Horological Meandering

HSTE
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Collecting watches: main topics and sub-topics (part 2)

Another topic that - at one time of building my collection - built "itself" was to have the first four generations of IWC Ingenieur watches, all 1) in steel, 2) with steel bracelet and 3) black dial.

They cover a time span from 1955 until 1992. The Ingenieur line was the answer of IWC to the topic of making its watches resistant to magnetic fields.

On the picture below you see from left to right: ref. 666 / 866 / 1832 / 3508

Whilst the 1st generation 666 below is a fairly common model (delivered in March, 1958), it is worthwhile to mention a few particularities about the other three watches:

• The 866 (second from left) is a special version. It has the so-called "Military dial". It is said that IWC pitched with the German Bundeswehr to potentially get this watch used by them and that only around a dozen of these ref. 866 with military dial exist. I have - like for all my IWC watches - and Extract of Archives and the below model was delivered to J. Luiz de Carvalho, the IWC representative in Angola in November 1971. It is actually quite interesting that the second 866 "Military dial" that I own was actually also delivered to Carvalho in Angola, but in April 1970. So, these IWC Ingenieur 866 with "Mark XI" dial are very rare.
• The 1832 (second from right) is special as it has been designed by Gerald Genta and was the answer of IWC to the then "new trend" of bold, expensive steel luxury watches (AP RO Jumbo and PP Nautilus Jumbo). This watch is very heavy, it has the super sophisitcated 8541ES engine which makes it my most accurate of all my vintage watches. When I wear it in normal circumstances, it tends to deviate less than 5 seconds in an entire week. The special thing about this reference, which by the way - contrary to AP RO 5402 and PP 3700 - was not thin but fairly thick, is that it was no commercial success. What this means is that IWC only built 534 pieces of this reference between 1976/77-1984 and then stopped production. In my view one of the clearly under-valued vintage watches currently on the market (even though it has its price). This watch was delivered in April 1979.
• The 3508 is again an interesting one as it is the "500.000 A/m" watch. The goal here was not to "protect" the watch from magnetism by shielding the magnetism off, but to build an a-magnetic watch i.e. build it entirely with parts that are prone to magnetism. Long story short it turned out that it was not possible to produce this watch and particularly its parts in big quantities in a commecially viable way. Production of the a-magnetic movement cal. 37590 was stopped, the "500.000 A/m" disappeared and a valjoux-derivative was built into the same case for ordinary production. As a result, only 2104 pieces of the reference 3508 were ever built. This watch was delivered in July 1990.

So, whilst 866 / 1832 and 3508 ticked the boxes for brand, design, rarity, technical Innovation, I added the 666 in the end as it is a nice, classy representative of a late 50ies watch.

Cheers, HSTE