Confessions of a Fool's Purchase: Louis Cottier Prototype

Relaxing in summer holidays, my thoughts become often some kind of review what I should do better when going back into the hectic daily life. The hobbies, like watches, are not spared in this tour d’horizon. The too many low-end ‘70s watches bought for their “world time” graphics consumed not inordinate amounts of money 15 years ago, so only two real blunders managed to come up into the throat (besides lamenting to not buy two or three watches I did then not realise how rare they are). One was buying a re-dialled (with hindsight an obvious fault) Breitling Unitime 1260 from a reputable auction house, and the other gaffe still shames me: Believing to be able to buy a “prototype” produced by Louis Cottier for Tiffany at a good price (for a Cottier watch).

While I had started the watch collecting hobby with Chronographs (with a particular liking for Porsche Design ones), I soon became really fond of world time/time zone watches. They are easy to understand with their small complication, they come in a lot of different disguises, and no specialised books have yet been published on them. The latter was important to me because I could make my own discoveries and it was not like stamp collecting where you work through a catalogue to decide what you “need” for your collection.

When you are interested in world time watches, Louis Cottier is the first watchmaker to read about. Since the 1930s he worked on the display system still used by most manufacturers offering a world time watch in the collection. Cottier was a subcontractor to Patek Philippe, Vacheron Constantin, Rolex, Agassiz and Cartier, offering them more or less the same design for pocket watches. Wristwatches were made for Agassiz and Patek Philippe (and Ref. 6213 for Vacheron Constantin in an edition of three). He never marketed a watch with his own name on the dial.

(Illustrations: [LH] Antiquorum „Vox“ magazine, issue 2002-2; [RH] Antiquorum, Auction Catalog, Geneva, 19 October 2002)

 

When on my then main hunting ground (Ebay) a “prototype” for Tiffany turned up, I got quite excited. I had never read about such a watch. But the dial looked indeed like it could be one of a wristwatch prototype by Cottier, or so I thought, reading an article by Osvaldo Patrizzi published in the Antiquorum magazine “Vox”. I had to have this watch as the “star piece” in my fledgling worldtimer collection. Since the reserve was not reached in the auction, I negotiated a purchase with the seller quite a bit higher than the last bid (I am glad the forum does not allow to discuss prices!).

I was still happy when the watch arrived from Canada. It helped to stay happy by being fixed on wristwatches. Table and pocket watches were of no interest then. 

Though, when my collecting and research became a bit more serious, I needed only one look at the Luxor world time pocket watches, sold since the late 1950s with many different names on the dial (e.g. Hermes, Gübelin, but also names in the ownership of Luxor, like Brilux), to recognize that Louis Cottier could not have had his hands in this project. The source of the most prominent parts was obvious!

The 55 mm case with a turning bezel (displaying the reference cities for the time zones) is pure Luxor pocket watch. Four lugs had been soldered to the case to make it a wristwatch. A white gold disk with amateurish engraving of a compass scale is glued on to also position the protective plastic glass. The manual wind movement of the Luxor had disappeared, to be replaced with a Felsa 790 automatic movement, equipped with a jumping hour mechanism. The hours are displayed by the 24-hour disk driven from the centre. Hands display only minutes and seconds, with the scale hand painted to the fixed central disk.

Nevertheless, I do not think that a fake for commercial gain has been produced with this watch because anyone doing the slightest bit of research would not attribute this piece to Cottier. Looking at this beginner’s purchase again after more than a decade, I might now even enjoy the watch as part of the collection if I knew its creator. He must also have been a fan of the work of Cottier but likely not able to buy one of his watches. Knowing the purpose of this watch, the ideas and motives of its builder could substitute the lack of any commercial value, providing perhaps an interesting story relating to world time watches.

This would still not relieve the watch of its stigma as a “fool’s purchase”, only move it to the next category I grapple with.

Involuntary mistakes, like the one with the “Cottier” watch, are not a real problem for me. I could learn and should have learned from them. The monetary loss was set off at the next opportunity by denying myself a consumption that made no difference to my well-being. What it was in this case, I can’t remember; it was likely a holiday I relinquished. This seems to me an easy way to get rid of buyer’s remorse.

I see it more of a problem to buy stuff in the knowledge that it is a folly, but still not leave it, because I believe there is a mission to be fulfilled. Like trying to cover all aspects of “world time” in watchmaking.

A sample of such a theme extension is the “documentation” of a fashion designer’s idea. Someone from this profession must have believed the typical graphic design of a world time watch creates a fancy accessory for the man of world. While the Chinese fake watch manufacturers also offer non-functional 24-hour displays, at least they print correct reference city names for the time zones onto the dial. The designers at Dolce & Gabbana did not even get this far, but used 24 Italian cities (of course, they are all in the same time zone) to decorate their watch. Watch enthusiasts are always concerned that these world time displays muddle up a nice dial design, making it too busy. So I sought it interesting that fashion designers who should know have other ideas. Result: I bought (cheaply) one of these awful D&G watches for purely “scientific” documentation reasons.

Lego thought the world time theme to be also of interest to children. Since I have often the mind of a child when in “collector mode”, I felt this watch to be a valuable addition to the world time zone puzzle I had already in the collection…

And the build-it-yourself world time clock fits also well into the „educational corner“ of documenting the theme.

I realize how silly these acquisitions are. What I try to do with them should be left to museums. They could use such pieces for the education/documentation in a themed and curated exhibition, showing the different aspects of “world time” to the public. To have them just in my private cupboard makes them useless, since they cannot even generate pride of ownership.

When following eagerly a collector on his Instagram account and in his thoughts on collecting published on another website, I am constantly reminded how much more sense it would make (also with a view to retaining asset values) to prune the collection to icons you really like and wear, and not spreading money out for collecting “rubbish” or being fixed on a collecting theme.

But I fear it will take a couple of additional “holiday thoughts” and New Year’s Eve resolutions to give up on these voluntary fool’s purchases.

 

What about you, dear fellow enthusiasts? If you dare, let us have a fool’s parade! Or am I the only fool on this forum?

 

Björn

(Copyright photo Fool’s Cap: Alexey Grigorev/Shutterstock)