something like a pheonomenon... and an unexpected purchase...
Saturday 18 July 2009
something interesting has been happening... over the year i have visited several watch shops together with my non-WIS mates who have minimal exposure to watches and i asked them one thing... 'which watch appeals to you out of the ones we see in the shop?' these folks not knowing much about the many brands and their offerings and with limited knowledge of values in watches...
and 3 out of 3 times they all went for the same watch... pretty damn amazing if u ask me. i know of another friend whose wife bought this watch for him probably coz she liked the look of it or he did then... so for the 3... one of them purchased it as a gift for his ol' man... the second friend saw it and is/was possibly thinking of it as a gift... and the third, a younger friend of mine zoomed in on it after seeing easily over 100 different watches... again, it must be some design coup for non-WIS... all this interest in a watch that i was pretty dismissive to on account of its eta 7750 base movement...
can you guess which watch it is? have you had a similar experience? ... i mean what are the odds? :)
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ok enough... its the iwc portuguese chronograph... the 3714s
now I have to admit... i am not a fan of this watch. i dun like the chrono sub dials at the 12 and 6 o'clock, much preferring sub-dials to be at 3 and 9 if 2 of them need to be on the face... i am not a fan of its eta 7750 reworked by iwc movement and its wobble... at its S$7+k price point for the steel model. i like the portuguese line though but it was the others that appealed more to me from an aesthetics and movement standpoint... eg. the 7 day power reserve with pellaton winding portuguese... the vintage and limited edition portugiesers with in-house handwind or auto movements...
i liked these a lot... almost bought the black dialled one... but somehow it didn't grab me and shake me hard enough for my credit card to fall out of the wallet... noe wat i mean?
so what else is nice to me from iwc? skip over the big for bigs sake pieces... skip over the sports watch and the tacky marketing tieups... iwc to me is still about classic simple beautiful handwind watches... something from their pocket watch days... and they did this best in some of the watches i am about to mention...
the iwc portuguese jubilee limited edition ref 5441 coming in at 42mm... Introduced in 1993 to commemorate the 125th anniversary of IWC, with calibre 9828 ~ 250 in platinum, 500 in rose gold, 1000 in stainless steel. asking prices have gone up and up and its safe to say you won't be finding one these days for less than S$20k for the steel piece, the RG piece is in the high S$20ks or low S$30ks if I am not mistaken...
interestingly enough there is a 35mm smaller sibling the ref 3531 which because is a twin of the jubilee but smaller is pretty cool in the aesthetics dept on the dial side and its cheaper too with a different movement. reliable jlc 891 automatic caliber.... >USD3k to 5k for some metals, if you can find one... they don't pop up often probably because they are also such wonderful pieces...
you won't get to see many popping up for sale and when they do they normally go for quite a lot of change...
very nice handwind calibre reminiscent of the iwc pocket watch calibres of old... and its wrist watch calibre forebears like the cal 83
but i know this piece is not for me... why? i can't bring myself to pay S$20+k for it...
so i got this instead... a vintage iwc with the cal 83... as you can see, its more or less the cal the jubilee piece is based on and it itself is based on pocket watch hand wind movements of yore... pics of the front will come after i receive the piece... its gonna be an interesting discovery of it in the metal as i bought it breaking my rule of seeing it in the metal before buying... it is probably going to be too small for me but i am thinking of ways around that... hypno-theraphy is a consideration... repeat after me 'this 35mm watch is NOT too small for you...'
sellers pic for now... can't wait to get it... no swan neck but still fine in my eye :)
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7 comments:
Sometimes you gotta break your own rules. Some watches move us hard enuf from a pic seen, or physically handled some time back. The brain goes thru the usual self justification process, while the heart beats vociferously. Sometimes you gotta let the heart win.
i am all about following my heart of course as i only buy watches i love... if the watch was in singapore of course the rule applies to see it and try it before i buy.
this watch though is making its way from abroad so there is no way for me to see it in the metal before deciding.
but its not alot of money compared to many of the modern IWCs and from the pics of it, i think its a risk worth taking. we'll see :)
cheers
raph
Good luck mate. Above is actually me. Look like its gonna be another wise choice. Will research it tonite
thanks darth... i do hope so :) vintage is a good way to go to get good values at times but you are less certain of what u get. fingers crossed :)
cheers
raph
funny story and I had to weigh in - I have a few friends with good amount of spending money, but -0- knowledge of watches. all they want is the "wrist recognition" - and wouldn't you know they also bought the portuguese chrono's. something about that watch is attractive to people, but I also confess it is not for me.
Not what I would have expected to see you buy after following your writing for quite a while, but very nice, hope your enjoy it. And by the way 35mm is NOT too small :-) but perhaps helps make this the perfect understated watch for a more subdued formal occasion where something more noticeable ... such as a UN Freak :-) ... would just be too flashy?
Cheers from Canada
Harry
http://www.harrybishop.ca
Hi Harry
I was actually kind of surprised at the decision too. it just happened :) well not exactly but i'll go into my purchase choice when i post about it with more pics of the watch when i get it.
In terms of the size hurdle, i have been more accepting of smaller watches of late, probably from the very good influence of my 38mm Journe, especially for dress watches so hopefully it'll be ok. and agreed that the dress watches have their purpose for those occasions the freak would be just a tad little bit too OTT :)
hope alls well with you Harry and thanks for dropping a line. will swing by your blog soon to see what watch has been calling your name :)
cheers
raph
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