R65 but dispenses with the antimagnetic ring needed by that movement, allowing it to squeeze into smaller cases. We also know a “Grand Seiko Spring Drive UFA Ushio” is likely in the pipeline thanks to trademark filings by Seiko.

This could simply be a smaller version of the existing Ushio Divers (perhaps 41 mm), powered by cal. 9RB5 with an updated micro-adjust clasp and higher price tag, but that sounds too much like a prediction. With some more imagination – on both our part and Grand Seiko’s – it is possible to fill some gaps in the Grand Seiko catalogue.

Notably, the brand has never offered a watch with 300 meters of water resistance, despite it being the industry standard for luxury divers for decades. For context, the Rolex Submariner Date graduated to 300m in the late 1970s. Nor does Grand Seiko offer a dive watch without a date, and never has with a Spring Drive movement.

With those points in mind, meet the proposed SLGB023 (blue) and SLGB015 (black) which are essentially smaller versions of the existing Ushio divers (SLGA023 and SLGA015) with a 300 m depth rating, sans date. While Seiko tends to charge the same – or more – for watches without a date, ideally these would be priced below the existing models, especially if offered in steel rather than titanium, like the “no-date” Rolex Submariner.

Despite the UFA badging, the cal. 9RBx Spring Drive movements presumably cost about the same, if not less, to manufacture than the larger and more elaborate cal. 9RAx line, which makes such a proposition reasonable, though it would break from Grand Seiko’s established pricing scheme for the UFA calibres.

While conventional wisdom is that watches with a calendar sell better than those without (the Submariner Date famously outsells the Submariner a few times over) though that logic increasingly challenged by today’s market. For example, Tudor’s Black Bay collection is overwhelmingly date-less.

Credor

On that note, this year is extra significant for Seiko’s luxury business as Credor will make its Watches and Wonders debut. While Grand Seiko’s sales are dominated by two major markets – the United States and Japan – Credor remains focused on the Japanese domestic market, mainly exporting very high-end models such as the Eichi II. However, the Credor catalogue includes at least one other model that I expect would be successful abroad: the porcelain-dialled Kuon, which I envision below with a blue dial.

Dial variants aside, a line of next generation movements sits at the top of my Credor wishlist. Credor quietly added a pair of Linearx models powered by the new Spring Drive cal. 7RA2 – based on the Grand Seiko cal. 9RA2 – to its website in early 2021. But these were removed within months with no news since, presumably cancelled due to known issues scaling cal. 9RA movement production. But I would argue that Credor actually needs a new family of mechanical movements, in line with Grand Seiko’s latest and greatest, as imagined below.

A hypothetical next-generation Credor calibre, in actuality a Grand Seiko 9SA4 with a Credor 7RA2 rotor.

Such a movement should feature the same high-end construction and decoration as the Grand Seiko cal. 9SA series in a smaller and slimmer package, with a normal lever escapement, 4 Hz beat rate and less autonomy. It would be nice to see another free-sprung balance from Seiko, though the overcoil should remain Grand Seiko’s domain. I’d also welcome further use of the blue jewels seen on the Kodo from last year.

Tudor

Tudor celebrates its 100th anniversary in 2026. Conveniently, it’s also the 50th anniversary of the Valjoux 7750-powered “Big Block” Oysterdate chronograph from 1976, and to ignore it would be a missed opportunity. Tudor offered a modern, unique, and solid gold variant of the “Big Block” for Only Watch 2023 powered by a prototype “in-house” automatic chronograph movement from its movement division, Kenissi.

Only Watch postponed the 2023 auction following calls for financial transparency. When it returned the next year following an audit by KPMG and some changes to Monaco’s law, Tudor chose not to participate and the watch was forgotten, until now.

The prototype cal. MT59XX checks all the boxes of a modern sports chronograph calibre – automatic winding, column wheel control, a vertical coupling, and a weekend-proof 70-hour power reserve. Of course, the Breitling B01-derived MT5813 in the Black Bay Chronograph offers the same features, making this new movement more of a lateral move when just looking at the spec sheet.

There are a few reasons for Kenissi to field an “in-house” chronograph calibre. The obvious being general cost savings for Tudor chronographs thanks to cutting out the middle man (Breitling), greater reuse of existing parts from other Kenissi movements, and so on. Additionally, Kenissi’s other stakeholder, Chanel, remains reliant on the ETA 2894 for its J12 chronographs, which isn’t sustainable.

However, the new calibre family enables both a 3-6-9 and a nostalgic 6-9-12 sub-dial layout, similar to Audemars Piguet’s cal. 4404 (which the B01 platform doesn’t support), suggesting a new Big Block as a potential impetus for the project. Thanks to the solid gold prototype, we have a good idea of what such a watch would look like – the image below is a simple colour swap with the Black Bay Chronograph bracelet.

There is some ambiguity around the bracelet; the solid gold version sports polished centre links and lacks the faux rivets, which wouldn’t necessarily be true of a steel version. My vision for a modern steel Big Block includes a fully brushed bracelet and – likely controversially – a rivet-style bracelet, which is ahistoric but feels right – at least to me.

Tudor did not historically offer the Big Block in two-tone, as that was the Rolex’s Daytona’s domain. But today Tudor offers several two-tone “steel and gold” variants of the Black Bay Chronograph, so a two-tone Big Block clearly has a place in the modern brand’s catalogue – perhaps even on a Jubilee-style bracelet, as proposed below.