WHL's Watch Collecting History: A Personal Journey

There are many ways that one can come to collecting watches. I know some who have inherited the passion from their fathers. There are others who have learned about haute horlogerie from friends or colleagues, and more still have stumbled on it by a trip to a jewelry store or seeing an advertisement in a magazine. I read an article in Wired.

In the late 1990’s, while the first Internet boom was under way, Wired magazine featured an article about eBay, then a new company, and the angle the author took was to look for watches that he desired via this new commercial channel rather than through the classic brick and mortar dealers. With sellers, whether individual collector or dealer able to list product online, he had a better shot at finding whatever it was that particularly interested him. My takeaway from the article should have been to purchase eBay stock, and lots of it. Rather, what stuck in my head was “what’s so interesting about wristwatches?”

Growing up I had worn some digital watches (one with calculator!), and I do remember the Swatch watch boom of the 1980’s, though I never owned one. I received my dad’s 1970’s Omega Seamaster on my 21st birthday and it became my daily wearer through the bulk of the 1990’s. It told the time and looked good, doing everything a good watch should do.

But that Wired article made me curious about why someone might be fascinated about wristwatches, and so while browsing through a Borders bookstore (remember them?) I stopped by the collectibles bookshelf and saw a book featuring many brands, with this unassuming watch on the cover:


I had never heard about Vacheron Constantin, Patek Philippe, Breguet, Audemars Piguet, IWC, and dozens of other brands, but I was instantly struck by the diversity of design and complication possible in a mechanical timepiece. I was intrigued, and my next step was to go exploring more about watches on the Internet. This being the late 1990’s I quickly found my way to being a lurker on Timezone. I read up on watches, enjoyed the photos, and eventually worked up to going in to a shop to experience these objects in person.

My early shopping was at Boston and Cambridge based watch dealer Alpha Omega (which would flame out in spectacular fashion despite my best efforts to keep them afloat with my oncoming addiction). It is probably no surprise that the cover photo of a skeleton watch had an influence on my first wristwatch purchase:


I just loved the idea of seeing the mechanism on display, and I like the complication of the chronograph, no matter that reading the time is never all that easy on a skeleton watch. But that’s not why we buy these things now, is it? ?

Of course I went home with catalogs, and soon fell in love with IWC. My father was a professional pilot and the Mark series of watches appealed to me both for their design and their history (I fantasized about collecting vintage models as well as modern ones).


And this now being 1999, IWC’s perpetual calendar with four-digit year display became a must have for the switch over to Y2K.


I even got a Panerai before they became ridiculously hot:


There was no real theme to my collecting: I just bought what I liked and could afford. Though sometimes I didn’t buy what I liked, such as this, which was there for the taking one day at an AD in NYC:


Why didn’t I buy it? It was the “opportunity cost” of having just recently purchased this:


And then this while in NY from another collector (my first purchase in a collector-to-collector deal):


Others that I liked and added to my collection included a Girard Perregaux Chronometer Foudroyant:


Around this time I started to subscribe to auction catalogs from Sotheby’s and Antiquorum. These books were my point of entry for learning about the world of vintage watches. I admired many Patek Philippe designs, but the vintage Vacheron Constantin watches really caught my eye and attention, though they were not nearly as liquid. I liked that there wasn’t a lot of information out there about Vacheron Constantin, so exploring the details of the history and catalogs of the brand was an adventure.

In August 2001 I went into the store expecting to buy a Blancpain Flyback Chronograph and instead came up with my first Vacheron Constantin, the Overseas with blue Arabic dial:


Little did I know that this was from an edition of 75 watches for the North American market!

I had quietly started lurking on then new Vacheron Constantin forum at ThePuristS.com . In November 2001 I picked up my next VC, a vintage (circa 1965) automatic with caliber 1072:


The Malte Grande Classique would follow not much after:


In April 2002 I went off the deep end: In the space of one week I won a Lot at an Antiquorum auction for this vintage Chronometer Royal:


Found this vintage reference 4555:


took delivery of the Urban Jugensen Ref 8 in platinum (in lieu of a different watch that a dealer could not deliver)


and paid the balance for this special Royal Oak perpetual Calendar that I had on reserve with yet another dealer:




This marked the beginning of the end of my first phase of collecting. I would go on to get one more piece that I liked, a Roger Dubuis Hommage automatic that was flamboyantly pink (RG case, RG guilloche dial, and RG alpha hands), but I really wanted to develop a meaningful narrative to my collection of watches.  At that point in time it was important to me that my collection contain both vintage and contemporary pieces. Also that they exhibit interesting complications and have superlative finishing. My choice to focus on Vacheron Constantin, especially since I had a nice “starter” collection of both vintage and modern pieces, seemed a great fit.

