Smiths Navigator/Story Time

Just bought my first watch in 2 years. Wanted a low key vacation watch and was going to get a quartz beater but after a week of deep dividing all kinds of watches I decided I would rather get something that was drawing me in/scratching that itch.

Problem was that once I found something that I liked it was sold out, limited run, or no longer available, e.g. Smiths PRS 57, Farer Flyback split chrono, and others. Seems like I missed out on a lot of cool watches during my hibernation.

I discovered the Vertex M100 and MP45 while deep diving but they were out of my budget. But I was really drawn to the manual movements. I decided that’s the direction I was heading.

So with a budget of about 600 pounds I decided that it was going be the Smiths Navigator but after looking at their website I new it was going to be the secondary market for me, they’re next Navigator drop is going to be in the spring. No offence to their business model but I can’t take getting up at 6:00 am (I’m in Canada) and getting all worked up and not being lucky enough to get one. I’m not going to get into that because how can you change someone’s business plan when they sell out in minutes from what I’ve heard.

So the only place I saw one was on chrono24. Guy was asking 150 pounds over cost (500 pounds).

It was a private seller who had the make an offer on the listing so I offered 500 pounds. When I punched in the offer red letters came up saying I was low balling the price, I laughed out loud and sent the offer. Half hour later he countered 50 pounds over cost and I considered it fair. 10 days later I got it, some reason I never had to pay duties/customs witch probably would have been around the 50 pounds! So I’m pretty happy.

As far as the watch goes it’s wedding night for us. It’s my first 36mm, first manual movement, and I’m really liking it. After wearing a 15mm thick watch for 2 years this thing feels like nothing. I feel sorry for my Sinn, might be sitting in the desk for a while.

If you made it this far thanks for listening. I’m wound up tighter than this watch right now, 28,800 BPH 😂✌🏻