Countdown to the best posts of 2023 Part 1

Counting down to the end of 2023, and before welcoming 2024, here are the best posts on Deployant for 2023.

We will break down this into two parts. Part 1 today will list no. 6 to 10, and (drum roll) next week on New Year’s Eve, will the top 5.

Countdown to the best posts of 2023 Part 1 (6 to 10)

We do this countdown list annually, and use it as one of the data points on the feedback from you on what you want to see. Of course, the most direct way to tell us what you would like to read about is to message us, or comment on one of our posts. But also, we can garner some insights into this by how well a post performs by the number of page reads and unique visitors it has gained over the year. True, this tends to favour the older posts, those posted in Jan will have more time to gather more views than one posted yesterday. But in our experience, more than 90% of the page views are clocked in the first 24 hours, so this is a pretty good indicator on how popular a post is. And without further ado, here it goes!

No. 10 Grand Seiko Kodo Constant-Force Tourbillon SLGT003

A bit of a surprise that this ultra high end, rather expensive and super elusive watch makes it on this list. And also, traditionally, though it takes us a lot of effort and research to write long form, comprehensive reviews, they tend not to do so well in the popularity stakes. So maybe curiosity and living vicariously through our eyes got this article up here. Still, legitimate reasons which we respect.

BTW, though not commercially viable due to low page view counts, we are after all not a full commercial site, we will continue to do these full reviews. Not only because we love doing it, but we also see it as a source reference material to document watchmaking through the years.

Grand Seiko’s most complicated mechanical wristwatch ever. The release of the Kodo was a huge deal for Grand Seiko, for it brought with it many firsts: first mechanical tourbillon, first constant-force mechanism, and first skeletonised watch, among other achievements.

No. 9 TAG Heuer Carrera Chronograph Year of the Dragon

Posted only last week, this one made the top 10 list at the no.9 spot. The article is filed under News and Announcements, which the press release documentation with press photographs and our commentary in italics. When we first started this series of commentary in italics, we were skeptical if it would be well accepted. But thought we’d have a go at it and see how it goes. And we often see these pieces gain good views. We intentionally reproduce the entire press release text for you to read for yourself. The key to its popularity is then for us to add value. We do this by being timely when the novelty is fresh, and to provide insights through the commentary.

Interestingly, over the years, we have also learnt that being timely does not always mean publishing on the dot when embargo is lifted. For some brands, we note MB&F in particular who are impressively scrupulous in ensuring nothing is published before embargo lift (to the minute, and chapeau to them!), seeing every online publication publishing the same press release information with press pictures right on the dot makes for low page views. You can easily see this with the view counts on aggregators like Watchicity. Though the view counts are not exactly accurate, they give a relative indication of popularity of the post.

The TAG Heuer Carrera Chronograph Year of the Dragon is a limited edition watch that is set to be launched in November 2023 to celebrate the Lunar New Year of 2024, which is the Year of the Dragon. 

No. 8 Tissot PRX Line Extension

This one is another News and Announcement piece. And goes to show that the subject matter watch drives interest. The Tissot PRX line has been exceptionally successful for the Swatch Group maison. The entire lineup is well thought out, well designed to be aesthetically pleasing, and well executed. The high value pricing proposition is only the icing on the cake. We are mightily impressed with the PRX series. From the basic Quartz, to the Powermatic and Powermatic Chronographs. Each excellent choices at their price points.

With this new release, in Tissot’s own words – the release is one of new colours, new materials and the same watches. And in our view, that’s a good thing to offer more choices for the same good value for money.

No. 7 Review: the new Citizen Series 8 880 GMT

Another Japanese watch. We are often surprised how well Citizen reviews have done on the site. Perhaps it is because of the weak marketing from Citizen and low coverage of their rather magnificent watches, have highlighted us as one of the main sources of hands-on and comprehensive information on their watches. We also would like to think that this is also accentuated by our photography, which offers more viewpoints than those in the official website.

But this is a series of watches which we are most impressed with. It ticks all the boxes in all the right places. From concept, to design, to visual aesthetics, to execution and the excellent pricing. All perfect. We wish Citizen would be more pro-active in their marketing. But then, we also wish for the top line watches from this manufacture to remain an insider secret for yet a bit longer, and that they focus on the engineering aspects.

No. 6. Colour My World: Six colourful, vibrant and exciting watches for Your Collection

And as we enter to the upper echelons of the list, we encounter our first (of many!) listicles. This one on colourful and vibrant watches. And also one in the series on themes for collecting.

Our listicle lists six watches across multiple price points. The line connecting these watches are the use of bright, bold colours.

To be continued…

Next week, we will reveal the top 5 on the list. What do you think will be in that list?