The Titanium Grade Transparency Report (2026)

A majority do not say

Of the 660 references that do not publish a grade, 178 (27 percent of them) at least publish a branded material name, which tells a buyer something even when it is not an alloy. The remaining 482 (73 percent) publish the word titanium and stop there.

Takeaway: the common assumption is that an unpublished grade means a proprietary alloy with a house name. For 73 percent of the non-disclosing group there is no name either, so the grade is simply absent rather than replaced.

Why the grade matters, and why Grade 5 is not automatically the answer

Titanium in watchmaking is mostly two materials wearing one word. Grade 2 is commercially pure titanium. Grade 5 is Ti-6Al-4V, an alloy with roughly 6 percent aluminium and 4 percent vanadium. They behave differently enough that a buyer choosing between two watches at the same price is choosing between two different propositions.

Grade 5 is the stronger material, and that does not make it the better watch. A well-finished Grade 2 case is lighter on the wrist in feel, takes a softer brushed finish, and costs less to make, which is why so many microbrands use it and price accordingly. A surface-hardened proprietary titanium can outperform plain Grade 5 for scratch resistance, so a branded name is not a downgrade either. The argument here is about being told, rather than about which answer is best.

More detail on all of this: titanium grades explained, Grade 2 against Grade 5, Grade 5 against Grade 23, Super Titanium against Grade 5, what each brand calls its titanium, and titanium and nickel allergy.

Which grades actually get named

Among the references that do publish a designation, Grade 5 leads and Grade 2 follows, which matches where each sits in the market: Grade 5 across sport and luxury cases, Grade 2 heavily among microbrands where it is cheaper to machine. Grade 23 is rare, and Grade 1 and Grade 3 are rarer still. Browse them: Grade 5 watches, Grade 2 watches.

Price explains less of this than you would think

Disclosure does climb with price, from 40.8 percent under $500 to 64.1 percent above $20,000. That still leaves about a third of watches costing more than twenty thousand dollars declining to say which alloy the case is. The lowest rate of all belongs to the price-on-request group at 24.8 percent, which is mostly haute horlogerie, so the very top of the market discloses least.

Takeaway: price is a weak predictor of transparency. Disclosure rises by only about 23 points across a more than fortyfold price range, and the price-on-request group at the top of the market is the least transparent in the study.

Where the brand is from predicts it much better

The spread runs from 3.2 percent to 100 percent, a far wider range than price produces. Japanese brands account for 220 references here and publish a standard grade on 7 of them. That is a house convention rather than an oversight. The large Japanese makers have built branded material programmes, Super Titanium at Citizen, Bright Titanium and High-Intensity Titanium at Seiko and Grand Seiko, and they publish the brand and the surface treatment in place of the alloy. A buyer comparing one of those against a Swiss or British competitor is comparing a brand name against a specification.

Country is brand origin rather than country of manufacture, which is how this guide records it throughout.

Takeaway: the evidence indicates grade disclosure is a spec-sheet policy set by brand and regional convention, not a function of what the watch costs. Brand origin separates the catalog from 3.2 to 100 percent; price moves it by about 23 points.

Brand scorecard

Every brand with 6 or more references in the catalog, sorted by disclosure rate. Click any column heading to re-sort. A brand shows as ✓Discloses when every one of its references names a grade, ✕No grade when none of them do, and ◐Partial when some do and some do not. A partial brand is usually one publishing a house name on part of its range, so the share column is the number that matters.

Transparency leaders, and the brands publishing least

Among brands with 6 or more references, 8 publish a grade on every single one and 13 publish it on none. Very few sit in between, which is what a spec-sheet template applied across a lineup looks like.

Publishes a grade on every reference

Publishes a grade on none

The two lists sit either side of the price argument. Watchdives, median $189, prints the alloy on every reference. Ulysse Nardin, median $52,700, prints it on none. Both maker pages were re-checked on 2026-07-30: the Watchdives product page carries the words Grade 2 Titanium, and the Ulysse Nardin product page says Titanium Case with no occurrence of the word grade anywhere on it.

Naming brands here is descriptive. A brand that publishes no grade may still be using an excellent material, and several of them demonstrably are. The measure is whether the buyer is told.

Takeaway: of the brands with at least 6 references, 21 are all or nothing (13 never state a grade, 8 always). Disclosure is therefore a decision made once per brand, not per watch.

The same makers disclose almost everything else

The strongest argument for publishing the alloy is that the industry already publishes comparable specifications as a matter of course. Measured across the same 1,163 references, on the same maker pages:

Case diameter is published for 98.6 percent of these watches. Water resistance, the crystal material and the movement calibre all sit above 85 percent. The alloy the case is made from sits at 43.3 percent. The one specification published less often is case weight, which makers genuinely rarely measure and publish, and which this guide fills in slowly from hands-on reviews.

Coverage here is measured from this catalog's own recorded fields, which are captured from maker pages, so it is a close proxy for what makers publish rather than a direct audit of every spec sheet.

What this does not show

This is the Titanium Field Guide catalog, curated and weighted toward microbrands, so it is a large structured sample rather than a census of every titanium watch in production. Percentages describe the catalog.

Disclosure is recorded per reference from the product page. A maker that states the grade in a press release or a printed manual while omitting it from the product page counts as not disclosing. That is the deliberate reading, because the product page is where a buyer looks.

Entries carry their own verification dates and makers do update spec pages, so each figure reflects what was published when that entry was last checked. Two weekly re-verification sweeps maintain the catalog, and this page recomputes on every build, so the numbers move as the pages do.

Nothing here is laboratory work. This report does not test alloys and makes no claim about what any undisclosed titanium actually is.

Why this matters

Titanium is no longer a niche material. In this catalog it appears in a watch costing $67.99 and in one costing $533,000, both currently available. Manufacturers already tell buyers the crystal, the movement, the water resistance and the power reserve. Publishing the alloy beside the word titanium would require only a few additional characters on a specification sheet, yet it would materially improve transparency for buyers.

A maker that prints the crystal material, the water resistance rating, the calibre reference, the power reserve and the lume compound is not omitting the alloy because spec sheets are short. Titanium is sold on the strength of what the material is, and the material is the line that goes missing. The ask is small and entirely within each brand's control.

The purpose of this report is not to argue for one alloy over another, but to encourage the industry to tell buyers which one they are getting.

Looking ahead

This is an annual study, and the 2027 edition will be able to measure change rather than only level. It will track:

• the year-over-year disclosure rate across the catalog
• which brands improved, and which stopped publishing a grade they used to
• new proprietary titanium names entering the market
• whether the national pattern holds as more brands are added
• whether the price relationship strengthens or stays as weak as it looks now

Because this edition is numbered and dated, next year's figures will be comparable to it rather than replacing it.

Reuse, data and citation

These figures are facts and are free to quote, chart and republish with a link to this page. No permission request is needed and no attribution beyond the link is expected. The charts are plain SVG and can be saved directly from the page.

Cite this report

Every format below carries the series number, so a later edition is distinguishable from this one.

If a figure here is wrong, or a maker has started publishing a grade we have recorded as undisclosed, tell us and it goes into the data. Corrections change this page on the next build.