World Cup Watch Wins, Milan Watch Week Preview, and M.A.D. Gallery Turns 15: A Watch News Recap

Here are some of the recent news stories you may have missed.

After more than a month of thrilling spectacle, it came down to Argentina and Spain (Fun Fact: The Swiss team had a historic run this year, making it into the quarterfinals for the first time since 1954). The dominant defense of Spain’s team and the don’t-blink-or-you’ll-miss-it dynamism of Argentina’s team faced off at the NY/NJ MetLife Stadium yesterday.

While Argentina tried to recreate its World Cup success from 2022, and despite the best efforts of Lionel Messi and the team, Spain was victorious in the hard-fought match that ended 1-0 after extra time. Spain’s last World Cup title was in 2010.
 

The single goal was scored by Ferran Torres, however, Spain’s breakaway star Lamine Yamal, who just turned 19 on July 13th, is already something of a watch collector, counting models from Rolex and Audemars Piguet among his treasures as well as a rose-gold Patek Philippe Cubitus and an exclusive Jacob & Co. Bugatti Chiron Tourbillon he was honored with at the Globe Soccer Awards last year.

For a more expansive run-down of watches worn by FIFA stars, click here.

Now entering its third year, Milano Watch Week and its accompanying After Time watch show have shared some details. More specifically, the show will run from Friday, October 2^nd to Sunday, October 4^th and will be held at the masterful Palazzo Mezzanotte in Italy’s “fedelissa città” (or “most faithful city”).

Faithfulness aside, you can always count on the event for a strong dose of Italian style and elan as an aperitivo to the timepiece happenings. To date, the organization reports that 55 watch brands are committed to exhibiting, including many brand-new exhibitors for the ever-growing show, from Armin Strom to Zenith.
 

Watchonista has been a fervent supporter and participant of Milano Watch Week since its inception in 2024 and then again in 2025. Tune back in for our coverage as October approaches.

There was a time when online aftermarket watch sales raised concerns among potential customers about its kind of “Wild West” attitude toward second-hand watch sales. However, in the last 6 or 7 years, the industry as a whole has become more and more committed to proper authentication practices to ensure that what you think you are buying is what ends up being shipped to you.
 

For example, US-based watch marketplace Bezel recently reported that while Rolex watches account for about 28% of its sales, a full 38% of Rolex watches submitted to its multi-step authentication process are rejected for resale. This is a higher rejection rate than many of the other major watch brands Bezel resells (for instance, Omega’s rejection rate is about 13%, while Tudor’s is about 6%).
 

This indicates a fairly high volume of “not right” Rolex timepieces floating around, but the fact that they didn’t make it through the authentication process will also shore up buyer security and assurance. Regardless of which organization you buy from, some due diligence investigating its authentication processes should be high on your checklist.

If your travels to Geneva haven’t included a visit to the now 15-year-old M.A.D. Gallery, you are missing out. The brainchild of watchmaker Max Büsser of MB&F fame, the gallery is an unexpected kinetic art space (M.A.D. stands for "mechanical art devices,” BTW) in the city’s Old Town.

In my many visits to the M.A.D. Gallery, I’ve seen things from kitschy, wind-up disembodied hands that crawl along a table to fascinating Rube Goldberg-like contraptions.
 

As part of its current 15^th anniversary, the gallery invited one of its first exhibitors, artist Martin Smith (then under the name of “Laikingland”), to create a special kinetic object titled “The Solar Orbiter Watch Winder” for the celebration. Your daily wind never looked so good.

We’ve recently reported on the incredible bump in F.P.Journe’s auction price results lately, but the upcoming Phillips Geneva Watch Auction: XXIV (in association with Bacs & Russo) on Saturday, November 7^th and Sunday, November 8^th at the Hotel President in Geneva is setting up another potential record-setter for the watchmaker. That is because a very rare pre-production 38mm platinum Chronomètre à Résonance (bearing the serial number 022/99R) is among the lots and is estimated to sell for between CHF 500,000 and 1 million (with anticipation that the final hammer price will be even higher).
 

The earliest commercially numbered example from a reported group of just 10 pre-production models, the owner purchased this timepiece in 1999, one year before the iconic Chronomètre à Résonance was officially launched as the world’s first wristwatch to employ the phenomenon of proximal resonance to enhance watch accuracy. A rare and significant opportunity, indeed.

There will be viewing appointments in the days leading up to the auction if your pockets run deep and your interest runs high.

(Front/header image © David Ramos/Getty Images)