Who Watches the Watchmen (Our Chit Chat Thread)

I had one of the sixties ones back in the 90's. Gorgeous watch, hefty too, real quality(pricey when new). IMHO ahead of the equivalent Seamaster and Submariner of the time. Though mine's bezel was a bit fecked. I'd never heard a high beat movement before(and one of only three automatics I've had). I remember showing it to my dad, a fellow Longines fanboy and him laughing saying it sounded like it was about to burst. 😁 Sadly it started stopping and starting and back then I could get nobody to service it, because of issues with spares or something about sealed bits like the mainspring barrel. Sold it on the old Timezone forum. First time I'd ever bought and sold a watch on the interwebs. I'm sure I have an old stylee photograph of it somewhere. The memory of it was one big reason I later jumped on my Ultronic.

TBH I prefer the original flouro orange hand compared to their red. And actually prefer having the date(which I dislike on their Legend diver).

Pretty much Blue. With the caveat that the originals will be as waterproof as a colander, unless you get lucky with NOS and even then and they're going to be smaller, with the exception of the original Legend Diver, but values on them are still strong. The original Ultra Chron diver came in a few styles and they're all going to be cheaper than the new one, around the 2-3K mark, and will come with an inhouse movement that was making waves at the time.* They're also a pretty "modern" size too. There's one very large case(maybe not for our Unkel😁) style and a SuperCompressor type. And all the other styles they put this movement into. These days servicing is far less of an issue too.

The way the Swatch group is set up with "tiers" there is no way they'd be allowed to directly compete with Omega. Maybe if LMVH had bought the brand they would be a direct competitor? One area they might have done so was in chronographs. They were the chronograph brand of the 20th century and about the only Swiss brand making their own inhouse for most of that time. Look at pretty much every chrono out there, with its two buttons. That was Longines. They did it first(not Breitling, they were seven years too late). First flyback too. And instantaneous minute recorder. Lange & Sohne claimed their Datagraph released in 1999 was the first to have both flyback and an instantaneous minute recorder. Longines said "hold my beer" seventy years previously.

Oh and look at the case style. Patek claim that they were the first to come up with the more "modern" integrated swooping lugs as opposed to the thin wire lugs of early wristwatches with their Calatrava of 1933. The above Longines is from 1929... And there are a couple made in 1928 out there, or not. Likely melted down decades ago. The enamel dial is a giveaway of the era, though no currently produced enamel dial gets within an asses roar of the quality that was being produced by the dial makers back then(though you can tell that one was hand done for a limited production run). The back is a cuvette too, very pocketwatch altogether. The pushers being square is more "modern" too, most having a round button back then.

*though oddly and unlike Seiko and Girard Perregaux with their high beat movements, Longines, who won more prizes in the various chronometer competitions than anyone else and by a goodly margin(Omega was 2nd 150 prizes behind them) and had been winning "Grand Prix" in timekeeping since the 1880s, didn't enter it into the trials. Instead put their inhouse quartz forward for the last few years of the main competition(Omega did the same with an Omega tweaked Beta 20). Even odder is that they very rarely bothered paying to have "chronometer" on their dials, though these Ultra Chrons are the "easiest" to find with it(and have the auto rotor in gold). They did push "The world's most honoured watch" alright but...

Actually few brands pushed the "official chronometer" angle. Omega really only started to in any numbers with their ESA tuning fork movement watches(which were a sure thing). Rolex were the only brand who seemed to want to make it their thing from the early fifties onward. Indeed Hans Wilsdorf was the first to put a wristwatch movement up for the rating in 1909(but didn't take that further at the time). Even though they were utter barely rans in the actual competitions. Maybe "chronometer" wasn't an accolade the average watch buyer cared about? Or they thought of ships clocks? I have no idea, but it was a very clever move on the part of Rolex and fair play. Today if you ask someone about "chronometer" they're likely to think of Rolex. Everyone else is playing catchup.