Journey to Consolidation - Chapter 2

Vixtorinox Swiss Army Infantry Mechanical

Ref. 241565

• My first watch purchased with my own funds.

• My first Swiss Made watch.

• My first watch with mechanical movement.

Gifted myself this watch back in August 2014 for acing one of the hardest exams in my life while working at a full-time job. I just went into a watch store without doing any prior research.

Looking all over the store's display counters, saw the words Victorinox (Brand familiarity - with their pocket knives and all), Swiss Army (ooooo) and Swiss Made on the dial of this watch, I just grabbed it. Brought it home and I was a happy man.

It became my GADA watch, a kinda dressy-ish field watch with its fully polished case. But doesn't feel out of place in a casual environment.

This was the watch that got me serious into collecting, before diving deep into the Seiko rabbit hole. It got me reading countless blogs and forums about Mechanical watches.

Knowing about the big brands, about the do's and don'ts with the ETA-2824 automatic movement. How to care for your leather straps, cleaning the watch case.

Staying up to date with articles from aBlogtoWatch, Hodinkee and Worn & Wound, discussions from WatchUseek, Reddit, and numerous Facebook groups.

Ohhh fun times.

Unlike today where you have countless of videos you can watch on YouTube. And yup endless pictures to drool at in WatchCrunch.

Still fun times but life know kinda pass by quickly with the pandemic and increased digitalisation in our daily lives.

What I like about this watch:

• The leather strap especially the back cover for the buckle, super comfortable..

• The exhibition caseback with its undecorated movement and the Victorinox logo on the rotor..

• The Victorinox shield lume at the 12 o'clock, railway minute track, the signed crown, and the small 24 hour markers indented onto the dial..

Sold the watch somewhere in 2018 as my collection grew over the years.

I can't really comprehend why I did that, and hey hey hey obviously I regretted it. I had so many memories with it 🫣. Realised this while writing this post.

Now I kinda feel that sometimes we buy watches that confirm with consensus. We would analyse the brand, the specs, the alternatives, value propositions, etc etc. In a very methodological manner. Sorry if I digress.

But then looking at my current watches in my watch rolls and thinking about future acquistions the regret disappears 😂. I'm confused, perhaps..

TLDR: Enjoy the pictures and happy crunching!