Watch Guide: iykyk Edition
There’s no better time than during a catastrophic bear market that is obliterating the wealth effect to discuss luxury watches. Boys crumble to dust during recessions, and the strongest of them rise again from the ashes to become men during the next boom. It will be a lot of hard work, no doubt, and a nice watch is the ultimate status symbol a man can purchase for himself as a reward for all of his hard work. But hey, maybe you don’t want the same Rolex Oyster Perpetual all your finance bro buddies have. Maybe you want a more unique timepiece. Your timepiece.
I’m a watch lover, if you can’t tell. When I was four or five years old, we visited my Sicilian grandpa at his imported foods store and, out of the blue, he asked me where my watch was. I told him I didn’t have one, to which he replied, “Every successful man needs a watch.” He took me to a department store and bought me a Mickey Mouse watch. I wish I could lead into a big Hollywood-worthy story about how I held onto that watch ever since then and had it in my hand at his funeral, staring at it in deep contemplation and planning the next phase of my life. The truth is that I don’t remember what happened to that watch, but I’ll never forget how important it was to him that I get a watch. It was urgent. Necessary.
I wore whatever watches I could afford through high school and college—Fossil, Citizen, Seiko (not the nicer models). I think I even went through a short pocket watch phase at some point. What a douchebag. Anyways, it took years for me to be able to afford a luxury timepiece. I wanted to dip my toe in without going overboard, and decided the best time to make the purchase was to celebrate something big. So, when I sold my condo for a windfall, I went out and purchased myself a Cartier Santos-Dumont to wear at my wedding. It is an absolutely beautiful, subtle dress watch and was actually the original aviator watch.
Since then, I have been near obsessed with luxury watches and have been forming a buy list. Of course, being a married house-owner has put a (very) firm cap on my watch budget for the time being, but I can window shop. As a disclaimer, I’m not paid by, nor do I own or have experience wearing the below listed brands (although that would be incredible). If you’re interested in exploring any of these brands further, I recommend doing your own research to make sure the quality and value is there. The best thing about watches is that picking one is a very personal experience.
While I’m a fan of the obvious brands, like Rolex, Patek Philippe, Omega, Tag Heuer, and Breitling, I love to look at the not-so-obvious brands. The if-you-know-you-know brands. If you’re a watch guy, you already know these, but here are some of my favorites.
Breguet
You may recognize the brand if you have taken your wife shopping at Two Rodeo in Beverly Hills, where rich socialists treat themselves to a five-or-six-figure timepiece to celebrate a Tuesday. Breguet has a wide variety of designs, from the more contemporary styles like skeleton dials and multiple tourbillons to the more traditional Classiques and French navy aviator watches. Then there is the extra-gaudy High Jewellery collection in case your wife is a rapper or Daisy Buchanan. I’m a more traditional guy, myself. These bad boys are so pricey that I can’t justify touching one until I add at least one more zero to my net worth. There is nothing they offer for less than the price of a used Toyota Corolla unless you want a $2,000 pen.
BALL
Big buy-American kind of guy (or gal)? Well, you’re…..out of luck, because BALL Watch is now headquartered in Switzerland. I think Shinola is now the only premium watch brand still made in the USA. However, BALL originated in blue collar America in the late 1800s when Webb C. Ball established timekeeping standards for railroad workers after a disastrous and tragic train accident that could have been prevented by proper timekeeping. BALL’s big “thing” is their micro gas tube luminosity (marketing lingo for glow in the dark hands, bezel, & dial). Several calibers feature these all over the watch in different styles. Their Trainmaster has a cool, traditional pocket watch look to the dial, and then there are diving and sports watch styles. Best of all, it’s a unique, premium (dare I say luxury) brand at a very reasonable price point, with most watches in the $1,500 - $4,000 range.
Jaeger-LeCoultre
For years, despite knowing just enough high school French to not die homeless and alone in Paris, I pronounced the brand name like “Jäeger(meister).” Turns out it’s actually a soft “J” and soft “R.” “Jeh-jair Leh-cool-truh,” spoken without pause. Sounds fancy, huh? It is. And if you’re going to roll in bougie circles, you can’t run around pronouncing the name like you’re Jethro from the Beverly Hillbillies. At least be Doc Holliday. Jaeger-LeCoultre’s origins are in ultra-thin movements. This specialty of theirs eventually led to a significant invention for the sport of polo. The horseback kind. Polo players wanted a watch they could wear that wouldn’t have its face damaged during the game, since watches were protected by glass rather than crystal at the time. Jaeger-LeCoultre invented the Reverso, a rectangular dress watch that can have its case flipped 180 degrees to hide the face. It’s a little gimmicky, but I still want one. Unfortunately for Jaeger-LeCoultre, the Reverso looms so large as its big differentiator that the other watch designs get overlooked. They have different calibers with multiple complications and traditional styles comparable to the premium competition brands. They’ve even updated the Reverso with a 2nd face that uses the same movement to track a second time zone. Don’t get me wrong, the non-Reverso calibers are beautiful and I would never turn one down, but they kind of blend in with some of the Breguet and Vacheron-Constantine historical and classical looks out there.
If you have any “non-traditional” brands you enjoy browsing not listed here, let me know as I’ll probably spend hours perusing their offerings since, you know, it’s not like I’m trading right now.