CHRONOMETER LOVE/THE HOTTEST WATCH OF '07
November 29, 2006
Let me preface this blog with the following; I love watches. Always have. My first wristwatch, given to me as a very young boy,was an Armitron digital with C-3P0 and R2D2 from the hit movie franchise "Star Wars" on the face. (It's almost such an icon that it doesn't need quotation marks - almost.) From there I'd buy a new watch every four months or so. Nothing fancy, just something new to stare at when I was bored in class or killing time in the bathroom stall (in the shitter, no one can see you napping.)
The first thing I did when I got my first substantial paycheck was buy a Rolex Explorer II. It was one of the most exciting purchases I've ever made. I scoped it out on the internet, learned all about it, and when I went to the jewelers to buy it, I was able to experience the one thing I had truly hoped would come as a bi-product of my instant success; the "please get this scrappy kid out of my sto-oh my lord he's actually going to buy it" moment.
In the months that followed, I was persuaded by my manager not to wear the watch in any of my television appearances, which I could understand the intent of. (I took to the talk show stages with a Casio G-Shock while my manager watched in the dressing room with an ill-fitting precision Swiss timepiece upside down on his wrist.) He wasn't wrong to suggest we trade; to appear so early on in my career to have subscribed to the trappings of fame and relative fortune would have probably sent the wrong message. But watches to me have always been a passion of mine, and somehow in my twisted reasoning that makes the price of the watch in question a moot point. My point when applied to sports cars; the owner who drives an expensive Ferrari without having ever touched under the hood is subject to more scrutiny than the owner who can tell you at least two reasons the car special in its design integrity.
That's not to knock anyone who likes to own a Rolex as a "status symbol". Any watch collector will cop to that as accounting for a large part of the allure of owning a well made watch. I stared at my Explorer II in the back of a 15-passenger van, proud that I had gotten to a place at 24 years old that I don't think anybody would have expected I'd reach at 44. Call it "compassionate materialism".
But like every hobby, it's always a blast to break your old conceptions and discover things you never saw coming. When you learn that Rolex is only the beginning, you realize how far into the world you've entered. I couldn't tell you what's under the hood of a Ferrari Scaglietti, but I can tell you what makes the Panerai PAM203 1950 is so rare (it's got a reconditioned 1940s era Angelus movement in it.) And that's what differentiates an ownership from a passion.
So check it out:
IWC is releasing a 50-piece run of their incredible Big Pilot watch with a perpetual calendar movement, available only through the retailer Cellini. I threw a deposit down on this one like a 13 year old would a Nintendo Wii. My biggest wish is a ref.5004 but with a world timer function on it, and this release demonstrates that they're clearly getting creative with the Pilot. (Big Tip: Grab the now discontinued ref.5002 Big Pilot while they're still around. I think the Big Pilot is going to evolve for many years to come, and a models' first incarnation is always valuable.)
Dropping in TBA '07...
