Editors' Picks: Our Favorite 'Money Is No Object' Watches Of 2024

Okay, this one was fun. We asked the editorial team at Teddy to choose their favorite watch from 2024 if money was no object and the picks were, unsurprisingly, some of the coolest and most jaw-dropping releases of the year. These were certainly not the obvious choices, as there is not a Patek Philippe or even a Richard Mille to be seen. What we do have is a really thoughtful collection of audacious Indies, a record-breaking calendar watch, and one of the most iconic steel sport watches reimagined as a solid-gold ladies watch. So, let’s take a look at our picks for our favorite watches of 2024 if money was no object:

Bilal Khan: De Bethune Kind Of Grande Complication

Erin Wilborn: Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Mini Frosted Gold Quartz

When Audemars Piguet launched a new, teeny, 23mm take on its Royal Oak this summer, it seemed like the brand was out to win my tiny-watch-loving heart. Available in white, pink, and yellow gold the new Mini Oak called upon its previous micro-sized 20mm design from 1997, with some twists, to make it feel extremely relevant to the sensibilities of 2024. Each model in the trio features the distinctive  “Frosted” finishing technique introduced with Jewelry Designer Carolina Bucci’s 2016 Limited Edition (also referred to as “diamond dusting”) which is achieved by creating tiny indents on the surface of the gold by repetitive hammering with a diamond-tipped tool. The polished bevels are among the only polished surfaces on the new Mini Oak and offer even more opportunity for light to bounce off the unique geometry of the case. All three models also have fully leaned into the monochrome theme with their Petite Tapisserie-patterned dials that match the case and bracelet. This is an unabashedly jewelry-oriented piece, complete with a quartz movement, no less, and I love that about it, and wouldn’t change a thing. Leaning into the theme of impracticality and frivolity, if money were truly no object, I wouldn’t go with just one of these but would grab all three for stacking purposes. 

Jonathan McWhorter: A. Lange & Söhne Datograph Handwerkskunst

You know what they say: “When money is no object, the world is your oyster, so why not kill two birds with one stone and at least there won’t be anything left on the table.” Or something like that. For me, the Money-Is-No-Object Watch that caught my attention this year is none other than the Datograph Handwerkskunst from A. Lange & Söhne (henceforth: “DH”) and for many reasons. Lange may well be my favorite brand in the horological ionosphere. Its devout approach to quality and craftsmanship throughout the catalog is enough to have converted me as a fan, and hopeful-owner, for life. The DH takes this devotion and makes it fanatical.

Forget the standard double-assembly and hand-finishing. Widely considered to be one of the most difficult finishing techniques, black polishing is used on all of the levers of the flyback chronograph mechanism. And that’s just the start of it. Like all Lange watches, the balance cock is hand engraved, and no two are alike. A collector has even told me that you can recognize which of the few engravers worked on your watch by the style in which it was engraved. But that’s just any old Lange. For the DH, the balance cock has been engraved in relief. That is to say that it is the inverse of a typical engraving with the subject matter appearing “raised up” from the background (the background is what’s been cut away). To raise the bar further, this engraving features contrasting textures between high polish and a textured background. All of this is set against frosted German silver movement architecture; and that’s just the movement!

The dial is where this gets really intense. At first glance, it seems like a finely textured dial with gold hour markers, and that assessment would be right. But what makes this really something special is how this was achieved. The dial itself is made of yellow gold, and aside from the applied hour markers and Roman numerals (all hand chamfered and brushed, by the way) everything you see on the dial is carved in relief- yes, even the A. Lange & Söhne wordmark at 12 o’clock. Yes, even the minute track and tachymeter scale. Yes, even the small graduations in the chronograph totalizer and the running seconds. It’s all laser-cut into the gold dial blank, and what’s left is then hand-engraved using the tremblage technique, and finally finished with black rhodium and a lighter gray treatment for the subdials. It’s one of those things that doesn’t really come into perspective until you see it with your own eyes, and further understand the steps taken to achieve that result. All of this in the form of a flyback chronograph!

The “quiet excellence” of Lange is what drew me to the brand in the first place, and by far is the calling card of Glashütte. However, in its own way, Lange gets a little loud about it with the Datograph Handwerkskunst, and I can tell you that I’m now an even bigger fan.

D.C. Hannay: Grand Seiko SLGW004

Let me just say from the jump that I am not a high-horology guy. I like to wear the watches I own, so the fact that life happens (compounded by my own inherent klutziness) precludes me from watches that cost more than my house. Even if I were Warren Buffett’s long-lost love child, I still wouldn’t be comfortable with some platinum-cased quadruple tourbillon-slash-miniature amusement park on my wrist. It’s just not me, and it wouldn’t be, even if a helicopter was part of my daily commute.

Having said that, if cost was not an obstacle, I would spring for this one in a heartbeat. I’m a longtime Seiko enjoyer, but owning a Grand Seiko wasn’t even a thought in my head until very recently, when I acquired a circa-1969 61GS in pristine condition. Now, finally, I get it. The "Grammar of Design," the tasteful dial details, the staggering level of finish, and the languorous sweep of that Hi-Beat second hand just did me in. I was smitten, and now, vintage GS is lighting up my radar like an air traffic controller’s worst nightmare. 

The dimensions sit perfectly in my wheelhouse, with a 38.8mm case diameter and a compact 43.7mm lug-to-lug. Then there’s that gorgeously symmetrical dial, with those perfectly finished indices glinting in the light. And this is to say nothing of a manually wound movement that just gives me another excuse to turn the crown every day, and what a movement it is. The newly-launched 9SA4 is positively gorgeous, brimming with well-considered detail that thankfully, can be viewed through the display caseback. Apart from the high level of finish, the 9SA4 is a technical achievement, and Grand Seiko’s first hand-winding Hi-Beat movement in 50 years, boasting a 5-Hertz beat rate that chugs along for 80 hours. I realize, at a mere $30,000, I didn’t exactly bust my unlimited budget with this assignment, but I stand by my choice. So yeah, I won’t be wearing a tantalum-cased slot machine on my wrist when I hit the lottery, genetic or otherwise. And I’m more than fine with that.

Danny Milton: Daniel Roth Souscription Tourbillon

Money is no object? Okay, I’ll bite – and boy am I glad we are confined solely by this year’s releases because there are too many watches out there for me to even be able to do something like this on a large scale. So the watch I have chosen is technically cheating because it was announced in 2023, but also it technically wasn’t real until 2024, and also it was released again properly in 2024 in a different metal than the one I am choosing, but whatever. I am choosing what I want, and that is the Daniel Roth Souscription Tourbillon. I saw this in Miami at LVMH Watch Week at the beginning of 2024 (see it pictured on my wrist), and was just knocked out by it. I have been to the manufacture, La Fabrique Du Temps, and have met the head watchmakers – Michel Navas and Enrique Barbasini – behind the revamp of Roth and I can tell you this is a real-deal watch being made the right way. From the unique shape of the double-ellipse case, to the guilloché dial, to the minute details in the typography, not to mention the beauty of the tourbillon, and a movement/design that was given the O.K. by Daniel Roth himself — this is a knockout watch in yellow gold, and if money were no object, it would be mine today.