Anyone who was imprisoned in went to a boys’ boarding school before 1980 will be familiar with the term “six of the best”, which referred to the number of strokes applied to one’s backside by a cane-wielding head- or housemaster.
This series isn’t about any of that sadomasochistic nonsense. It’s about fine things, things I like right at the moment, things I would like to possess (given the means, of course): just… great stuff.
So today: Watches.
As Longtime Readers know well, I have some fairly strict rules when it comes to watches:
- no metal bracelets (because arm hair); leather straps only, no rubber or plastic straps need apply
- manual wind action (no automatic or battery a.k.a “quartz” movements)
- simplicity over complications
- uncluttered watch faces
- dress watches over “functional” (stopwatches, diving watches, etc.).
While these are very much ironclad rules, I have reserved the right to break them in a couple of cases simply because the watches are gorgeous. So here we go (in alphabetical order), and prices are as currently listed in the red links:
Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso – $9,000
I want a dark-faced watch for discreet evening wear, and I love the “JLC” brand.
Longines Master Collection – $1,200
Art deco numbers, and it oozes class that belies its price. If something bad were to happen to my brilliant Tissot Heritage, this would be its replacement (assuming I couldn’t find another Heritage, which seems to have been discontinued booooo).
H.Moser & Cie Endeavor – $18,500
The minute I saw this watch, I fell in love despite its nosebleed price. Want.
Omega Speedmaster Professional Moon Watch – $6,500
Yeah, I broke my own rules with this one: it’s clunky (not a dress watch) and it’s multifunctional (not simple time-telling). But it survived a trip to the Moon, which has to count for something, and I’d take one over any Rolex*, any day of the week. Oh, and that no-class canvas strap would go bye-bye.
Piaget Altiplano – $11,000
The ultimate in minimalist style, the ultra-thin Altiplano has always attracted me.
Vacheron Constantin 1942 Triple Calandrier – $20,000
Okay, I broke almost all my rules with this one: when a watch tells you the date and month (in addition to hours, minutes and seconds), that’s what you might call “multifunctional”. Don’t care: it’s old-fashioned (1942 first production) and I love it. At least it’s still a manual wind…
Honorable mention (because it isn’t a wristwatch):
Vacheron Constantin 1900 Pocket Watch – $6,000
Art Deco, gold case (not ostentatious because you keep it in your pocket), and a VC into the bargain. Yeah, it’s secondhand. Anyone know what a 1961 Ferrari 250 SWB sells for, these days?
And speaking of which: sometime next week will be cars.
*The Rolex Discussion can be found here.
Final thought: you will never find any Breitling, Hublot or Tag Heuer watches on any list of mine. Here are the reasons (just ignore the horrible A.I. voiceover, if you can).
The problem with an expensive watch is that you have to develop a special two-handed way of looking at the time to advertise that you are wearing a good watch.
I bought a Patek Philippe from the pawn shop in Hout Bay for next to nothing. When yuppies urgently needed cash, the pawn guy paid for the value of the gold in them. It wasn’t a bad watch but I don’t think it ever got me laid, which is the sole and entire point of having such a watch.
In between The Late Wife and The Last Wife, because I had my own money then, I went through a bit of a watch phase. I vowed to own at least one each of the Holy Trinity of Horology (Patek Phillippe, Vacheron Constatin, and Audemars Piguet) and I eventually did, but I got bored rather quickly with that much equity tied up in a series of watches and moved on.
I eventually settled for a Tissot Heritage Visodate reissue, which is my favorite classy casual watch; a Mido Ocean Star GMT (my travel watch), and lastly, the last dress watch I’ll ever own, an A. Lange & Söhne Saxonia I got new back in 2016. I still have an odd mix of this and that (original Seiko Cocktail Time, a vintage Glashutte Original and a 1950’s Jaeger LeCoultre “railroad” in 18K rose gold), but I’m not chasing any new ones.
Also, I only vaguely care what time it is and have virtually no interest in the day or the week or month. So there’s that.
Those Saxonia things are just gorgeous.
