Jocke - Bad Santa shares his excitement over acquiring the Longines Expeditions Polaires Francaises, a highly sought-after re-issue that pays tribute to explorer Paul-Emile Victor. His unboxing and initial impressions highlight the watch's instant sell-out status and its significance as a successful historical homage from Longines, offering a fresh look at a modern classic.
It
came in a small box labeled
Longines with the mailman.
It's
probably best to open up and
see what it contains.
A
nice box with the bigest
manual I got
with a watch. It
turned out to contain all the Longines
models and are
in multiple languages.
This
watch that was released a few
years ago that
sold out instantly and I
have tried to get hold of since
I first saw it. So
when the opportunity came and
it was
untouched were
they of course no
doubt, but I hit
directly.
Another successful re -issue
from Longines, a tribute to Paul
Emile Victor.
1947
France instigated a series of exploratory missions to the Arctic and
Antarctica under the leadership of a renowned scientist, Paul Emile Victor. These expeditions overall geologists,
meteorologists,
physicists, biologists, geographers and glaciologists who aimed to explore,
study and understand the North and South Poles. When they would explore these inhospitable
areas included four Longines ship chronometers and fifteen Longines wristwatch used to
determine their astronomical position.
During
the second half of the 1940s, public opinion was fascinated by the remotest
corners of the earth, which aroused a passionate interest among many people. France of
an agency to
organize
national scientific expeditions, namely the Arctic and Antarctic. Paul Emile Victor, ethnologist and explorer who had already spent a
lot
of time on Greenland in the 1930s, was
asked
to be responsible for these expeditions. Between
1947 and 1976, so organized Paul Emile Victor about 150 trips to Greenland and
Adélie
coast.
Fifteen
members of the expedition had wristwatch in stainless steel made by Longines. These time-measuring instruments were designed primarily for
to
determine the astronomical position of the expedition (they were also used for
precise geodetic calculations). The reports on the performance of these
watches are written by scientists who
used them as a reminder of the crucial role of such instruments has been used
in scientific expeditions to
the most
remote
parts of the world. By being a part of these scientific expeditions in the mid-20s
These
Longines watches as members of the bar in the expeditions polaires Françaises
was stainless steel with a center second hand. A centrally mounted
second hand was still quite rare in the 1940s, but facilitated a simple
reading, further used luminescent coating on the minutes and hour
hand and also the
numbers
on the dial.
Another feature that was 12.68N Longines caliber used in this example had an
"anti-shock"system that differed from the standard in
other Longines watches.
Longines decided to re-issue the watch that accompanied the scientists who
took part in the expeditions polaires Françaises as a tribute to these
expeditions to
Arctic and Antarctic to explore the most remote corners of our planet. This
watch is an exact recreation of the instruments used in these expeditions. Quite
apart
from
that this watch is equipped with an automatic mechanical movement the original
watch
had
a manual mechanical movement. Date at 3 o'clock and a silvered
dial
with Arabic numerals and triangular indexes and hands coated with Super
Luminova
The watch has a
Longines labeled crown
and a thin case with beautifully
angled lugs that feels good against
the wrist, as mentioned earlier
in stainless steel. It measures
38.5 mm
without the crown which
gives a good and balanced size,
thickness is 9 mm
with sapphire glass. 19
mm between the lugs.
The backcase contains a lot of text.
A
standard buckle
with Longines logo
in stainless steel.
I
was lucky and got hold of
the model with dark brown alligator
strap, it is
also available with plain black
leather.
It
is equipped with a Longines
caliber L619 which
is a decorated ETA
2892/A2 base
caliber with 28800
vibrations per hour and 42
hours power reserve.
SuperLuminova at the hands.
And even at the numbers when it's really dark.
That
I said
before a very successful model,
I think that appealed to me
immediately when I saw it
the first time.
