The magazine of Christopher Ward Issue 20. Spring 2021
L U M I N A T I O N THE NEW C1 WORLDGLOW
No industrial machinery can do justice to such a beautiful design as the Light-catcher™ case. But our Swiss engineers can. Of the 39 stages required to make one, the final few are completed by hand. And checked by eye. This ensures that the polished facets, on the case, give the appearance that it’s slimmer than it really is. In fact, the watch (designed in England, and inspired by a classic ground-hugging sports car) appears to actually sit lower on the wrist, whilst reflecting the light. No wonder it’s so vibrantly eye-catching. christopherward.com
We use the world’s most advanced machines to finish all our watches: human eyes and hands.
Loupe.
The world turns
The magazine of Christopher Ward
If there’s anything I’ve learned from the sheer insanity of the year that’s been 2020, it’s the importance and power of community – of sharing our lives, loves and watch obsessions with others around the world. Sharing our passions is a small thread of gold which brings us together, and while there are undoubtedly larger matters filling the news, horology remains an absorbing subject which binds us all across the borders of country, class, race or health status. I think anything that has the power to transcend these deep divides, must be a force for good. And so, we turn our attention for Loupe 20 to the globe, pulling stories and inspiration from the four corners of the world. My hope for this issue – a world issue – is that it helps us all remember how much more we truly have in common, than that which would seek to separate us. Happy reading! Helen McCall
Exactly a year ago this letter was headlined, quite adroitly we thought, “Twenty-twenty foresight”. And while we did accurately predict the launch of a watch to “blow your fins off” – step forward the C65 Super Compressor – we certainly didn’t anticipate the strange times we were about to enter. And in hindsight (2020 or otherwise) that was maybe just as well. Who would have believed us if we’d said the world was about to go into hibernation due to a virus no one had heard of? It may be tempting fate but as we enter 2021 there’s even more reason to remain the optimists we declared ourselves to be in last summer’s edition of Loupe. Not only will vaccines (hopefully) see off that damn virus – allowing us to return to our normal lives – in the small corner of the world that is Christopher Ward we’ve pulled out all the stops to bring you some horological delights we think you’ll relish. The first of these is the C1 Worldglow that graces the cover of this magazine. This is a timepiece which not only continues our unique approach to creating a new category of dress watch but also anticipates the return of another casualty of the last year – international travel. Let’s hope so anyway! Mike & Peter
Editor: Helen McCall Art Director: Jamie Gallagher Designer: Sam Burn Photography: Peter Canning Cover: C1 Worldglow 1 Park St, Maidenhead, Berkshire SL6 1SL christopherward.com @chriswardlondon
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Contents Features 12 – 19
33 – 35
Glow now
Making of a maestro Marcelo Bielsa: legend, visionary, crackpot. Jonathan Taylor reflects on his life spent following Leeds United – and the new manager who’s changed the club’s fortunes
Like it bright? You’re in the right place. The stunning new C1 Worldglow lights up the planet with Matt Bielby
22 – 27
Golden ears The celestial music of label Heavenly Records was the soundtrack to the 1990s. Anthony Teasdale dusts off the tape player
28 – 31
Rhapsody in blue The C60 BLUE Limited Edition brings a completely new look to Trident using a sapphire dial, and helps the world’s oceans at the same time
36 – 39
Dark materials Black is back – stealing onto the smoked crystal dial of the new C60 Sapphire Black. Plus: international artists wrangle over who owns the blackest black
40 – 43
Glow now
12 — 19
O-pinion Bringing you the best of what to watch, who to see and where to be from around the world – in our opinion, at least
Golden ears
22 — 27
Dark materials
36 — 39
Regulars 6 – 11
45 – 50
The Brief
Insight
We look back at 2020’s releases, go on a sub-aqua photoshoot, and chat watches with a popstar. Plus: more sneak peeks from the design team’s drawing board
What we do and how we do it. Watch aficionado Adrian Hailwood considers how to make watch collecting pay, while we can’t help falling in love with Elvis’s watch collection
Contributors
Matt Bielby
Adrian Hailwood
Anthony Teasdale
Film, gaming and watches form the subjects of Matt’s prolific journalism and editing. Read his piece on the C1 Worldglow on page 12
Watch consultant, watch specialist, watch valuer, speaker, author and lecturer, Adrian’s the watch–buying wingman of dreams
Anthony is Christopher Ward's senior copywriter. In this issue he writes about that most British of record labels – Heavenly 5
News, reports & innovations This issue: new Super Compressor, Worn & Wound collab; 2020 overview
‘Super’ new colour
New watches Desert storm
The C65 Super Compressor has been one of the hits from 2020. And now it’s available in a sophisticated new ‘Deep Blue’ colourway. The result of extensive research, the C65 Super Compressor is the first true super compressor in 50 years. On this latest version, the dial is the same shade of blue as the rotating inner bezel, giving the watch an understated, dress-watch look. “While it’s engineered for diving, the ‘Deep Blue’ C65 Super Compressors looks great under a shirt cuff, or paired with a T-shirt in summer,” says Christopher Ward, CEO Mike France. The C65 Super Compressor is available from £895 / $1,025 / €1,070
Watch blog Worn & Wound and Christopher Ward have collaborated on their first watches. And they’re absolutely stunning. The C65 Sandstorm and C65 Sandstorm Blackout Chronometers are inspired by the rugged vehicles of desert-rally racing. Built around a 38mm Light-catcher™ case (and a year in the making) – each watch plays host to a dial made up of textured, concentric rings. 6
However, numbers are limited: the C65 Sandstorm is limited to 200 pieces, the C65 Sandstorm Blackout just 100. Both watches are available from Worn & Wound’s Windup Watch Shop windupwatchshop.com
CW in focus
World-record world timer
The fourth annual 2020 Torbay Sub-Aqua Club’s ‘Splash In’ photography competition eventually went ahead last year, despite Covid-related delays, with 12 slightly mad hopefuls plunging beneath the waves for a spot of spontaneous underwater photography. Christopher Ward awarded Simon Temple, winner of the ‘Popular vote’ class, a C60 Trident Pro 600 – a watch tough enough for sub-aquatic photoshoots at 600m.
