When it comes to watch complications, a minute repeater is one of the more unusual and entertaining. Press a button and a two-tone chime will ring out the number of hours and five-minute intervals past the hour. You’ll be able to tell the time without looking, and everyone around you will marvel at your watch just as surely as if it was covered in diamonds or skeletonized to show the gears working inside.
1970 Breitling Datora 592: My Fixer-Upper
This is a web site about grails: Watches people spend their lives looking for. Approximately zero people will spend their lives looking for a beat up, common, 1970’s Breitling like this Datora 592. But I bought it, and I thought it might be interesting to my readers to know why and what I’m doing next.
1992 Svend Andersen Christopher Columbus Worldtimer
How would you like to own an extremely rare and interestingly complicated watch from a legend of independent Haute Horology? This worn but interesting world timer watch was constructed by Svend Andersen in 1992 to commemorate the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ journey to the new world. And it’s definitely worth the starting bid of € 4,000.
1975 Girard Perregaux Casquette LED
Some grails are special because of their association with history (see my piece on the “Scuderia Ferrari” Zenith, for example), while others are just plain odd. This is the latter. The Girard Perregaux Casquette (Ref. 9931) is a mid-1970’s LED quartz watch with innovations throughout. It’s just too bad the quartz revolution ended with a whimper instead of this kind of excitement!
1950 Zenith “Scuderia Ferrari” Chronograph
Sometimes when browsing watches one stumbles upon something that seems seriously out of place. Such was the case when I spotted a Scuderia Ferrari-branded Zenith Chronograph in the listings for tomorrow’s Chrono24/Auctionata auction: Sure, there are Ferrari-branded watches today, but this one dates to “around 1950” and has a yellow logo!
Pick One: Three Jaeger-LeCoultre Memovox Alarm Watches
The Jaeger-LeCoultre Memovox is a true classic: A novel watch that sold well when it first appeared and lasted for decades after, continuing even today. Although not the first alarm wristwatch, the Memovox came on the market in 1951 and became the first ever automatic watch with an alarm function in 1956. Jaeger-LeCoultre upped the ante with a high-beat version in the 1960’s and 1970’s, and has continued offering this useful complication in today’s Master Memovox and related models.
The Last Buren: High-Beat Calibre 82 Revival
We recently ran across a mystery: This Buren Calibre 82 wristwatch boasts an unknown 36,000 A/h movement and ambiguous date of production. What is it? We unravel the mystery and recommend a buy!
Hamilton Electric Ventura
There are few watches as immediately recognizable as the Hamilton Ventura. Still in production today, the “Elvis Watch” was a massive success when it was introduced in 1957 and represents the decade remarkably well.
The First Grand Seiko
In 1960, Seiko created their enduring entry in the luxury watch market, Grand Seiko. Produced by Suwa Seikosha, the simply-named Grand Seiko offered the sort of fit and finish usually reserved for fine Swiss watches, with a simple hand-winding in-house movement to match.