This is an edition of the newsletter Box + Papers, Cam Wolf’s weekly deep dive into the world of watches. Sign up here.
I learned a hard lesson over the past couple of weeks: Instagram is not real life. Reality does not offer the gentle contouring of Facetune nor the constant little niblets of like-induced serotonin. And perhaps most surprising and devastating of all, no matter how often a red-hot watch trend has popped up on your explore page in 2024, it turns out no one actually cares that much about your stone-dial watch IRL.
Stone dials, for the uninitiated, are exactly what they sound like: watch faces crafted from vibrant stones like malachite, jade, onyx, tiger’s eye, jasper, coral, or lapis lazuli.
Now that 2024 is nearly in the rearview mirror, I feel safe declaring that stone dials were the biggest watch trend of the year. While vintage Piagets led the charge in that regard, dealers also moved plenty of throwback stone-dial Patek Philippes and Rolexes with equal zeal. Cruising through Watch Instagram felt like touring the world’s sexiest quarry. And it wasn’t just old watches riding the stone-dial wave: Lapis and tiger’s eye also anchored new releases from upstarts like Toledano & Chan and Berneron.
But arguably the year’s most important new stone-dial watch is the latest spin on the Baltic Prismic, which the affordable French watchmaker released in September in lapis lazuli, green jade, and red agate versions. Compared to the $10,000 Piaget pieces and $4,000 Toledano & Chan drops we mentioned earlier, the Prismic’s €1,310 (about $1,418) retail price was an absolute steal—by far the most affordable way into the trend. Naturally, I was overjoyed to hear about the stone-dial Baltic and moved quickly to acquire one. But that’s when my reality check hit hard.
