Watches in the Wild (Warehouse Stores and Watch Stories, Volume 44)

Disclaimer: What's that, a NWA? Formex Essence 39 on my 7.25 in wrist. Will write this one up another day.

This is the forty fourth 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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What it says on the tin. Watch spotting was oddly varied this week.  A clutch of them at Costco, some more at work and personal places, and a wonderful conversation with an enthusiast I admire.

A long one today, so let's hop on in!

First a couple of respots

Omega Aqua Terra Blue

Rolex Batman

Rolex Batgirl

All spotted at Costco within about five minutes.  The Batman and Batgirl were in the frozen food aisle and the Aqua Terra was near the watch case looking at an Alpina Startimer.

Let us now talk about my great love of Costco.  Costco is the only place in the world where I do not feel compelled to price shop because I am almost completely certain that on a per unit basis it is about as cheap as it gets while at the same time also being of good to excellent quality. 

https://youtu.be/3VnsM4PqYcg?si=mkjNwXnLvZRKjV3F 

My Costco, oddly enough, has a surprisingly good (if inconsistent) selection of watches on display.  There's the usual fashion watch chaff.  Not my style but also no shade from me if it's yours.  But I've seen other stuff too.  I mentioned the Alpina Startimer but I've seen Seikos and Citizens , Frederique Constants (all classics collection stuff), Edoxs and Luminoxes, Timex Qs, Montblanc Timewalkers, as well as a non trivial number of enthusiast oriented Bulovas such as the Mil-ships and the Lunar Pilot. And that's just the dude's stuff.

On the women's side, I have, in the past, seen Co-Axial movement steel Omega DeVilles and Constellations as well as one full Sedna gold Aqua Terra (full box and papers of course) all for 10% below any price I could find out there.  

I feel like being a Costco buyer must be the most hilarious job in the world.  Circus of value indeed.

Girard-Perregeaux Laureato Chronograph 38mm (Panda dial)

Seen at a meeting with a research vendor.  I complimented it, he got awkward and we never really got over that.  His product was also not very good though, so it might have been that as well.  I remain undeterred.

The Laureato is sometimes unfairly consigned to the bin of Genta also-rans.  You know what I'm talking about. YouTube videos titled  "Five Integrated Bracelet Watch Alternatives to the Nautilus" or "Three Genta Inspired Watches that Destroy the Royal Oak" or "Ten Integrated Bracelet Watches Even Watch Snobs Respect". It reeks of insecurity laced with aggression and it's all just so unnecessary.  

***Beginneth Rant*** I am of the unalterable belief that everyone on this website, myself included, is a watch snob.  We punch up, we punch down. We all have watches we won't ever wear because of whatever reason.  For me, it's Casio dodges thrown fruit, they simply don't appeal (sorry!).  I honestly do believe my watch taste is better than most other people's (and if I'm wrong, by God, DON'T TELL ME).  That makes me a snob and I'm okay with that.

But someone who judges you (the intrinsic you) based on your watch isn't a snob.  They're an asshole.  You don't want to impress those types of people.  You want to avoid them.  ***Endeth Rant***

All of this is to say, I like the Laureato on its own without any Nautilus or Royal Oak or Overseas adjacency.  The Laureato has a bit of fun history to it.  It was designed in 1975 by an Italian architect, post dating the RO by three years and pre dating both the Nautilus and the Overseas by 2 years.

The English translation of the name is "The Graduate" and yes, it is named after the Italian dub of the Dustin Hoffman movie of the same name, which only made it to Italy in the mid 70s.  It's all hilarious and is the sort of story that makes me fall in love with a watch.

https://youtu.be/-3lKbMBab18?si=eFkAXTevRbLFj0uA

Girard Perragaux is one of those old as dirt Swiss watch makers with roots going back to 1791 and Jean-Francois Bautte, a contemporary of Abraham Louis Breguet.  Breguet may have invented the wrist watch but Bautte had a manufacturer's mind and eventually the House of Bautte became the first fully vertically integrated watch manufacture in Geneva.

The Girard Perragaux name comes from the more-recent-but-still-old-as-dirt 1852 formation of Girard and Cie by Constant Girard (notable for his work on tourbillion escapements).  Girard got married two years later to Marie Perragaux and in an anachronistically progressive move, renamed it to after his wife.  In 1906, GP bought the Bautte manufacture and the history completed.

GP is a real deal watch maker though oddly enough, I don't know that the Laureato Chronograph is the best exemplar of that at least in the modern sense.  The Caliber GPO3300-0135 is based their in-house GPO 3300.  46 hours of power reserve, 4 hz, decent enough accuracy.  We have seen Sellitas with better specs.

What it is, however, is thin.  This is a 100m WR automatic Chronograph that measures just 38mm diameter x 44mm lug to lug x 10.9mm tall.

This is old school watch making in the Piaget Altiplano vein, where specs are decent but the size shrinks and I dig it.

