Very interesting article Jeff, thanks for sharing it! I am still amazed that so many people (like those posting comments to the article) have absolutely no understanding of why many of us love watches. In fact, many think it is actually obsene that someone would pay a thousand dollars for a watch, let alone millions. I simply love wearing a mechanical watch. I marvel at the complexity of a good mechanical watch, especially a vintage watch considering how rough I was with my watches when I was younger. My everyday watch is a Breitling Navitimer (model "Montbrillant Edition") which I wear not to impress people (its usually underneath a shirt sleeve where no one sees it) but simply because I personally love the way it looks. It pleases me to look at it during the day. It's my mechanical toy or personal piece of "man jewelry" I guess, but it is also useful and more pleasing than digging into my pocket for my cell phone, especially when on the road. I feel the same way about the few vintage Heuers I wear and own as well as other watches in my collection.

I have worn a watch everyday since the third grade. I've always been fascinated by them. My favorite birthday gift each year from my parents until I turned 15 or so was a new cheap, Timex hand wound watch. I was very clumsy with my watches so the crystals were lucky to last much over 9 months or so before I bumped it up against a door frame or some other "obstacle". I eagerly awaited my birthday for a replacement watch! It wasn't until I became a bit more, shall we say, coordinated before I started purchasing better quality watches, which initially were Seiko or Citizen quartz chronographs, each typically lasting about 5 years. I can't imagine not having a watch on my wrist. In fact, after leaving on a business day trip several years ago (by car), I turned the car around and went back home to retrieve my watch (an ordinary Citizen quartz at the time) simply because I felt undressed and unprepared without it, despite having a cell phone in my pocket! I didn't start acquiring quality Swiss watches until about 8 years ago at age 50. I had grown tired of quartz watches eventually breaking down and becoming largely unrepairable after about 5 years or so of use. In 2004 I bought a copy of Wristwatch Annual and became entranced with the pictures of all those fine Swiss (and German) mechanical watches. I was enthralled with all the different choices from so many manufacturers. But, I too thought the prices were a bit silly, However, after a health scare the following year, I decided to celebrate good news with my first quality Swiss mechanical watch. Then I discovered one of Jeff's articles in IW Magazine a year later and became fascinated by the automatic Autavia's, followed by checking this great website every day for the discussion forum as well as studying all the pictures, charts and text on this site. Next, searching through e-bay became a part of every day. And on and on.

Perhaps I am simply an anachronist since my other love is vintage audio gear. Tube audio gear in particular. I enjoy rebuilding classic tube gear (amps and preamps like McIntosh, Dynaco, Fisher, Marantz, HH Scott, etc.) for my own enjoyment at home as well as having rebuilt a few amps over the years to give to close friends as gifts. I prefer the sound of tubes (valves to our British friends) over transistors because to my ears, they sound more natural and musical. Here's a poor photo due to the lack of lighting of my 11630 Autavia with a McIntosh MC60 softly glowing in the background. Hope I haven't rambled on too much! Steve

: Interesting perspective on mechanical watches . . . here's the
: link to the article (which is also pasted below)

:
: http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/4a5b3da0-6c37-11e1-8c9d-00144feab49a.html
: #

: Jeff

: +++++++++++++++++++++

: Watches that defy the ravages of time

: By Michael Skapinker

: In a hotel suite high above the city of Basel last week, I held a
: watch made of white gold and set with 200 diamonds, that is on
: sale for $2.5m. As I no longer own a watch, and never spent more
: than the equivalent of $20 on one when I did, I found it a
: little unsettling.

: Still, the experience, during a discussion with Michel Pitteloud,
: chief executive of Graff’s watch division, prepared me for the
: Basel watch fair next door, where I heard about another
: company’s timepiece that had gone for $5m. By the end of a
: day, when I saw a watch selling for $1,400, it seemed cheap.

: While the world spent much of 2011 in fear of further financial
: catastrophe, luxury watch sales soared. Swiss watch exports rose
: 19 per cent to a record SFr19.3bn. Watch brand owners such as LVMH
: and Richemont have announced big increases in sales.

: Yet the odd thing about expensive watches is that they are not
: nearly as good at keeping time as those you can buy for the cost
: of a takeaway meal. Luxury watchmakers have been rocked by not
: just one but two technological revolutions that would, in any
: other industry, have put them out of business.

: The first is documented in a beautiful book, The Mastery of Time,
: published for the Fondation de la Haute Horlogerie, the
: Geneva-based trade body: “On December 25, 1969, the Seiko
: Quartz Astron 35SQ was presented in Tokyo. It was accurate to
: within one minute a year.”
: The book continues: “The impact of quartz on the watchmaking
: industry was devastating. A large number of manufacturers simply
: disappeared . . . Older watchmakers were forced to retire
: and the younger ones tried to change occupation. Watchmaking
: schools closed and gloom hung over an entire stricken
: profession.”

: The second revolution is there as I type. The time, accurate to the
: second, is at the bottom of my screen. With a click of the mouse
: I can find the time in San Diego or Melbourne, too, or on what
: day of the week New Year 2022 will fall (Saturday). Luxury
: watchmakers, whose watches still rely on mechanical workings, do
: not hide what this has meant. Alexander Schmiedt, a director at
: Montblanc International, recently said of his company’s
: watches: “Your phone for $50 is much more precise.”

: Yet luxury watches have found a future. It is as if companies were
: selling platinum typewriters or ruby-encrusted slide rules. That
: the luxury watch business survives and thrives shows it has
: understood some of society’s deepest desires. There are
: lessons for other threatened industries.

: The first is that in an age of mass production, some will pay for
: craft. In Switzerland’s workshops you can watch people with an
: eyeglass and a pair of tweezers fitting impossibly tiny cogs and
: wheels. The manufacturers make a virtue of this, with the most
: expensive watches exposing their mechanical innards. At the same
: time, manufacturers continue to innovate with new materials and
: mechanical ingenuity. There cannot be another industry that
: boasts of how many “complications” its products have. They
: talk, too, about “power reserves” – how long a watch works
: between windings.

: I felt like saying to those showing off their two-day power
: reserves that the last Casio I owned had a two-year power
: reserve.

: But these watches are not aimed at me; they are for people who care
: about brands, who feel that owning one tells the world something
: important about themselves.

: The watches are also jewellery, explicitly so in the case of
: women’s watches that are combined with bracelets and brooches.
: At Harry Winston, the US company, I saw watches whose faces were
: lined with peacock feathers.

: Which industries could imitate luxury watches’ time-defying
: trick? The art business already has. Photography should have
: smashed it and Photoshop finished it off. Instead, we have had
: everyone from Jackson Pollock to Damien Hirst. And those who
: came before still retain a compelling power: is there a
: photograph to match the depth of Rembrandt’s self-portrait in
: London’s Kenwood House?

: Another industry that could emulate the watchmakers is the books
: business. If, some day soon, every author writes only ebooks and
: you can walk along a beach without seeing a single paperback, I
: suspect there will still be a market for lovingly produced,
: hand-sewn hard covers. I may not be a luxury watch buyer, but I
: would happily fork out for one of those.