At the opposite end of the affordability scale to CW’s new C1 Worldglow, Phillips auctioneers has confirmed the sale of a Patek Philippe reference 2523/1 world timer watch in yellow gold, recently auctioned during The Geneva Watch Auction: XII. The star lot was an extremely rare double-crowned model with guilloché dial, and is one of only four known. It was expected to go for between CHF3,000,000 -4,000,000 ($3.2m-$4.3m), but eventually sold for CHF4,991,000. You might say prices like that are a world away!
torbay-bsac.co.uk
Vamp it up Loupe caught up with pop star, celebrity jungle dweller and thoroughly decent watch guy James McVey of The Vamps for a quick chat about watches, diamonds and family dinners the company’s honesty with its
So James, how did you get into watches? I’ve only been into them for the past couple of years, so fairly recently. I owe it to my soon-to-be father-in-law, Steve, who introduced me to a couple of models. On family walks or at meals, he would be wearing something slightly different each time and would talk me through what made that particular watch special. It wasn’t long before I was hooked myself! What’s your favourite in your collection right now? The first watch I bought, on the day of my engagement party, was a Rolex Submariner
Date 116610 LN. It marked a very special moment in my life and I’ll always enjoy wearing it. For me, watches need to be functional and able to take a few knocks. I’m lucky that I get to travel around the world performing, but that comes with an array of opportunities for damaging watches. That’s why you’ll never see me wearing anything blingy or overstated. For me, a watch should be just that – a watch – not a diamondcovered accessory to show off. How did you get into the watches of Christopher Ward? Again, I owe this to Steve. He showed me his C65 Trident GMT and I was really impressed. I wasn’t too familiar with CW before this, but after digging a little deeper, really appreciate
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production and margins. From what I’ve seen, CW makes great watches, and that’s what’s important. What’s next on your watch list – Christopher Ward or otherwise? I really like the look of the C65 Chronograph – it’s striking with the blue dial and is a lot of watch for that price tag. Aside from CW I’ve always got my eyes on something or other but, as I’m sure many of your readers will appreciate, the main battle is not what to purchase, it’s trying to persuade my other half to let me! As I said before though, my watches will typically continue to have steel bracelets: simple but effective designs and definitely no diamonds! The Vamps’ latest livestream is at thevamps.net
Who’s wearing Ward today?
The best of 2020
While we’ve been restricted in our movements over the last year, it hasn’t stopped a range of public figures from exploring the great outdoors – all while wearing their Christopher Ward watches. Across social media we’ve seen a range of inspiring images of our timepieces from the likes of athlete-adventurer Christopher Brinlee Jr, windsurfer Federico Morisio, elite driving trainer Terry Madden and mountain-biker Dave Kilshaw.
A global pandemic, rampaging wildfires, the world in turmoil… and some nice new watches. A retrospective of Christopher Ward’s major releases from the madness of a year like no other
@federicomorisio
C60 Sapphire The sapphire-dialled Trident that was first to make waves among watch cognoscenti with its outstanding accuracy and technical precision. From £795 / $910 / €950
@chrisbrinleejr
C65 Super Compressor
@terry_madden
A technical marvel and the first true super compressor case that CW (or anyone else) has released in decades, it’s had the thumbs-up from some of the watch industry’s most fearsome journalists. And if they’re not impressed, no-one’s impressed.
@davekilshaw
If you’re wearing your Christopher Ward watch out, why not tag us with the #WearingWard hashtag? We’d love to hear from you! Follow us on Instagram @chriswardlondon
From £895 / $1,025 / €1,070
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C60 Lympstone A Military Collection timepiece to honour the service of the UK’s Commando Force, the Royal Marines, and its alma mater, CTCRM Lympstone in Devon, where every Marine undergoes gruelling training. From £875 / $1,000 / €1,050
C65 Chronograph Where late 1960s British pyschedelic rock meets precision Swiss watchmaking, you find the C65 Chronograph. A bolt of colour and a bold case design makes it an unmissable piece. From £1,695 / $1,935 / €2,030
Fair trade From wafer-thin crystal dials to precision in-house chronometers, CW is known for its consummate technical skill. Case design, too, has become something of a watchword, so CW has trademarked the description of its iconic case shape. Now, ‘Light-catcher™’ can only be used to describe one of CW’s recognisably brilliant designs. Can’t say fairer than that.
C60 Abyss SH21 Alongside its stealthy stablemate, the C60 Abyss GMT, the SH21 crept into the darkness of the Abyss Collection in October, bringing its skeletonised looks and incredible timekeeping. Calibre SH21 is Christopher Ward’s own in-house COSC-certified movement. From £1,995 / $2,280 / €2,395
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C60 Sealander
Amphibian How do you describe a creature that’s just at home in the water as it is on dry land? Rising from the deep and clawing its way onto shore, we’ve recently seen some signs of a new release that walks (or swims?) the line between breezy ocean-going elegance (cocktail hour on your yacht) and easy-to-wear, ready-for-anything flexibility. The watch in question is the new C60 Sealander: and it’ll come ready to dive, whether at a desk or under the waves. We already know the wearable Trident 3 case shape will look neat under a suit cuff – if we ever need to actually get dressed to go to work again – and it’ll encase a reliable Swiss-made automatic movement.
