HORSES FOR COURSES
Whatever you want, and whatever your budget, there’s a watch out there for you...
If you want a nice watch, you’ve got to be prepared to pay for it, right? Well, just like in the car industry, there are plenty of companies who are more than happy to relieve you of almost limitless quantities of money for things that are lovingly fettled over many hours of highly skilled toil. But that’s not the only way. If you don’t care much for how a watch is made, life is easy: you simply go to a big shop – probably at an airport – that has aisles filled with cheap, batterypowered watches and choose whichever one catches your magpie eye.
That approach works perfectly well for most watch buyers, who are not looking for a watch to pass on to the next generation, just something that goes with a new jacket. But you might be prepared to put in a little bit more thought and consider things like craftsmanship, the brand’s history and the powerplant.
The vast majority of watches are quartz, which are cheap and accurate. But there is something soulless about them being powered by a gradually depleting metal cell filled with noxious chemicals. Wouldn’t you prefer something poisonfree and powered solely by clever engineering and the movement of your hand? The difficulty is that a mechanical watch is expensive to make, as it has many moving parts that need to be carefully assembled and will need servicing.
That doesn’t mean you need to start selling organs to get your hands on one. The internet is full of vintage mechanical watches for next to nothing, but there’s a high chance they’ll cost more to get running than they do to buy. Even a new mechanical watch doesn’t need to be silly money. There are loads to be had for a few hundred pounds. One leaves a lot of its rivals scratching heads.
Six years ago, Swatch launched the Sistem51, an automatic-winding watch that is assembled entirely by machines and costs well under £200. The number refers to the 51 components, less than half the number for most movements, meaning there is less wear and tear and less to go wrong. But nothing lasts forever, surely? Well, the first examples are still going strong and experts reckon a 10-to 20-year lifespan is realistic. Not long enough to pass on to a grandson, perhaps. But at prices like these, he can buy one for himself.