Time to Dream
Give or take a few days, it’s one full year since we at
Prestige last presented you with our Tic Talk annual, a 12- month span in which the hour hands on my modest collection of wristwatches ( assuming, that is, that I’ve remembered to place them in the winder when not wearing them) have spun reliably around their dials more than 8,700 times, the minute hands over half a million times and the second hands so frequently that I’m surprised any of them continue to work at all. That they do, pretty much unfailingly, is testimony indeed to the expertise and excellence of the Swiss – and, I should most definitely add, Japanese – watch industries, which manage to make objects that not only continue to delight me aesthetically but also reliably provide me, day in and day out, with a surprisingly accurate record of the passing of time.
From the beginning of 2019 almost to the end ( nd I’m writing this in mid- November), it’s been quite a year for watch- lovers. For me, it began with a visit to chilly Geneva and, fortunately, the considerably warmer halls of the city’s Palexpo, home to the annual SIHH show. As it now turns out, however, SIHH is no more, to be replaced in what should be the less frigid month of April by something called Watches & Wonders.
Of course, at this new event it’s a given that there’ll be watches aplently on which I can dream about squandering my hard- earned cash. What I’m fascinated to learn about more, however, concerns the promised “wonders”. If they’re looking for ideas, perhaps they could start off by re- creating the Hanging Gardens of Babylon some way along the lakeside – maybe on the steep slopes between Lausanne and Montreux – though I’m not entirely sure what that would have to do with horology other than in the strictly abstract sense. Or even a full- scale replica of the Grand Canyon? I can’t wait.
On a more serious note, Baselworld will now be held at roughly the same time as W& W ( and why did it take a collapse in business for both organisers to work that one out?), which means that a short train ride will separate the two events rather than a couple of months and two long- haul flights. And that, at least, represents some kind of progress.
Otherwise, over the past 12 months there’ve been so many new watches that I’ve hardly been able to keep up with them, while at auction prices have become so stratospheric that the US$ 17 million or so that was shelled out less than three years ago for Paul Newman’s old Daytona now seems almost commonplace. If timepieces such as those remain unattainable for we lesser mortals, there’s still been plenty to drool over – indeed, if you’re looking for inspiration, we’ve packed these pages full of recent horological goodies that we’re certain will whet the appetite. Among their number, I hope that you find what you’re looking for, or at least that our selection points you in the right direction, but if not, please do stick around. By this time next year the folks in Geneva, La Chaux de Fonds, Le Locle, Glashütte, Morioka and elsewhere will doubtless have come up with plenty more irresistibly gleaming ways of separating you from your wedge – and for us to wax lyrical about them in the pages of our next Tic Talk annual, dated 2021.
So join us again, 12 months from now, and have a great 2020.