Watches in the Wild (Reset, Volume 46)

Disclaimer: GS SBGA429 on a strap borrowed from @Mr.Dee.Bater by @twostitchstraps. Digging the look.

This is the forty sixth in a semi-regular digest of cool watches I happened to see this week.

Past posts in this series have been hashtagged to #watchesinthewild .

As always, my general policy is that I never ask for wrist shots (because approaching strangers and distant acquaintances to talk about watches is already weird enough) so all pictures below are sourced from the internet. People are mostly cool, I try not to annoy them.

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Apologies for missing a week there.  Last week was the last week for corporate tax filings and so I was just slammed.  Thanks to @watchobsessed and @Beanhead for recently posting on two weeks ago's post so to remind me to actually get this out.

I went in person to my AD for the first time in forever last week to visit my favorite sales associate and also have a quiet chat about their Vacherons.  I am increasingly enamored of the 56 in rose gold (despite not being a rose gold kind guy) and I wanted to see what their availability might be.  

I learned two things.

1. The 56 in steel is oddly scarce whereas precious metals are well stocked.

2. The sales associate I had a relationship left the business (for enterprise software sales of all things.  Come on man, priorities) and so I was left to renew my relationship with someone else.

I occasionally mull the role an AD sales associate has in the age of online watch sales.  I prefer most of my shopping (including luxury) to be fast and efficient rather than slow and meticulous.  The last time I bought a piece of jewelry or watch in a store, I spent maybe ten minutes there in total including the time needed to down the espresso offered.  The salesperson was perfunctory at best.  I have been accused, at times, of being a touch unromantic.

And so my expectations were modest when the lovely woman wearing the cool as heck silver dial IWC pilots chronograph (38mm?) approached and greeted me in store.

To me, there are three central traits that a high quality luxury salesperson needs to nail: watch interested/knowledgeable, warm, and intent on building a relationship without being sales pushy.  Most AD employees don't get there and the ones that do tend to make long and prosperous careers selling mechanical baubles to you and me.

Within fifteen minutes, I knew I had someone who nailed the trifecta, her having asked some lovely questions about my family and celebratory events, being honest (without being put offish) with shortages of certain models, and offhandedly dropping a reference to a visit the Grand Seiko boutiques in the Ginza (a brand the dealer doesn't carry).  Just exceptional.  

 I'll certainly be back, perhaps with a bit more intent to buy the next time around.

On the watch spotting front, I found myself largely unable to have conversations this week.  Whether through my own odd awkwardness or the vicissitudes of life, I just couldn't make any of the typical conversations happen.

I think, however, I can compensate with sheer volume.  It was an oddly prolific week of spotting across all categories and all price points.

I hope you enjoy.

Rolex Starbucks on matching green rubber strap

Seen at a kid's science fair.  I levied a compliment but I guarantee it wasn't heard.  I suppose there's a lot to say about a pretty rare Submariner but I don't have it in me today.

I think it's probably because I 1) don't really love green on my watches except as accent colors and 2) I think the dark green bezel is rather dull here.  On further reflection, the green and black doesn't really work for me.  I'd prefer the all green of the Hulk for a bit more pizazz.  

Rolex 16753 on Jubilee

Seen at a kids science fair.  No conversation 

Aluminum bezel?  Beautiful.

Drilled lugs? Amazing.

Jubilee bracelet? Who could say no?

Two tone? Best tone!

An original Root Beer.  My heart is a flutter.

Seiko SBBN031

Seen on a parent while walking my kid to school.  Identified because of the bracelet and the steel bezel.

I think I've talked about various iterations of the Tuna quite enough, though I have to admit this is probably my least favorite version.  I think the Tuna is heavy enough as is, so the bracelet just too over the top for me.

I don't think it's the most aesthetically pleasing option either.

There are some watches that are meant to live on bracelet.  The Tuna in all its interactions, is a creature of the rubber strap.  To me, it feels incorrect to wear it any other way.

Nomos Club Campus (blue purple) on the sport bracelet

Seen at the farmer's market.  A brief awkward conversation and nothing further.  On a side note, I wonder if I'm getting a reputation at my local farmer's market.  Like the weird guy with a couple kids in tow who keeps asking strangers about watches.

If you ever see me at a watch shop, you will see me slowly and inexorably drawn over to the Nomos counter like a moth to the flame.  My eyes will caress the Tangentes and Neomatiks and Club Campuses and my mind will wander lustfully towards the idea of a svelte and minimalist @edge168n.  One that wears black turtle necks and unpleated pants and listens to Philip Glass.

And when I am shaken from this reverie by the AD sales person asking me if I'd like to try  anything on,  I'll sigh sadly and say that they simply don't fit my wrist.

Watches like this Nomos make me ponder about standard wrist sixes and shapes.  I have a 7.5 in wrist which is, as far as I can tell is slightly larger than average.  I have been known to wear watches that are meaningfully larger than this.  Yet, I find this watch very difficult to wear.  This is not for lack of trying.

Long lugs and flat cases make me sad and also make me wonder if my wrists are abnormally round for their circumference.  I'm vaguely afraid to know the answer.

