Who Watches the Watchmen (Our Chit Chat Thread)

Lorddrakul wrote: »

There was a nice old Breitling on Antiques Roadshow this evening.

It was a two register chrono, with an inscription that dates it to 1949 in the US.

The model was Chronomat, the one with the slide rule.
It was in working order, but the dial had some damage.

Estimate was about £5,000, which sounded low.

Antiques Roadshow have a history of being all over the place with valuations on watches(and other things). They tend to undervalue(the US version tends to overvalue), or aren't always clear is that auction values, dealers values, insurance values. In that case though I'd say 5000 sterling or around 6000 euro wouldn't be far wrong.

Breitling would be a niche enough interest in the vintage realm and never really took off in values the way chronos from brands like Heuer, Rolex and Omega have. Even though Breitling came up with the two pusher chronograph standard that everyone else copied. Then again Longines chronos are still with a few exceptions way down compared to the aforementioned brands and they were the first to make a wristwatch specific chronograph movement(and the flyback).

The other angle is that she's being - and all too typical for westerners, especially Americans - very local in culture. Like I was saying earlier in the thread Longines' sales of women's watches in China and the Far East in general outstrip their sales of men's watches. Women in that neck of the woods, billions of them are choosing what they're choosing. The new york feminist stuff doesn't really translate. And like has been said nobody is stopping any women from buying "men's" watches. I've noticed that among the women I've seen wearing watches(mostly "fashion" brands) they tend to go big anyway. Bigger than I usuually wear actually.

The other side of it is that women as a market never bought into the "mechanical is authentic" stuff of the Swiss watch industry marketing. It seems they want to see more value and convenience in jewellery purchases. We might be seeing the same marketing trying to bridge that gap and increase profit margins. Margins are generally higher on mechanical than they are with quartz and women are an untapped market in that.

Another thing occurred to cynical oul me, especially as they've gone all meta and have an article about her article... Maybe it's not the women's market they're pointing at, but the men's? Specifically the men's vintage market. Vintage watches are overwhelmingly smaller compared to current offerings, but they flog a load of vintage so maybe they're trying to tweak their male viewer's opinions towards smaller sizes that they might otherwise think too "girly"? Wouldn't surprise me with that lot.

banie01 wrote: »

Her thinking on that?
Well her watches are basically functional fat bangles.
So the bigger and blingier the better.
An antithesis to many of us and our "man" jewellery where we tell ourselves it's mechanics over form.
For her, it's form over mechanics.

It's the difference between X and Y

I dunno B, I'd say it's just as much about form over mechanics for most men buying into watches as jewellery and status transmitters over the last decade or so. It always was to some degree as the vast majority of men's watches in the 20th century were dressy and gold, or gold plated and in many cases not particularly legible either. You really see that in the 20/30's where men's watches shrunk and even the larger art deco tank styles had tiny hands. The first Rolex Oyster cases run between 30 and 34mm. At the same time when men were in need of actual tool watches for particular purposes they were nearly always larger and far more legible. Though even here current fashion could influence things like the very first specific divers watch that was made by Omega. A tiny tank watch.