In the looks department, this amphibian is sharp. No slimy green scales or oddly webbed feet here. Instead, it boasts a rather restrained dial design, with bright white raised indexes. It remains to be seen whether, in keeping with some (though not all) other recent and highly successful CW releases, the infamous logo will be found at 9 or at 12. Of course, not every watch on CW’s drawing board makes it into production – some never get made, some go on and get redesigned. But the strength and all-round wearability of this watch makes it as sure a bet as any. The C60 Sealander promises to be dressy, casual and elegant, exuding prowess on land and on sea – the vital mix for any adventurer.
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GMT and world timers
A short history of GMTs and world timers The ability to tell the time across the world’s time zones dates back to the 19th century pocket watch, but the story of world timer watches really begins in the 1940s, when watchmakers like Vacheron Constantin and Patek Philippe applied the concept to the wristwatch. Mechanical clocks, that count seconds in ‘mean time’, can trace a lineage back to the 1730s and to John Harrison’s marine chronometer; a ship’s clock that kept time at sea. By calculating the local time with the time back at port, he was able to calculate how far east or west was travelled, solving the ‘longitude problem’ – great news for sailors and navigators.
In 1953, Glycine launched the Airman, a watch capable of telling the time in two 24-hour time zones simultaneously. A year later, Rolex followed suit with the GMT-Master; a functional design that’s changed very little since, with local time at centre, while a tipped arrow points to ‘home’ time on a 24-hour bezel (which also moves should you wish to set a third time zone). More complex examples of ‘world’ or ‘universal’ time watches date back to the 18th century, but it was Patek Philippe which brought the idea of the world timer to its full potential in the modern era. Partnering with a watchmaker of superlative skill and ingenuity, Louis Cottier, Patek Philippe worked on designs for a world timer watch which would go on to seal its reputation in that class and influence the making of every other world timer watch since, including the C1 Worldglow. In Cottier’s design, local time is at centre, a rotating 24-hour ring is bordered by either a moving time zone bezel or an outer dial. When you align the local time zone with the 12 o’clock point of the local time dial, the watch shows the time in all the world’s zones simultaneously. Not a bad job for a man whose workshop was at the back of his wife’s bookstore in Geneva.
By the 19th century, the boom in railway travel and telecommunications created demand for more accurate timekeeping. ‘Mean time’, rather than local time, must be observed. Watches that could tell the time in more than one place at once were no longer just a watchmaker’s pet project or a sailor’s navigation tool. Into the mid-20th century and international air travel was on the rise. Both the pilots and businessmen who flew needed wristwatches that could keep time at home and away; no missed meetings at work, and no wake-up calls back to the family at ungodly times of night.
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Introducing the new C1 Worldglow. It’s a dress watch, it’s an advanced travel tool and it boasts a lume like you wouldn’t believe. Now, every day’s a glow day 12
C1 Worldglow
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What are the most influential watches of all time? An argument could be made for the Cartier Santos, the first pilot’s watch, designed in 1904 for FrancoBrazilian aviator Alberto Santos-Dumont, who‘d become tired of grappling with pocket watches while wrestling early fixed-wing aircraft through the sky. Or there’s Blancpain’s Fifty Fathoms, which introduced the idea of a rotating bezel and defined the modern dive watch. Or Audemars Piguet’s Royal Oak, which combined ‘steel’ and ‘luxury’ in polarising fashion – at the same time creating one of the hottest categories in watchmaking. Would it be too much to mention the new C1 Worldglow in the same breath? After all, it too defines a new category – something we’re calling the ‘high-vis dress watch’. Let us explain… “It’s no secret that the C1 Moonglow is the bestselling dress piece we’ve ever made,” says Christopher Ward CEO Mike France. “Nor that the C60 Sapphire is another major hit. People enjoy how innovative we’ve been with our dial designs recently, and the Worldglow is part of that. A sister watch to the Moonglow, it combines a useful complication with an unbelievably bold, sexy application of lume. The Worldglow has everything: the sophisticated elegance
of our C1 dress-watch case, a world timer function courtesy of our ingenious in-house Calibre JJ03 on a Sellita SW330 base, and all that Super-LumiNova® lume. This ‘glow’ category is definitely something we’re beginning to own.” It's all part of a greater thread running through everything Christopher Ward has been doing of late. The company has already established itself as an innovative constructor of watch cases; it’s been lauded for its daring in-house complications; and now it’s having esoteric fun with other areas of watch design, too. “Quite simply, we want to be bolder and braver than everyone else,” says Mike. “And creating a new category is a perfect example of that. Now we’ve worked out how to do exciting, unusual things at a price point that suits, you can be sure we're going to have fun with it.” For Adrian Buchmann, CW’s head of product design, the Worldglow was almost a no-brainer. “Why not take the things we learned from the Moonglow,” he says, “then apply them to a second JJ complication?” Calibre JJ03’s world timer function works through a rotating 24-hour disc, read in conjunction with the
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“Quite simply, we want to be bolder and braver than everyone else�
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“It’s as striking as a tuned car with neons underneath – although much more cultivated”
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international cities around the dial’s outer edge; it allows you to instantly tell the time in each with just a twist of the crown. A slim red ‘radar’ wedge, meanwhile, lets you quickly focus on a key time zone. But though a no-brainer in some ways, this wasn’t a watch without its technical challenges. The biggest was making sure the world map, which makes up the bulk of the face, glows as brightly as possible – a tougher job than anyone initially thought. “The first prototypes we made weren’t quite right,” Adrian says. “The dial proportions looked ’off’, and – even more of a concern – the glow wasn’t as pleasing as we’d hoped for.” The issue, it turned out, was to do with the amount of transparent material separating the luminous world map from the eye. “On the Moonglow, there’s just one layer of sapphire between the glowing moon and you,” Adrian says. “But construction of the Worldglow is more complex. You get the glowing material at the bottom, then a sapphire dial printed with the black sea areas of the map above that, then another transparent disc for the GMT elements, then finally the sapphire that seals the watch. And every layer of transparent material can take out some of the glow.”
