Here in the UK we recently celebrated Victory in Europe day, marking the end of the conflict in Europe 75 years ago. The watch that arrived in the post the day after VE Day was born only a few short years after the end of that conflict, around 1948, and unlike every other watch I’ve owned which started life somewhere in China, this watch was born in Europe, in the motherland of watchmaking, Switzerland.
Ok, so this isn’t so much a collection update as it is a “going gen” story, but I didn’t want it to get lost in the gen section, nor did I want to go and talk about it on some gen forum when this is still my spiritual home on the web. So to keep it in the GD area I will give a quick overview of the changes taking place in the collection.
Firstly those perusing the M2M section recently may have noticed several of my watches have been sold, including...
The RM001 JBF V1
The RM035 Z+F
The Patek Aquanaut SW200 that I’ve owned since 2013
And most painfully my gold Rolex 6265 with Phong dial
I’m undecided whether anything else will leave the collection at this stage, it’s quite likely, but certainly there are a number of special watches that will never leave. These include:
The Stuvetjee/DC project 6270
The DateJust my wife bought me as one of my first “decent” reps
The 5227 my wife bought me for our wedding
And the Rainbow Daytona purchased following the death of our second child last November with his name engraved on the back
Maybe it was that dreadful and difficult period at the end of last year that got me thinking, when I shuffle off this mortal coil I want to leave something to my family, particularly my first son, and I want that something to be real and hold value outside of these forums.
So, what have I bought as my first venture into gen watches? It’s a “Chronographe Suisse”, a company well known for producing affordable yet reliable watches to hundreds of micro brands throughout the 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s, in this case a brand called “Agari”.
It does have a distinct air of Patek about it with its sweeping lugs and Arabic numeral markers which is probably what attracted me to it (though these are gilt printed rather than gold applied), but alas fortune has not befallen me to the extent of affording a similar vintage piece from my beloved Vallée de Joux manufacturer. The other instant attraction for me was the stunning “pink on pink” rose gold case and dial configuration, another trait of rare Patek chronographs of old.
There is a certain special feeling to holding a gen watch, I’ve discovered. That feeling that, although a rep watch is made of much the same materials arranged in much the same way, this watch holds intrinsic value and is somehow more “real”. Not heavier in weight (not this one anyway for reasons we will go in to later) but heavier in presence and certainly in finish. It isn’t a representation of the history of watchmaking, it is a part of it!
The fact it is solid 18kt gold (in a beautiful subtle rose mix) does help this feeling of “specialness”, the lustre of real gold is hard to replicate (especially rose gold which is always too coppery in reps and plated cheap gens).
What might not come across in these pictures, however, is the fact that this watch is small. So small, in fact, that I actually passed on it initially when I queried the size with the seller. But a few wrist shots later I pulled the trigger, it looked fine on his wrist. Most members here probably wince at the thought of a 36mm watch such as a DateJust... well this baby is 33mm!!
Opening the velvet covered full length snap case my initial reaction was one of surprise at just how small it was. Despite knowing the dimensions before purchase it was hard to imagine how it would look in the metal, and equally hard to convey in pictures without context (as I should have remembered, watches always tend to look larger in wrist shots than they do in reality). So to give you context and an idea of just how this watch sizes up (or down) here it is next to a modestly sized 38mm Patek 5227 dress watch rep...
Small right? However, after an initial period of adjusting to it I have come to absolutely love the size, genuinely. For starters I have small wrists anyway (around 16cm) so I’ve always struggled with anything above 40mm, but as I look down at the watch on my wrist now it is the first time a watch has felt correctly proportioned for me, and even made my wrists look like that of a normal person. Secondly and perhaps most importantly it sits so nicely on the wrist, flat and with no severe overhang or digging of the crown into the back of my hand.
Thirdly and finally there is something really exquisite about something so small but finished so beautifully. Just look at the polished bevel on the centre of the hands where they sit on the canon pinion, the hands have real weight and three dimensionality to them despite being so delicate, these weren’t stamped out of a thin metal sheet. And the way the minute hand and chronograph hand both turn downward at their tips to avoid fouling the plexi crystal, these details are even more stunning for being in miniature.
Inside the case is an extremely clean Venus 188 manual wind cam actuated chronograph movement, which has a fantastic clicky winding feel to it. This watch has clearly seen very little use or wear in its 70+ year life. The chronograph pusher feel falls short of a more expensive column wheel actuated movement but is significantly better than the nasty A7750s we’ve all become used to. In any case it’s the winding that I will experience on a more regular basis so that’s more important to me.
The dial is magnificent and impeccably clean. It’s the original dial so again it’s condition suggests this watch has not been used and has likely sat in a drawer or watch box most of its life.
It’s a rose gold metallic finish which appears either gold or cream coloured in normal light, but becomes a bright orange/pink in direct sunlight. It’s every bit as dynamic as a blue dial Nautilus for anyone who’s owned one of those. The Arabic indices are clear and legible, and are some sort of gilt painted finish, although they seem to have almost mirror like qualities so possibly they are foiled in some way, it’s hard to tell.
The outer scale is in two parts. The outer is printed blue and is a tachymeter for measuring speed over a set distance. The inner is printed red and is a telemeter, which means you can measure how far away something (like a gun) is by comparing the time difference between seeing the muzzle flash and hearing the bang (due to the difference in the speed of sound and the speed of light). Not so useful these days, but having just come out of a world war this type of functionality was probably considered very useful at the time!!
So what next? Well I’m still interested in reps but my standards have increased significantly. I’ve just taken delivery of the 3K factory Aquanaut and am incredibly impressed with that so it will certainly be staying.
As for gens, this watch has unquestionably lit the fire of gen vintage watch ownership in me, and my next gen vintage piece is already en route from a seller in Brazil (a triple calendar with moonphase and chronograph no less) so I guess the DC collection is going in a different direction for the foreseeable future. Stay tuned... or don’t... it’s up to you!
DC
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