And so I began to accumulate VC watches, buying as opportunities arose, and in trying to be disciplined, I made the dramatic decision to sell all my non-VC watches and to dedicate the proceeds to filling out my VC-only collection.

From the modern side, I  still bought what I liked. In addition to the Malte Grande Classique and Overseas, I would go on to add an Overseas Chronograph:


the Retrograding Calendar (ref 27245):


The Historiques Chronograph in yellow gold with silver dial:


TheJubile 1755 from Vacheron Constantin’s 250th anniversary collection:


The Mercator (purchased preowned, as production had ceased by the time I decided I wanted it):


Still another Overseas, but now the updated model:


A Patrimony Automatic:


And still another Overseas:


The Patrimony Ultra-thin (one for me, and one for a friend):


From another collector I would pick up a dream watch, the skeleton perpetual:


I finally had a skeleton Vacheron Constantin watch!!

On the vintage side, I sought out round watches from the 1940’s through the 1960’s, and tried to acquire watches using many of the movements that Vacheron Constantin had employed during these years, which are some of the most robust and finely finished pieces you’ll ever see. Of the automatics, I had one a bumper winding caliber 477 piece:


The 499:


The 1019


The 1072, of course, was from my first vintage Vacheron Constantin shown above.

On the manual winding side, I collected many watches with the 453 family of caliber, along with its many variations for center seconds (454), chronometer royal (1008/BS), and triple date, both with and without moonphase:







There was one from the 458/466 family:


A pair interesting watches were with caliber 1001:


and the “Girafe” (the last vintage watch I would purchase in this phase of my collecting life)


There were only two vintage pieces that I purchased with the ultrathin caliber 1003. One I never kept for long, and the other was in the Coin watch:


One of the treasures of my vintage collection was a 4178 chronograph, with steel case and rose gold lugs. Alas, no photo survives. :-(

And just because I liked it, I got a pocket watch:


I kinda wish I still had it, because I think I could rock the look now!

From both the modern and vintage side, I had a rather representative collection of watches. The only  noticeable complications absent were the tourbillon and minute repeater. For the longest time I was uncomfortable with the idea of spending that kind of money on one watch. That didn’t stop the desire, however, and so I entered a new phase in collecting. I decided I wanted a tourbillon, I decided that I didn’t want to compromise on the qualities that I thought were important, and because Vacheron Constantin did not have a round tourbillon watch that I liked, I decided to stray from the comfort zone within the world of Vacheron Constantin. I made the dramatic decision to go with an independent watchmaker, Daniel Roth, working under the name Jean Daniel Nicolas, and to fund the purchase by selling off the majority of my Vacheron Constantin collection. The watch took three years to make from deposit to delivery, and it is beautiful:


The JDN journey took longer to delivery than I had expected, and as I sold VC pieces, I would occasionally have funds available to spend on what I knew would be “rentals,” as I would get around to selling them to fund the JDN. And so, I decided to experience a number of watches for short periods of time. I got the Rolex bug out of my system with this sequence of “experiences:”




Tried a Lange that I liked on both a technical and aesthetic level;


and this IWC:


I really enjoyed having “flings” with these watches, and with a new pattern established, my Vacheron Constantin collecting evolved to follow suit, with the parameter that I hold one vintage and one contemporary piece in the collection. No watch holds a place as a permanent keeper, as I’m always looking forward to the next one!

And so, this latest phase in my collecting career has given me time with the Patrimony Contemporaine Excellence Platine:


The Quai de l'Ile in palladium:


The Overseas Chronograph  North American Edition:


And now the Historiques Chronograph;


My current vintage Vacheron Constantin, hopefully back from the spa at the end of the year, is the vintage XXL, which I appreciate for it’s 38 mm diameter, making it a comfortable daily wearer with suits


As I have enjoyed my experiences with watches from outside the world of Vacheron Constantin, I expect that I will sample the offerings from other brands in due time (though with an eye on new models). After having enjoyed the Patrimony Comtemporaine so much, I think I would like the Piaget Altiplano. The Journe Chronometre Bleu would get me back into a blue dial. Urban Jurgensen’s Reference 11C looks gorgeous. The Cartier Tank is an icon, and would get me away from a round watch. Panerai’s new PAM 510 appeals to me. Sporty watches from Omega, IWC, Ulysse Nardin, and others are intriguing. HELP!

But there are still a lot of Vacheron Constantin watches that I would like to own, and I’m going to get to them all eventually!

Bill Lind
VC Forum Moderator
 


This message has been edited by WHL on 2013-08-31 22:03:12