The solution? A new, super-strong lume formula – and a reworked map, too. “When you compare this watch to our C1 Worldtimer, you’ll see the proportions are completely different,” Adrian says. “We’ve rotated the map and made it larger, pushing it right up to the outer edge. This means the city names are a little smaller, but it’s a trade-off we’re happy to make. Finally, we’ve added a glowing ring of luminous material to the outside edge, too, creating a border which really makes it sing.” The end result is handsome in the daylight, but even more spectacular at night, when huge swathes of the face glow a bright light-blue. “It’s super-funky,” Adrian says. “And as striking as a tuned car with neons underneath – although much more cultivated! This is a watch that appeals to both the sophisticate in us – and the child.” All of which makes us wonder why traditional dress watches use lume so sparingly – and certainly never like Christopher Ward has here. After all, as you can see from the pages, it’s a match made in the heavens. The C1 Worldglow is available now, from £1,750 / $1,995 / €2,100
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Technical information Calibre Sellita SW330 with JJ03 module Case 316L stainless steel Diameter 43.5mm Height 11.55mm Weight 66g Water resistance 3 ATM (30m) Vibrations 28,800 p/hr (4Hz) Timing tolerance +/- 20 seconds per day Lug to lug 51.9mm
The twin-barrel construction of the Calibre SH21 ensures it can run for 120 hours (five days) if fully wound. They are built by hand, in Biel, Switzerland. Regarded as the world’s watch capital. The automatic version has 192 separate components. Every movement is certified as a chronometer by the Contrôle Officiel Suisse des Chronomètres. And, therefore, in the top six percent of all Swissmade watches for accuracy. It is also the only commercially viable mechanical movement from an English brand in more than 50 years. We could go on but suspect you might not have the time. christopherward.com
How good is the power reserve on our own Swiss-built movement? How long have you got?
Heavenly Records
Thirty years after it began, Heavenly is still the sharpest, smartest record label in the UK Anthony Teasdale tells the story of a very British success story
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Heavenly boss Jeff Barrett
“If you didn’t manage to sneak out by 6pm, you were tied to the mast and probably hailing a cab band he’s about to sign, while assorted visitors – DJs, journalists, barbers, gadflies – mill about, relishing their place in the centre of the musical universe. Heavenly Records is where you absolutely need to be right now.
Soho, late spring, 1999. The grid of streets south of London’s Oxford Street has always attracted the misfits and rebels: where call girls rubbed shoulders with gangsters; politicians buttered up journalists and actors, musicians, artists and writers drank their talents away in Gerry’s, the Colony, the French and of course, the Coach And Horses. You stroll down Berwick Street, popping into the Record And Tape Exchange for second-hand Bowie albums, and Vinyl Junkies for straight-off-the plane house music imports. Down Old Compton Street, then back up Frith. Grab a cappuccino from Bar Italia – one of the few places to serve decent coffee in pre-millennium London – then over the road to that doorway. You press the buzzer – the one that says ‘Heavenly’. Up the stairs and you’re in the office of the most important record label in the country. A label that’s given us the Manic Street Preachers, St Etienne, Beth Orton, Doves and Flowered Up in less than a decade. On the walls are enormous posters of the Happy Mondays and the Manics. The stereo is cranked up high and label boss Jeff Barrett is enthusing about a new
Spring, 2020: London is a very different place. The hum of traffic has gone, the pubs are shut and everyone’s working from home. You turn on 6Music, the BBC’s ‘alternative’ station and an extraordinary tune comes on, halfway between the yacht-rock funk of The Cars and the feminist music of The Go-Gos. “Take back the radio and move along,” she sings. You Shazam it and find it on Spotify. It’s Katy J Pearson’s Take Back The Radio. The label? Heavenly. Obviously. Robin Turner was Heavenly’s press officer during the 1990s and 2000s. His new book, Believe In Magic, catalogues the label’s journey over three decades, from the release of St Etienne’s Foxbase Alpha album (still a masterpiece), through Doves, The Vines and Magic Numbers to Katy J Pearson and Aussie-disco nutters Confidence Man.
around 2am”
“The Frith Street office was above Ronnie Scott’s and opposite Bar Italia,” he says. “That meant anyone could find it without detailed instructions, which is both a good thing and a bad thing. It meant that if you cranked the music up around 4pm, threw the windows open and filled the fridge with cans of Red Stripe, you’d have a room full of people within about an hour. If you didn’t manage to sneak out by 6pm, you were tied to the mast and probably hailing a cab around 2am. I really miss it.”