Seiko Turtle SRPE39 Save the Ocean manta Ray dial

Seen on a college student's wrist at an Asian grocery store.  He was very evidently with his girlfriend and my wife definitely punched me in the arm to prevent me from walking over to talk to him.  She's a wonderful person but a terrible watch wingman.

I have, with distant interest, followed the Save the Ocean series of watches from Seiko for some years now.  Interest because I care about the debris in the ocean (both as an occasional diver and a person).  Distant, because dive watches yo.  Have you heard that I don't really love dive watches?

But I like pretty dials and Seiko does a wonderful job of saving its most interesting ones for the Save the Ocean Limited Editions.  I think these Manta Ray Dials are among the very best.  At a glance they are just another degrade blue dial but on closer inspection, cute manta rays appear.  This tickles the five year old in me to no end.

And even better the King Turtle, to me, has always been the very best platform for these dials.  You need a big watch with a big dial to display the nuances of the textured dials.  You want it to be a diver (no sh*t) and you want it to be able to fit a variety of wrists. And perhaps most importantly, I think you want it to be more on the budget side than not.  These dials are meant to be little billboards, advertisements about oceanic conservation and, as such, nice but accessible.

The King Turtle with its cushion case, big dial but eminent wearability is pretty much the ticket.  Now if they only shave that cyclops off the face of it....

What?  You think sea creatures on dials is corny?  Well, so do I but Swatch just put a sea slug on the back of their new divers-only-in-name, so what are we complaining about here really?

Oris Divers 65 Bronze Two tone

Seen for just a brief moment in the elevator in my office.  No conversation.

I honestly never expected to see this watch in the wild.  I am a big fan of two tones of all sorts and this aged bronze, steel mixture is seriously my jam.  I think @thekris hit the nail on the head when he has mentioned in past comments that the bronze alloy that Oris uses across their lines is warmer and ages better than the alloys used by other manufacturers (most saliently Tudor)

It even compliments the mid 60s vintage skindiver style of the diver 65.  

The Oris Diver 65 is one of those watches I spend an awfully little amount of time thinking about.  Design wise, the big standard dial does little for my imagination...balls, bars, and a shield.  It's all very appropriate for a skin diver.

The dials are all a bit varied but I've never really found an Oris dial that's truly blown me away.  Most are some variation of black or blue anyway.

And that bracelet...much like the last generation of the Black Bay 58.  It's all very anonymous and very component but they included riveted links which just makes me a little sad.  

All completely consistent and all not really to my taste.

But you know, flip that table because this two tone just worked.  Brown fume, bronze center links and a hint of bronze in the bezel.  Forget 1965, this is a watch out of the 70s and gloriously so (brown was a seventies color right?).

This specimen was particularly beautifully aged version with the bronze emanating a dusky shine.

Wish I'd actually talked to this guy.

Jack Mason Strato-timer with the Green and black WC strap

So which one of you was this? I saw you while driving in my car in uptown Oakland and I think you might have been carrying your daughter in your arms.  Fess up!

Given the way that I spotted this, there is a little more potential error in my ID, but the green and black bezel is pretty hard to miss and the black NATO with the big off-center green stripe is too.  DM me if you don't want to disclose publicly!  

Obviously, I was not going to start bellowing at someone about their watch from my car (even to me this seems vaguely inappropriate).

At any rate, I love this watch.  I have waxed poetically about it to @TimeToDesign many times.  It is beautifully built, wonderfully capable and just darned good looking. Check out my post from the Windup Watch fair for more effusive praise.

Just the green.....it's WC pride and all that but green does not suit me.  

Still, what a watch!

IWC Ingenieur (2023)

Seen on a Thai restaurant on the wrist of a Dreamforce attendee who was intent on flagging down a waitress.  No conversation as he was with his group and I was with mine and the time never felt right.

I subsequently went into a store to try the new Ingenieur on.  I think I must have an inherent prejudice against integrated bracelet watches because I don't know that I felt that this watch was special enough to command a 5 digit price tag.  In virtually every respect, I prefer its movement cousin, the Mark XX, which has a superior bracelet, more interesting hands and comparable finishing (only an opinion of course)...at just half the price.

The price point draws inevitable comparisons to the GP Laureato, a watch with a more storied history and movement to boot.  The IWC has the Genta halo of course and, while I do think this is one of the more attractive Gentas, I am probably in the minority in that belief.

Its an odd duck, odd enough that I do wonder who this watch is for exactly.  The website suggests it is an enquire only situation though I managed to find it reasonably easily and I've seen a number pop up here as well.

Indeed the conspiracy theorist in me wonders if the Ingenieur is actually just a halo product, something designed to create a price umbrella for all other IWCs.  Certainly IWC can't be happy that used and grey market prices for their historically relevant and generally exceptional pilots watches are substantially below that of those at new retail.  Perhaps the Ingenieur is a subtle way of reminding us all just how good a deal the rest of the IWC collection actually is.

Don't get it twisted, I actually think this is a pretty great watch.  5 day power reserve, beautiful sizing, great finishing typical of IWC.  There's a lot to like.    

But the fact that this sort of really cool stuff exists elsewhere in IWCs portfolio at just meaningfully lower prices suggests to me that there's more behind this story than initially meets the eye.

What cool watches did you see this week?