Also that Visiodate is excellent, except that I don’t think they make a steam-winder version: it’s automatic or battery-driven only.
That particular (ETA 2892-A2) movement in my Visodate is a true automatic that can also be hand wound. I find that to be the best of both worlds for the kind of wear I give it.
The simple elegance of the Saxonia, especially in 18K rose gold, is timeless. Mine is manual wind only with a 72-hour power reserve, which gives me a reason to handle it a couple of times of week. Small joys are the best ones.
A hypothetical: You’ve said you’ll “never” buy a Rolex. But suppose you had the opportunity to buy a Rolex for relatively cheap; government auction, estate sale, whatever. Not one of the ridiculously overpriced ones, but one that sells new for somewhere in the mid-$6000 range. You could buy it (with authentication) for about $1000. A few days later you mention it in casual conversation and someone overhears you. He says “I’ll give you $4000 for it.” Would you take the chance to “flip” it, and if not, how much would the watch have to retail for to pique your interest?
IF I found a Rolex for $500 AND I knew someone who’d pay me stupid money for it, then yes of course I’d buy it.
I’d still never wear it, though, which is the point of buying a watch (any watch) as opposed to as an investment.
While I can respect the success of Rolex, I’ve never been attracted to the brand. Rolex is a private charity and as such, does not have to disclose much in the way of production volume, sales, etc. They’ve mastered a high level of precision AND production and their marketing department seems to do a good job of persuading the buying public that there is value in their product. Meh, I guess.
I’m not sure if the information is still current, but many years ago I was well-informed that the 3 largest insurance companies held a massive number of Rolexes in inventory (for property loss replacements) and that they got them at less than 40% of MSRP.
Haute horology they are not.
Of the above presentations the Jaeger looks the best. I’m intrigued by the Omega though. The problem is getting to be that my old eyes are getting so damn poor I can’t read anything on the dial.
When it comes to watches, my aesthetic is elegantly utilitarian + TRITIUM, so you can always read the damned thing in the dark, even if the last time it saw light was over 20 minutes ago.
These guys nail the cost/value/aesthetic sweet spot: https://us.nitewatches.com/
If it gets dark, I go to bed. My days of night-time adventures are so far in my rear-view mirror, they’ve fallen below the horizon.
Geek:
Many decades ago my wife gave me a Luminox “Commander” watch, which was a civilianized version of their tritium-illuminated watch. Very nice subdued style much like the MX10’s in the Nite catalog. Unfortunately it busted after about 5 years and repair parts were no longer available. That thing was initially so bright (and my eyes were much better) that you could read a book in the dark by the light it gave.
I’d never heard of the “Nite” brand before and I’ve got to say I very much like some of the non-clunky (and smaller 32mm sized) styles available. For under $500 I might even splurge on one. My current watch is a 25-year-old Timex “Expedition” with “Indiglo” illumination which chews up the battery pretty fast if used often. It has a woven nylon band on which the retainers have broken, and the last time I changed the battery it cost me more than the watch did originally.
Kim:
I’ve got to say that it’s very convenient to wake up in the middle of the night when the power has gone off (the lack of noise will usually wake me) and be able to reach over to the nightstand where my watch sits next to my .45. With the tritium illumination nothing is needed except to glance at it; with the Timex I have to use both hands to push the button in to illuminate it. It’s handy to know what time the power failed so I can figure out if everything in the freezer is going to thaw or not. The only potential drawback of the tritium is that you have to turn your watch over to the bottom side of your wrist if you don’t want to let the world know where you are if you’re wearing short sleeves.
I’ll dig into the watches later.
I like the manual wind feature. I want hours, minutes and a second hand on the watch. The little windows for seconds just bother me. Day, date is a nice feature but now that I’m older the markers are too small. I don’t want a stop watch on it or any other things like that. I like a classic reserved look of a watch. My pretentious brother in law wears a used Rolex and that right there is a good enough reason to never buy one.
My wife recently bought me a fun watch. It’s a Timex Peanuts edition with snoopy hitting a baseball. It’s a quartz. I’ll wear it this summer to minor league baseball games.