Foxy lady: the cover of Foxbase Alpha
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Light years: the new Heavenly book 25
Beats international: Chemical Brother Tom Rowlands
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Heavenly was started by independent press officer (and gig promoter/all-round good egg) Jeff Barrett in 1990. At the time, he was doing press for the likes of the Happy Mondays and Primal Scream (having previously been at Creation Records – later home of Oasis). So when acid house transformed the musical landscape in 1988, he was in the perfect place to harness this explosion of energy into something tangible – a record label. A record label called Heavenly. Andrew Harrison was the editor of Select magazine, the bible of British pop in the early 1990s. He’s also a devoted Heavenly fan. “They were and are an independent who really walked the walk,” he says. “They did it purely for the love of a great band, a good idea and a good time. That’s why there was never a ‘Heavenly sound’ – Jeff and the crew would pile in on anything that got them excited. And while there might not have been a Heavenly sound, there was a Heavenly aesthetic: a love of pop, a sense of style and a sense of humour. A need to make the world brighter. Every act was a caper, a break-and-enter, a smash-and-grab against industry rules that said there was only one way to do things.” Throughout the ’90s, Heavenly released a stream of records that still define everything good about that most joyful of decades. St Etienne’s Only Love Can Break Your Heart; Beth Orton’s Central Reservation and Flowered Up’s It’s On. Early signings The Manic Street Preachers crossed
into the mainstream, while Manc rockers Doves (previously techno-disco outfit Sub Sub) released a series of anthems and became stalwarts on the festival circuit. Club culture and dance music were always at the core of Heavenly’s philosophy, if not its output. And no more so than its club, the Heavenly Sunday Social, which took place over 13 weeks in 1994 at The Albany, a pub on London’s Euston Rd. Music was provided by the Dust Brothers – later the Chemical Brothers – whose sets provided the soundtrack to scenes of near-unimaginable carnage. “They played a unique mix of psychedelic rock ’n’ roll, soul, hip-hop, punishing techno and anything else that took their fancy,” says Robin Turner. “DJs like Andrew Weatherall, David Holmes, Tricky and Tim Burgess all happily warmed up for them. It got busier and busier until it felt like the venue was going to split at the seams, so, like The Beatles, we decided to quit at the top of our game.” The Social was reborn at Turnmills nightclub in Farringdon and ran throughout the ’90s, while Heavenly opened a couple of bars (also called ‘The Social’) in London and Nottingham. In 2015, 21 years after the heady days of the Albany, the label began putting on Heavenly Weekender events at the Trades Club in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire. Like many record labels, Heavenly faced periods of uncertainty in the 2000s/2010s, often because deals with major labels meant they couldn’t move as quickly as they wanted to. Yet it survived, signing
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groups like The Vines and The Orielles, as well as the aforementioned Confidence Man. Jeff Barrett and Robin Turner even used a pause in releases to start a fishing/lifestyle/literature website, Caught By The River. Today, Heavenly is truly independent and releasing music that’s every bit as compelling as it did in the 1990s – certainly in Andrew Harrison’s eyes. “The current crop of Heavenly acts – Working Men’s Club, The Orielles, Stealing Sheep, Katy J Pearson – are every inch the equal of the good old days. Bands who understand that the world can always be brighter and there's always a reason to stay up a little longer.” For Robin Turner, it feels like things have gone full circle. “All the time we were with major labels, you’d have to wait around for majorlabel people to agree to let you do things. It meant lots of great bands didn’t get signed, and some big bands had to shift out of the way of even bigger bands. The label is now much more like it was at the start – there’s a hustle, and it’s fun. I’ve not worked there for 10 years, but I kind of wish I could again. Just maybe missing every other Monday.” Believe In Magic: Heavenly Records, The First 30 Years by Robin Turner is out now
C60 BLUE Limited Edition
Rhapsody in blue Christopher Ward marks the 10th anniversary of Blue Marine Foundation, supporting its work in restoring ocean habitats and protecting the seas
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“Donations from the watch’s sale will help us achieve our mission to restore the oceans to health” 30
Founded in 2010, Blue Marine Foundation (BLUE) is a charity dedicated to restoring the ocean’s health by addressing overfishing, one of the world’s biggest environmental problems. Ten years on, BLUE has worked to combat harmful fishing, restore important marine habitats, establish sustainable fishing, and secure commitments to protect over four million square kilometres of ocean. BLUE’s mission is to see 30 per cent of the world’s seas under effective protection by 2030 – no mean feat for a group of friends who met on the documentary The End Of The Line. “The team at BLUE has established a genuinely sustainable fishery in Lyme Bay, pioneered the return of our native oyster around the UK and consistently called out overfishing in all its forms,” says Charles Clover, executive director of BLUE. “The decade ahead could not be more critical, as the world moves towards protecting 30 per cent of the ocean by 2030.” Christopher Ward has been a supporter of the charity since 2019, and has just released the beautiful new C60 BLUE as a limited edition with BLUE at its heart. “We’re deeply grateful to Christopher Ward for marking our 10th anniversary with this exquisite watch,” says Clover. “Donations from its sale will help us achieve our mission to restore the ocean to health, starting with a network of marine parks around the British Isles.”
