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If you know about status symbols, you probably know about watches. Watches are some of today’s most valuable collectibles, able to transcend time, trends, and circumstances. And if you have a large watch collection to call your own, you can’t resist sharing this good news. News that luxury book publisher Taschen is launching an all-new coffee table book, Ultimate Collector Watches. After reading this, you may become even more of an enthusiast.

Each page is a step on a journey through the world’s rarest, most sought after and exquisite watches. They include a total of 100 pieces spanning more than 120 years, including a circa-1892 Louis Brandt & Frères minute repeater that can tell time acoustically, and a Patek Philippe Chronometro Gondolo, an 18-karat yellow gold dazzler that was produced only 10 times.

Far from being a visual-only work, the book is interspersed with vintage advertisements, archival sketches, and close-up shots of the watches in question, often giving readers a peek inside the cross-sections of watches, but also offering a detailed history of watch innovation that will pique the curiosity of the most savvy enthusiast. Here you can read how, at the age of 28, Louis Cartier designed what is considered the first modern wristwatch. Learn about the management philosophy that Rolex originally operated under (“Good marketing is the only thing that makes a company successful”). And then there’s the Bvlgari Serpenti bracelet watch, with its carefully laid out diamond pattern and snake motif. The watch garnered significant product placement with classic Hollywood stars like Elizabeth Taylor.

After digging deep into the facts so deftly and accessiblely presented in “The Ultimate Collector’s Watch,” you will walk away from this experience more convinced than ever that the history of the chronometer cannot be separated from the overall story of our time. Case in point: the 1962 Cartier Tank that Jackie Kennedy was inseparable from had an important engraving on the back that was unknown to many. It read, “Stas to Jackie, February 23, 1963, 2:05 a.m. to 9:35 p.m.” The Ultimate Collector’s Watch reveals that these seemingly mysterious numbers actually refer to the start and end times of President Kennedy’s 50-mile hike (part of an executive fitness challenge for all Americans) alongside Prince Stanisław (Stas) Radziwill, the Polish prince and socialite who gifted President Kennedy’s wife a Cartier watch.

We want to give this two-volume, 960-page publication about the finest watches of all time the same special feel that we give to watches. collect What about that watch? Invest in the collector’s edition. Only 1,000 copies will be distributed by Taschen. As well as being individually numbered, this expensive version also has foil embossing, gilded edges and a slipcase.

Because if you’re a holomaniac, live For more information.

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meet the author

Stacia Datskowska Senior Commerce Writer at WWD. Previously, she worked as an assistant digital editor at ELLE DECOR, covering all things luxury, culture, and lifestyle through the lens of design. Over the past five years, her byline has appeared in USA Today, the Baltimore Sun, Teen Vogue, the Boston Globe, Food & Wine, and more. Before joining ELLE DECOR, Datskowska learned the ins and outs of e-commerce at Mashable, where she tested products, covered tent pole sale events, and curated gift guide roundups. She graduated from New York University with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and international relations. Datskowska regularly reports on high fashion, accessories and collectibles that are worth your readers’ time.