It’s somehow nearly halfway through June, and your reward is a chance for a breather with a few interesting watches to distract you from the heat. While, to my knowledge, Hodinkee has no specific editorial policy for supporting sports teams, given that it’s a New York-based publication, it feels only fair to note that I hope the NBA Finals conclude tomorrow and the Knicks get their (long-overdue) chip, and I hope the long-suffering fans get a chance to absolutely freak out.
Scorekeeping last week’s picks: the Cartier pocket watch sold for €3,980, the Explorer sold, but the auctioneer didn’t list the price and hasn’t answered my email yet, the Gruen Techno Quadrant sold for €1,300, the Tudor Ranger II for €1,600, the Broad Arrow Polerouter for £6,200, and the Railmaster did not sell. On to the main course.
Strays
Photo courtesy Dannenberg.
If you’re looking for ways to jump-start a relationship with a local watchmaker, or if you’re simply in the mood for what promises to be an equally fun and maddening series of projects, here’s a tantalizing box of Valjoux 72 parts/movements/dials/cases (if yes on chronographs but no on that particular option, here’s a box of Tissot parts and here’s one of Lemania and Valjoux parts). Crazy for LIP watches? It’s your lucky day (well, technically, next Friday is).
Photo courtesy Finarte.
Perhaps you, like me, have felt an odd urge toward asymmetric watches of late; if so, this Vacheron Constantin should get your motor running, and, in the same auction, there’s this knock-out time-only Doxa and a black-dialed Vacheron Constantin 222. While I doubt Bernhard Lederer was the very first watchmaker to ever make a dial featuring a subdial with a minute hand that circled the watch every 12 hours, this Bernhard Lederer Universe Planet with Aventurine dial is still a phenomenal design, and clearly the watch is at least part of the lineage for some watches that’ve come since.
A Grand Seiko SBGZ003
It feels a bit cruel to include this Grand Seiko Masterpiece Collection SBGZ003, simply because the auction on Loupe This ends literally just less than an hour after this article goes live. That said, it’d feel equally cruel not to cover this model (and maybe encourage you to look for another if you missed your shot today).
Photo courtesy LoupeThis.
Released in 2019 to mark the 20th anniversary of the Spring Drive, the SBGZ003 is hard to write about without tripping over superlatives. Start with the platinum case: it has almost perfect dimensions, at 38.5mm wide and 9.8mm thick, and the case finishing is enough to reduce vociferous folks to hushed reverence. Or how about the hand-made silver dial featuring minute marks, the Grand Seiko badge, and Spring Drive all impressed into the dial itself, to say absolutely nothing of the impossibly well-finished hands? Flipping the watch over, you find the hand-wound 9R02, which not only features a power reserve but some of the nicest finishing you could hope to see anywhere.
Photo courtesy LoupeThis.
This particular example comes with every last bit of ephemera but, unsurprisingly, appears to be in extraordinary condition, given it was purchased in 2022. This model originally retailed for $60,000, and the auction is at $21,000 at the time of writing.
A Patek Philippe 570G
Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue is a masterpiece, though what thrills about the album isn’t any wild strangeness, but how direct and true it sounds. Stuffed to the gills with legendary musicians, the whole brief thing—five flawless songs—sounds and feels cool, almost epic for how casual it sounds, how simple. Almost pure.
Introduced six years after the more diminutive model 96, the Patek Philippe 570 is, at 35.5mm, the ideal Calatrava for many folks. Produced for more than 30 years—until 1972—the watch came in a wide variety of case materials and dial configurations, and while I’m sure there are legitimate and excellent arguments for why one or another may be the ultimate or whatever, I am presently convinced this particular example, offered by Andrew Shear, is the most beautiful 570 available on the market.
Photo courtesy Andrew Shear.
Just look at the white gold Antoine Gerlach case. Sure, there’s evidence of the thing having existed for 60+ years, but that it still looks this phenomenal is stunning. The dial renders me close to mute: I can think of nothing I could write that could be more compelling than any picture of the dial itself. Available for $55,000, I am jealous of everyone who made better financial choices than I and can even consider purchasing this.
Certina DS ref. 5101.013
This is about as far as you can get from the two watches listed above. Sure, this is another three-hander in a white metal case, though not the platinum of the Grand Seiko nor the white gold of the Patek Philippe. And I don’t, for a moment, want to pretend that this watch stands as some exemplar of high horology like the others. This is a mass-produced 1960s stainless steel watch, and while it would, I’m sure, keep excellent time if serviced and regulated by a competent watchmaker, it’s unlikely to get anyone’s heart racing for any inherent mechanical or aesthetic aspect.
Photo courtesy Historia Auctionata.
If you’re interested in watches that have a snazzy or impressive lineage, Certina DS models do offer a bit of flash. Standing for Double Security and introduced in 1959, DS models were made to be a bit tougher than the standard fare. They featured a shock-absorbing ring around the movement and a small gap between dial and case, all of which allowed the watch to weather a drop from up to 6 meters, supposedly (they were also water-resistant to 200 meters). Please note I’m not recommending anyone actually test this out—dropping a mechanical watch 18 feet makes me nervous just to contemplate—but those were the claims of the day.
The present example is entirely banal and plain. Simple. I can’t imagine it sells for more than $500; a search of eBay sales shows one very similar to this model, in much worse shape, sold for $245 a bit back. But of course the correlation between money and excellence or joy is not direct, and while this Certina is a simple watch, I’m including it here because it expresses its simplicity with a whole lot more sophistication and beauty than it absolutely required. Seemingly unpolished, the lugs are reminiscent of what you’d find on a Carrera of the same vintage. The signed crown is huge and almost certainly original. The dial looks very good and, with Explorer-like numerals, balances austerity with a touch of sportiness. Even the caseback is clean! This watch has zero—zero!—bids, with a minimum bid of €100, and the auction begins on the 17th.
A Jaeger-LeCoultre Uniplan
I know, I know: another three-hander. Next week I’ll feature complications galore, Baller. I promise. In the same way certain authors are described as being a writer’s writer—folks mostly known and loved by others in the field—JLC seems to carry a similar distinction in watches. Yes, they continue to make extremely fine and excellent watches, and have made more than their fair share of legendary models, but for lots of folks they will always be better known for providing the ebauches to more celebrated, well-known brands. This is, to use the technical term, a bummer, because Jaeger-LeCoultre not only created the movements required for other brands to make their watches, but their designs are just as worthy of celebration, even if we look past their legendary divers.
This Uniplan, for instance. Sure, you could find a similar Reverso from the same time period and pay maybe five times what this Uniplan is likely to sell for, but consider that, functionally, the only difference between a Reverso and Uniplan is that the former can flip around and show its backside. Yes: the Uniplan has the same movement (cal. 411) and hands as the Reverso. And what’s the caseback of a Reverso ever done for you anyway (unless you’re a polo player and flip the watch around to protect the crystal, as it was originally designed for).
Further, this example, while obviously showing its age, looks pretty great. Yes, the hands have lost their lume, but perhaps you can simply imagine that this Uniplan is an early example of a style JLC would use in 2017. I appreciate that I may be more accepting of bumps, nicks, and flaws than others, but a watch like this offers a ton of watch without being too financially stressful. With an estimate of €600-800, this Uniplan sells on the 16th.