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The C60 BLUE is something Christopher Ward is justly proud of. “From the sapphire dial engraved with BLUE’s wave logo to the deep-stamped engraving of the same design on the backplate, there’s no question this is one of the most gorgeous-looking watches CW has ever produced,” says Mike France, CEO of Christopher Ward. As well as being friends of the deep, BLUE has supporters in high places too – ambassadors who share the vision and the commitment to the health of Britain and the world’s oceans. One such ambassador – whose ranks include Poppy Delevingne, Ben Fogle and Arizona Muse – is Stephen Fry, who says, “Blue Marine is a life raft. It knows that while it isn’t too late to save ourselves by saving the oceans, the ticking of the clock is getting louder and louder. Without hysteria or hectoring, Blue Marine gets on with doing effective work that makes a difference – it deserves our support, applause and assistance.” Christopher Ward couldn’t agree more. Available from £895 / $1,025 / €1,070
Swiss engineering ensures our Super Compressor won’t implode the deeper it goes. If only your body was SwissSwiss-engineered. Being romantic English types, we decided to reinvent the iconic dive watch of the 1960s. It is the very first genuine Super Compressor since the Swiss case manufacturer Ervin Piquerez S.A. stopped making them some 50 years ago. Our Swiss engineers have embraced the challenge; right down to the compression spring, which is only 300 microns thick and the width of just four human hairs. It’s a small bit of Swiss genius you can barely see, yet it compresses the case as you dive, allowing you to go deeper. In fact, the deeper you dive the more water-tight it gets. Mind-blowing isn’t it? christopherward.com
Marcelo Bielsa
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One of the greatest powers of football is its ability to forge the bonds of unity and memory among its supporters. Every club has lifelong fans who’ve sat through countless games over the decades, with friends, family and loved ones, making the outcome of each match not only a sporting achievement but a feat of close connection and reminiscence. I first watched Leeds United in 1963 as an eight-year-old, and I remember every detail like it was yesterday. My dad took me to a Division Two game at Elland Road, which ended in a goalless draw. Leeds were doing quite well that year, galvanised by a new manager, Don Revie. At the end of the season they were promoted to Division One (then, the top tier) along with Sunderland. I was promoted too – into being my dad’s regular companion for home games. I sat next to John Poulson (the architect subsequently jailed for bribing various council officials with brown envelopes). A nice man, he used to give me the odd sweetie. More oddly perhaps, to the mind of an eight-year-old at least, I remember he used to play with his dentures throughout the game.
The next season in Division One, Leeds took off. They got to the FA Cup Final, almost winning it, too – something they had never done before. I experienced the best night of my life (so far) when Dad drove us down to the City Ground, Nottingham, where Leeds played against the mighty Manchester United – George Best, Denis Law and Bobby Charlton – in a semi-final replay. I did my maths homework in the car. With two minutes to go the most iconic Leeds player of all, Billy Bremner, back-headed the ball into the goal – we won 1-0 and were going to Wembley. I will never forget that moment. All the grown-ups around me leapt to their feet with a primeval roar like nothing I have ever heard before or since – the stand we were in physically shook (I found out later it was completely made of wood and was burned to a crisp three years later). There followed a decade of extravagant over-achievement for Leeds United, both at home and in Europe, by what had until then been a rather unfashionable northern football club. Dad and I made numerous visits to Wembley finals, not to mention heart-breaking semi-finals where we were pipped at the post. In 1972, we finally won the FA Cup after many years of close shaves. I lost my virginity that night in London, too. I could never decide which event was the more significant (I knew really, the cup win of course) but needless to say, neither was ever repeated. Leeds’ Jack Charlton comes up against brother Bobby in a Leeds-Man United clash 34
After such a footballing convulsion, it was inevitable that there would be a reaction and when the old guard of Leeds stalwarts retired in the mid-’70s the club’s fortunes declined dramatically. After a title win in 1992, there was a second collapse, this time for real. The club almost went bankrupt and in 2007 were relegated to League One (the old Division Three). But support in Leeds for the team never died. It was as if everyone in the city had been present 50 years before and wasn’t prepared to give up. Over the next few years, ownership of the club ping-ponged between various chancers and the manager seemed to change every fortnight. Finally, in June 2018, Argentinian Marcelo Bielsa, who had a reputation for being effective, but crazy, was appointed manager. Craziness isn’t a bad thing in football as any follower of Brian Clough will tell you. Bielsa is a uniquely single-minded manager who thinks nothing of sitting on an upturned bucket to watch the game. He’s painted a blue line in the road all the way from his house in Leeds to the training ground, so he doesn’t have to worry about directions (he speaks no English), the better to concentrate on football. Bielsa is a leader of fairness and honour. When Leeds scored a dubious goal against Aston Villa last season, he instructed the players immediately to let one in because he didn’t want to win unfairly. He is known in Argentina as ‘El Loco’ (‘the mad one’). He plays a pressing, insistent style of football which has propelled Leeds back up into the Premier League after 20 years of invisibility. He has made maestros out of workaday performers and infused the supporters who never gave up with unhoped-for pride. The whole city is buzzing. If you’re a Leeds fan, it’s a dream come true. No wonder the new mantra is, ‘In Bielsa We Trust’. It’s true. We do. El Loco has brought us back to life.
Thanks to Bielsa, I’m 11 years old again, sitting with my dad as Billy Bremner and company run rings around the opposition
leedsunited.com 35
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C60 Sapphire Black
After the success of the C60 Sapphire comes a moodier version of the watch with the magic dial
materials Welcome to the dark side – a diver’s watch that lets you see the movement from the front. Agonising hours spent by the watchmaking team in Christopher Ward’s Swiss atelier over the summer have resulted in the C60 Sapphire Black, a fusion of the skill and technical excellence it takes to create a sapphire-dialled watch, and the moody, black aesthetic of darkness. Within a steel bezel reminiscent of Trident 316L iterations, a smoked-sapphire dial sits beneath the iconic Trident 3 handset, exposing the inner workings of the watch’s Swiss-made automatic movement on the wrist – while anexhibition caseback reveals it from behind. The first C60 Sapphire’s debut sold out in hours last year. It broke the mould for
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affordable watch design, and broke some sales records, too. “The C60 Sapphire was a monster,” Mike France, Christopher Ward’s CEO says. “It caught the eye because of its arresting looks combined with the exceptional engineering. But to create this black version, we had to pull out all the technical stops,” says Mike. “With the C60 Sapphire, the dial was constructed from a single piece of pure sapphire crystal, backed with a very thin sliver of polycarbonate to give it its blue colour,” says Jörg Bader, senior product manager in the Swiss atelier. “Here, the dial is made of a single piece of sapphire crystal that’s been smoked to give it a dark, almost-black hue.”