As such, this watch wears sublimely on wrist.  Even if you can't get a perfect fit, it is of the size and weight where it doesn't slip and slide at all.  The rounded edges of the case and bracelet mean that it wears better than any Royal Oak I've ever put on.  If you're in the Bay, get thee to CH Premier to try this guy on.

Two small niggles.  Actually at the price ($18k), absolutely gigantic problems, both completely personal.

One, the subdials are too small and the bezel is too thick....it looks a little squished to me.

Two, the center links of the bracelet are rectangular.  Given the case and bracelet profile, I think they should be rounded.  It doesn't impact comfort but it doesn't look quite right to my eye.

Still, a truly exceptional watch that I was happy to see.

Seiko Rowing Blazers 2022 Limited Edition (I dub thee, "Rainbow Road")

Seen on a watch friend.  When asked about how he got it (given that these tend to be snapped up rather quickly), he grinned sheepishly and said he might have bought it in StockX at a pretty big markup.  

How much you might ask?  2x retail of $495.

Another reprobate. 

Look, I got nothing on this watch.  It's a fun Seiko 5 that no one should ever pay $1000 for.  Come on guys, we gotta be better than this.

Maybe we can all get a group rate for addiction counseling.

Tudor Ranger 2022

Seen at church in the wrist of one of the guitarists.  When I chatted with him about it, he mentioned owning it along side a 39mm Explorer 1 (which I didn't expect).  In comparing the two, he said that he found the Ranger superior in so many ways, but also found it a lot uglier which he had a hard time reconciling in his head. I think that's pretty much the consensus feeling.  

There's a reason why I was honestly surprised that someone would own both.  The Explorer and the Ranger are just so similar.  They both present themselves as rough and tumble field watches with a long history that can be dressed up or down depending on strap choices.  Both have somewhat apocryphal histories in the sense that the actual watches never did the things that they are associated with (the Rolexes that made it to the top of Everest first were a pair of custom Oyster Perpetual and the North Greenland expedition watches were almost certainly Tudor Oyster Princes).  

No shade if you love either of these watches, but to me these are among the most anonymous watches in their respective catalogues.  

Which is not to say they aren't competent.  The Explorer is watch nerd perfect in size and spec in all three of its most recent iterations and the Ranger is too.  The quality is excellent overall.

I think the Ranger beats the Explorer in a couple of important ways though. They finally abandoned the riveted bracelets and gave it a beautiful circular brush all over.  The tool less micro adjust is excellent and easily beats the Explorer easy link.  It looks and feels the business.

But that dial...it's a field watch of course so visibility is paramount.  But it says something that I can think of a dozen field watches from Seiko to Longines to Timex that are both easier to read AND better looking.  I think it comes down to the font of the number 6 and 9 on the dial which is unsettling.  I've finally realized that the outline looks entirely too much like a stylized illuminati eyeball and that just wigs me out.

Oddly enough, the font of the 9 issue wasn't something they had before.  Older versions of the ranger had a normal 9 and even the 2014 version had a softer edge to it.  I don't know who in the design department looked at this and patted themselves on the back.

Tudor, are you trying to tell me something about the Hans Wilsdorf Foundation wanting trying to take over the world?  Because I gotta tell you, with the Bucherer news, it seemed pretty obvious.  No all seeing eye necessary.

Breitling SuperOcean M200 limited edition 

Seen in the wrist of a gentleman at an outdoor coffee shop.  He noticed me taking a picture of my watch (a Cartier Roadster) and complimented it.  I returned the compliment and we had one of those lovely conversations between enthusiasts that I dearly treasure.

The gentleman in question is a watch collector of some breadth (3 dozen watches by his calculation across Marathon, Omega, Breitling, Panerai, and Carl F Bucherer over a couple decades) and a lover of chronographs, though he never uses the functions.

He related the story about how he bought this watch after looking at it for about two minutes at the boutique.  Being a larger man, he liked the gigantic wrist presence (19mm tall and 46mm diameter) and the incredible capability (the M2000 series is a deep diver with 2000M of WR and a Helium Escape Valve).  And so he bought it and put it into his rotation..

And then one day about two years later, he realized it had stopped working despite a couple of shakes and so back he schleps to the AD to call in the warranty on the clearly defective movement.

"Sir, it's out of battery."

"What do you mean it's out of battery?"

"It's a quartz watch, sir."

" I paid $6000 for a quartz watch?!?!"

Yessir, he did.  Poor eyesight meant that he never really looked at the small seconds hand and, of course, the center seconds never moved because no reasonable person ever needs a chronograph in their life.  And instead of being angry, he related this story with zero malice amidst peals of laughter.  

You see, he explained, a watch is more than the sum of its specifications.  Watches are feelings and stories, they are reminders of experiences good and bad.   And what better than having a hilarious story to tell about the time this decades-long collector of watches couldn't be bothered to check whether the watch was quartz or automatic.

After the incident, he loved the watch even more, and worked and traveled with it across the world.  At one point, he had beaten up the PVD coating so much that Breitling had to reapply it.  It might just be the most beloved watch in his collection.

This is the sort of collector I aspire to be someday.

What cool watches did you see this week?