A tale of two chronos

I used to be obsessed with the layout and functionality of chronographs. It was partly due because they used to be expensive when I grew up, and thus not very common. The other part of the reason for my interest was the idea of a mechanism able to measure elapsed time down to the second, or even less than a second. This had a lot of appeal for someone with a deep interest in gadgets and mechanical gizmos.

But I could not afford to indulge this interest, and I had to wait for several decades to pass until I was able to return to look at watches as a source of personal interest instead of time management tools.

And by then I could not find any rational for owning a mechanical chronograph since quartz made so much more sense for something which existed for the sole purpose of measuring elapsing time with a high degree of precision and reliability.

But this was not the end of the story because most quartz chronographs were quite annoying. The cheapness of quartz movements found its way to cheapen the rest of the watch, and most of the chronos that I found were simply junk or just a step above it. Even the SCC Speedtimer with its bizarrely placed date window and useless 24Hr indicator shows that the brands stopped caring about quartz chronographs.

The only quartz chrono that I really like is the now discontinued SNA411, the same Seiko Flightmaster that I wore yesterday. Just comparing it at what is now offered shows that quartz chronographs are on a devolution path.

And so I'm wearing another chronograph today, but this is an old school manual wind with a matching vintage look, which in this case is not borrowed or homaged from anyone as Mathey-Tissot was one of the brands that made the original Type XX. They also kept this model close to the original size and I have to admit that it wears very nicely and that its relatively clean and uncluttered (for a chrono) dial is something that I do appreciate. It's not as distinctive looking as the SNA411, it's much less precise or reliable, and I can't dress it up and down like I do with the Flightmaster. But it's also a watch with a lot of vintage charm and this is why I like it.