Hello readers and welcome back to the most important post of the year; the results of the 'Council of Considered Opinion's Watch of the Year' vote (hereafter referred to as C.O.C.O.W.O.T.Y.)!
As I said before, for the most part I haven't been overly enthused by this year's releases and it seems I'm not alone. I've noticed that the average scores have fallen again this year and I'm sure part of the reason for that is the rising prices. It's hard to really root for something and give it a big score if you don't really feel it's worth the money. As such you probably won't be surprised to learn that none of this year's watches managed to break into the 8s (albeit three watches did scramble their way to a top scoring 7.8/10).
In the end only two of those three watches made it onto the podium and bizarrely the watch which finished in third place already had it's score revealed on the 24th! And as we will see soon, that score proved very important indeed!
We will of course come to that in good time, but first let's now take a look at the scores for the watches which scored at least a 7/10...
So now it's finally time to reveal the watch voted 'Best in Class' for 2025. Last year the 'Time & Tide' limited edition Aquaracer Solargraph finally broke the Carrera's stranglehold on the C.O.C.O.W.OT.Y., but surely the Carrera would push back strongly this year to retake its crown? There were certainly some strong contenders amongst the myriad glassbox models released...
Ultimately though it came down to those three high scoring Monacos... along with one curious interloper. See, when it came time to start the voting process a couple of people said they would like to vote for the 'Formula 1 Solargraphs' (collectively) as their 'W.O.T.Y.'. At first I flatly refused, after all it's supposed to be 'Watch of the Year' not 'Watch Range' of the year and I thought this could set a dangerous precedent.
However, then I remembered that there was a box set of the original nine F1 Solargraphs, and since we included the Kith F1 box set in last year's voting I couldn't really refuse. Secretly though, I really hoped it would not win, because there are definitely some watches in that set that do not deserve to stand alongside the previous winners of this illustrious title.
Early voting played out as expected with the three Monacos jostling for position. For a while my favourite watch of the year, the 'Las Vegas' limited edition held a narrow lead, but gradually the 'Gulf' and 'Stopwatch' Monacos drew level. Then the Formula 1 box set picked up speed and assumed pole position. I was horrified and seriously considered the ethicality of switching my first and second place votes around to keep the F1s off the top step.
Thankfully though, as the final votes arrived it became clear that I wouldn't need to do anything so desperate. But what a fight these three gave us, with an equal number of 1sts (4 apiece), and the 2nd and 3rd places decided not by votes but COCO scores! This is easily the closest C.O.C.O.W.O.T.Y. result ever!
Truth be told, after such a great start I am still a little disappointed that the Las Vegas Monaco didn't make it into the top three, but still I was pleasantly surprised that it managed to score the same as the other two Monacos and garner enough votes to finish a very credible fourth.
NB - For those of you not familiar with the workings of the C.O.C.O.W.O.T.Y., a carefully selected (some might say not carefully enough 🤣) panel of judges are asked to score their top three watches in order. From these votes we determine the finishing order, however, if there is a tie in the number of 1st places we move on to 2nds and 3rds - in that order. For clarity two 3rds does not beat a 2nd; 3rds are only relevant when two watches already have the same number of 1sts and 2nds.
If two (or more) watches have the same number of 1st, 2nd and 3rd places, then (and only then) we fall back on C.O.C.O. scores to decide the order. C.O.C.O. scores are only generally calculated to one decimal place, for minor placings I will allow 'equal' placings (as we see here below) but if it affected the top three I would assess the scores to two decimal places in order to determine a proper order.
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Unfortunately there was one 'late' vote, in years gone by I would have accommodated it, but given that I spent about ten hours sitting on the sofa on the Sunday making all these banners and given that I would have had to redo pretty much all of them I decided the deadline must stand. Sorry Snowy.
For the record, Snowy's vote was for the CBW2190 Monaco Ceramic F1 75 Years (which would have pushed it up to Number 10). His second place was for the Carbon Monaco, so that would have gone up to 5th, and the Las Vegas Monaco, which wouldn't have made a difference. Since this didn't fundamentally change the result I did not consider it worth the trouble of redoing all these banners and after all every vote needs a deadline or I'd be up all night doing this!
So in the end there were 27 invites and 24 votes counted.
Well, that's it for another year. Thanks to all the members of the Council who participated in this year's shenanigans. I gotta say, personally I think voting for a box set is complete bullshit and the podium looks ridiculous, but that's democracy for you! 🤣
Next time we have a pretty intense 'Look Back at 2025' with our favourite Swedish lunatic Jim Dollare$, you just know that's going to be FUN, so I'll see you back here on the 30th for that.
Good job !
ReplyDeleteYear of the Monaco!!!
ReplyDeleteGlad that second hand value is horrible for TAG Heuer watches, might buy a pre-owned Gulf Monaco in the future after idiot first buyer takes the initial 60% depreciation
Awesome effort again this year!
ReplyDeleteCan we have a vote on whether that abomination of a boxed set should even have been included!?!