My First Real Grail Watch

I’ve never really had a grail watch. When people have asked me I had an answer – the Hanhart Racemaster GTF Chronograph. Very close to Steve McQueen’s personal watch (he wore Tag Heuer for the movies). However, I never really thought I would own one – and I was OK with that. There are many fine racing chronographs below $1000 (my negotiated limit) and I own several, as well as a few aviation chronographs. I grew up in Detroit in a racing family and love chronographs. However, I’m obsessed with accuracy. This may be the result of my occupation as a metrologist, or, my obsession with accuracy may be the reason I’ve been successful in my occupation. In either case, obsession trumps affection.

Over the weekend I discovered the Longines VHP Conquest and Longines Ultra-Chron. Yes, I’m usually very late to the party. The specifications for VHP Quartz is beyond spectacular. A precision of ±5 seconds/year is equivalent to 1.6 x 10E-7. Many high precision frequency counters come in around this number. The watch has moving parts and has to correct and realign itself but this is pretty damn amazing. My Bulova UHFs seem pedestrian by comparison. As impressive as this watch is, when I viewed a few YouTube videos and observed the gyrations it has to go through to maintain these specs I was put off. It is too much like the self-tests that the modern equipment I work with must run before they can meet their specs. They recalibrate every 24 hours or so, its no wonder they’re so precise.

The Ultra-Chron on the other hand is old-school accurate. It is a reissue with a high beat mechanical movement (36,000 VPH) that will hold <2 seconds per day. It is also quite beautiful. To me it seems like the mechanical equivalent to my beloved high frequency Bulova Accutron Snorkel II. Although the Bulova is quartz, it is also old-school accurate. No self-tests, no gyrations or alignments. The accuracy is a function of the high precision high beat quartz oscillator and nothing more.

I realize that the Longines VHP is superior to my Bulova. The quartz oscillator is reported to be a high frequency oscillator (of an undisclosed frequency) and it is reported to be temperature controlled. This makes it a TCXO in frequency county parlance. This is truly astounding in a watch. However, something about it seems too robotic to me. On the other hand, I’m piling up the things I’m going to have to sell to purchase the Ultra-Chron, including my Winchester Model 1894. I was always a bolt action guy anyway.