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5 wristwatch YouTube channels every horology enthusiast should follow
Summary
From budget-friendly finds to luxury watch critiques, these 5 YouTube channels offer diverse perspectives on the world of horology
How time flies. While thinking about the subject for this month’s column, I realized that it’s been nearly four years since the first iteration of Handwound.It was a time when we were all working from home, trying not to go insane with worry as murmurs of the second wave of covid-19 infections grew. It was a time of dread and fear, and the only way to maintain good mental health was to indulge in some online escapism.
For me, that took the form of diving into world of horology. I had always been into watches, but pandemic lockdowns offered me the chance to delve deep into the history and art of watchmaking, mechanical movements, keeping track of new watch releases—the whole shebang. In this, I wasn’t alone. Interest in mechanical watches (and watches in general) skyrocketed around the world in 2020, and watch sales took a sharp spike—from brand new timepieces to vintage watches. In fact, it is now recognized as a pandemic-spending bubble that is now on the wane.
However, as I found out, to be immersed in the watch hobby doesn’t mean that you need to go out and splurge ridiculous amounts on expensive Swiss watches. Watches could be admired from afar—like on Instagram—and learning about the rich and weird history of watchmaking was a joy in and of itself.
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So, I read watch publications like Hodinkee and Fratello, sought out specialist blogs, subscribed to watch newsletters, even bought a book or two. But the medium that truly educated me on all things watches was YouTube. From around 2020, watch YouTube exploded, with several “experts" vying for your attention with watch reviews, watch plugs, what have you. But the good ones were, and remain, truly brilliant. And while I follow dozens of watch YouTubers, here are five that I keep returning to.
The Urban Gentry by Tristano Geoffrey Veneto
Tristan Veneto’s The Urban Gentry channel is something of a watch YouTube OG. For one, he started giving his impressive monologues on watches way before it became a popular pursuit—all the way back in 2014. The channel is perfect if you like your YouTube videos to be slow, without someone talking a mile a minute. For all that, TGV, as Veneto is fondly known to his many fans, is a very knowledgeable discourser on watches, both in terms of watch history and design, but also with regards to the intimate relationship that watches have had with popular culture in the 20th century.
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The best thing about the channel is that it isn’t afraid to be opinionated, blasting famous luxury watchmakers for their tone-deaf pricing and advertising as often as showering praise on the quality of their watches. Over the past few years, TGV has used his reach and knowledge to design some highly original, limited edition timepieces as well. Those are as smooth as his Italian-Englishman-in-Manhattan persona.
Just One More Watch by Jody Musgrove
Another opinionated—but rather more gregarious—watch YouTuber is Jody Musgrove, whose Just One More Watch channel has been a regular source of information for me since 2020. The Australian specializes in talking about budget watches and microbrand watches, and he brings as much seriousness to it as most others bring to talking about vintage Patek Philippe.
Like all best YouTubers, Musgrove has built a pretty solid community around his channel, and you will often find viewers sending him one of their own watches for a review. Musgrove certainly knows his watches, which makes his occasionally surprising insights into otherwise well-known timepieces especially illuminating.
Teddy Baldassarre
The young American is one of the great success stories of watch YouTube. Ever since he dropped his first video, way back in 2017, about his watch collection, Baldassarre’s YouTube channel has gone from strength to strength. These days, apart from his well-polished video review of watches, he also runs a flourishing watch retail site.
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Baldassarre is hardly opinionated—in fact, his content can even seem bland at times—but his videos are always excellently researched, beautifully filmed and extremely informative. In fact, one of my favourite videos remain one he did a few years ago on the different types of mechanical watch movements. The other type of video he does very well is the “different watches for different budgets" one.
Andrew Morgan
If you are a watch fan, the name Andrew Morgan may not mean a whole lot to you. But mention Watchfinder, or “Mr. Talking Hands", and your ears are sure to prick up. Morgan rose to fame as the creator of the Watchfinder You Tube channel, where he would rhapsodise about a watch in dulcet tones and with sly humour, and all you would see are his hands, and the watch in question. Again, beautifully shot, what you would take away from the videos—apart from that wonderful voice—would be memories of the watches, and a fair amount of truth telling.
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It's been a couple of years since Morgan bequeathed his channel to another talking hands. These days he appears face-first in Andrew Morgan Watches, and though it has a more boring talking-heads format, his content retains all fun and knowledge of the previous incarnation.
This Watch, That Watch
Although I’ve regularly enjoyed watching many watch YouTubers over the years, a relatively new channel that I’ve become a total fan of is This Watch, That Watch. Hosted by a posh Scandanavian man of means and culture called, simply, Mike, what this channel does best is demolish the pretense and PR of luxury watch brands, while looking at both the craft and the business of watches objectively.
It's a difficult thing to do at the best of times, but Mike combines his long experience of owning great watches with knowledge of the watch and luxury goods industries. And he’s not afraid to go with his intuition, and sometimes, just plain common sense. No needless gushing from this channel, just class analysis.
Handwound is a monthly column on watches and watchmaking.
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