“We’ve made something of a specialism in creating sapphire crystal dials – the Moonglow shares elements of this technology. It’s a very beautiful, yet durable material"
Indeed, as you stare into the movement’s inner working parts, revealed at the front by the smoked-sapphire dial, and to the rear by an exhibition caseback, it’s easy to get lost in the wonder of its tiny, moving components. “We’ve made something of a specialism in creating sapphire crystal dials – the Moonglow shares elements of this technology. It’s a very beautiful, yet durable material. Now the team’s challenge was to bring this into a more accessible piece,” explains Mike. One sometimes gets the feeling that, as CEO, Mike can be a bit of a… taskmaster. “It’s not been easy, given the delicacy of each dial,” says Jörg. “Sapphire crystal is very hard and scratch-resistant, so it’s great if you want to attack it with a screwdriver but it can be exceptionally brittle to machine. So many accidents can happen; with over 20 steps and 80 operations being completed every time, each one is a risk and there’s often a high rejection rate. That’s what makes it such a challenge to do affordably.”
Despite the delicacy of its construction, this piece is a workhorse (as well as a dark horse); its translucent front and crystal back are both waterproof to 600m. Strap options are similarly pragmatic: two hybrid colourways, an integrated steel bracelet or a new #tide ocean material® strap available in black and red, all quick-release, of course. A 316L steel bezel, on which the distinctive red triangle at 12 o’clock is applied by hand, encases the accurate Swiss Sellita SW200 automatic movement, with CW’s twin flags in a ‘Colimaçoné’ (spiral) design on the rotor. “The amount of work that has gone into this piece is no joke!” says Jörg. “But the result is a watch that really speaks to our company philosophy, like full transparency, or the fascination of microscopic engineering. Everything we do comes back to that in the end.” The C60 Sapphire Black is available now, from from £795 / $910 / €950
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Although the C60 Sapphire Black doesn’t use Vantablack, it’s still a very absorbing material... Its total impracticality as a paint and unNot a paint, but a material, Vantablack is a substance that draws all visible light into itself, rendering surfaces it’s coated with into flat, black holes. It has to be sprayed-on in a lab, in a chemical deposition process that lays down billions of carbon nanotubes per square centimetre, all sticking upward on their ends like blades of grass. The first Vantablack, which Surrey NanoSystems introduced at the Farnborough Air Show in 2014, inspired many artists who began to dream of applications for the material in their own work.
affordability as a material was very quickly swallowed up into obscurity by an eclipsing problem: the artist Sir Anish Kapoor quickly partnered Surrey NanoSystems to monopolise its use. Kapoor, who has throughout his career focused on conceptions of negative space or all-encompassing realities, used his considerable clout to secure sole use of the material for himself. Other artists were horrified by this and a reaction against the lack of artisanal ‘sportsmanship’ ensued. Stuart Semple, an artist who, in the great tradition, makes his own paints and pigments for common use, reacted badly. He created a string of products including ‘Black 2.0’ and ‘Pinkest Pink’, all of which are open for sale – unless, and here’s the catch, your name is Anish Kapoor. The T&Cs on Semple’s online shop state that you’re welcome to purchase his unique pigments
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as long as “You are not Anish Kapoor, you are in no way affiliated to Anish Kapoor, you are not purchasing this item on behalf of Anish Kapoor or an associate of Anish Kapoor. To the best of your knowledge, this paint will not make its way into the hands of Anish Kapoor.” But somehow, Kapoor got hold of some. And what else to do but post to Instagram with a pic of his upright middle finger dipped in the pink pigment. In this single post, Kapoor communicated disdain for other artists and disregard for their perspective. And his total lack of communication since has left something of an ‘anechoic chamber’ around the issue, sucking all conversation inward and never giving anything back out. Much like his vaunted black material.
O–pinion brings you picks from our universe – what we’re reading, listening to, admiring and being inspired by. Whether it’s music, tech, art or horology, we’ll share our take on it – and invite you to share yours. Tell us what you’re enjoying right now, or what events or new releases you’re looking forward to – and we’ll consider them for the next issue. You can email loupe@christopherward.co.uk or hit us up on Instagram @chriswardlondon
The focus: Matt Hranek, Womad, a sea festival and Basquiat
A Man & His Car 40
Modish man Matt Hranek, who brought us A Man and His Watch in 2017, has now delivered a new book focusing on the lives and stories men live through the special cars in their life. An unusually tall, slender shape, even the book itself is elegant. Beautifully bound and slip-covered in mid brown, the book takes us through interviews with famous male car nuts like LA’s Jay Leno, Kevin Costner, Tesla designer Franz von Holzhausen and Snoop Dogg. Throughout, the cars – doubtlessly outstanding examples of their kind – act as talismans to bring out snapshots of their lives. (We see von Holzhausen at two years old, drawing a car picture; and the 1955 Buick Roadmaster that Leno slept in before he got his big break). Visits to factories and collections elicit stories connected to the cars Hranek finds there, giving us access to Steve McQueen's favourite car, a 1956 Jaguar XKSS, or the 1971 DeTomaso Pantera that Elvis purchased for his then-girlfriend Linda Thompson (and which has two bullet holes in the steering wheel and one in the driver's-side floorpan from when, after an altercation with Thompson, Presley fired three rounds into the interior when the car wouldn't start). Gorgeous photography throughout means we don’t miss any detail, however small.
