Chronographs and other sport models have been grabbing the headlines in the watch game for at least the last decade. But for business or black-tie occasions, nothing beats the elegance of a dress watch—or the knowledge that your understated timepiece is more refined technically (and much more costly) than that flashy chunk of metal on the wrist of the fellow across the table. We enlisted Al Armstrong, of Hartford, Connecticut–based dealer Armstrong and Rockwell, to give us a hand picking the finest examples of the genre. Hartford is known as the "insurance capital of the world," meaning that it's full of the sort of executive who appreciates the value of quiet one-upmanship.
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Patek is the oldest family-owned firm in Geneva, and this is its signature model. The company is one...
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Unlike the other venerable Swiss brands, the 140-year-old International Watch Company was founded by...
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A. Lange and Söhne was founded in 1845, but it hasn't enjoyed the same kind of continuity as...
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Geneva's Vacheron opened for business in 1755 and has been trading continuously for longer than any...
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It may not look like it, but this is actually a sports watch, and a rather innovative one. The name...
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Longines invented the first method of automatically timing track races (with the winner breaking a...
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"I know a guy at Hermès who was offered sex to move a woman up the waiting list for a...
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Alongside Vacheron and Patek, Audemars is one of "the big three," as U.S. watch dealer Al Armstrong...
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Though named after one of aviation's earliest pioneers, this doesn't look like a typical dial-heavy...
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