Nha Trang Sea Festival Taking place once every two years in Khanh Hoa Province, on Vietnam’s eastern coast, the Nha Trang Sea Festival is the country’s answer to Cowes Week. Next to be held in May/June 2021 (fingers crossed), the event promises to be glorious, with the opening-ceremony flotilla of sea-going vessels bedecked with floral art. There’s also a seafood and international gastronomy competition, a wine festival, beach volleyball, Khmer cultural exhibitions and
art-kite flying. Slightly more off-the-wall activities include underwater weddings, lantern-throwing on the Cai River, human chess, and the ‘particularly traditional’ Fish Worshipping Festival. The charming Nha Trang Sailing Club is the place to be to catch the best of the festival action. sailingclubnhatrang.com
Earth Day Around the world, entire neighbourhoods ‘go dark’ to mark and celebrate the birth of the modern environmental movement and highlight its aims through a combination of eduction, public policy and consumer campaigns (like switching lights off). On April 22nd, 192 countries will participate in Earth Day with the theme ‘Restore Our Earth’. Hundreds of millions of ordinary humans, alongside climate scientists, artists, activists, musicians, religious leaders and a politician or two, will form the largest civil observance on the planet, putting pressure on us all to be the change we want to see in the world.
Womad While 2020’s Womad event had to be cancelled – like so many other festivals and events in the UK – the show will go on this year, from July 22nd-25th. Over 150 artists representing music culture, subculture and trends from 50 countries will perform to crowds who, we imagine, will be more than happy to be there after the cultural purdah we’ve been living in since March 2020. By day, you can wander
through the festival and discover little-known gems to world-famous artists. By night, the festival turns to the universal languages of drum’n’bass and disco to get everyone dancing. If you can’t wait till next summer, immersive world music sessions are regularly posted on their website. womad.co.uk
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earthday.org
Radiant 42
nt
child Jean-Michel Basquiat first came to attention with friend Al Diaz through their graffiti art in Manhattan’s Lower East Side in the late 1970s under the tag ‘SAMO’. A plethora of influences and images, all sucked in by Basquiat, processed in his own inimitable logarithm, and expelled back out onto the canvas, paper, clothing or other random medium, his work has been described as ‘poetical-political’. A hustler and an artist, he made postcards with friends and famously sold one to Warhol, who was lunching nearby with a friend, a prescient move which later resulted in creative partnership on Olympics (1985). By the early 1980s, his neo-expressionist works were being exhibited internationally – and at 22, he became the youngest artist to exhibit at the Whitney Biennial in New York, with works that drew from dichotomies of class struggle, race war, and inner/outer experiences drawn in a
characteristically childlike style in paint, crayon, felt tip, Xerox and oil stick – whatever he had to hand. He painted in high-end Armani suits and was often seen later in public wearing the same paint-splattered clothing. He dated the then-unknown Madonna, and is now collected by a rock’n’roll roll call which includes Lars Ulrich, Johnny Depp, David Bowie, Debbie Harry, Swizz Beats, Leo DiCaprio and Jay-Z. At Sotheby’s in 2017, Basquiat’s Untitled work of a skull (the majority of the thousands of works he competed in his lifetime remain untitled) sold at Sotheby’s for $110.5m, making it one of the most expensive paintings ever sold. Unfortunately, his drug use was so prolific he blew a hole in his septum, and died of a heroin overdose aged just 27, leaving many questions about his work unanswered. Recently, Basquiat’s work has found new audiences and the 2020 Hong Kong/ Seoul exhibition ‘Royalty, Heroism and The Streets’ has run alongside fashion and art collaborations with his estate. The Museum Of Fine Arts in Boston has now set its ‘Writing The Future: Basquiat and the Hip-Hop Generation’ exhibition to run until May 2021. His painting, sculpture, drawing, video, music, and fashion are shown alongside works by his contemporaries and sometime collaborators A-One, ERO, Fab 5 Freddy, Futura, Keith Haring, Kool Koor, LA2, Lady Pink, Lee Quiñones, Rammellzee, and Toxic. Back in the ’80s, this group’s
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subversive abstractions, including neo-expressionism, freestyle sampling, and ‘wildstyle’ lettering, rocketed their creative voices onto the main stages of international art and music and go some way to explain their enduring fascination. It’s the first major exhibition to contextualise and give prominence to the work of Basquiat and his black and latino friends in relation to hip-hop. It’s time to give this ‘radiant child’, the progenitor and inspirer of so much, due attention. mfa.org
The C60 Sapphire: The product of English imagination and Swiss precision. (Good job it wasn’t the other way around.) We don’t wish to stereotype, but we just can’t do what the Swiss do so brilliantly. And vice versa. Together, though, we’re a case of 1+1=3. So, having envisaged a professional-grade dive watch combined with a breath-taking aesthetic, we entrusted our Swiss team with the engineering. Take the dial: pure sapphire crystal. Creating it takes 28 separate operations. And it’s machined to 0.6mm precisely. ( Thin enough to see the Sellita 200-1 automatic movement within.) With a translucent blue glow, it’s even more beautiful than we imagined. And an object lesson in sticking to what you are good at. christopherward.com
Great watch-wearers
The original ‘king of rock’ Elvis Presley clocked up an estimated 1bn records sold in his 30-year career, until his death in 1977 from heart failure (or drugs and peanutbutter fry-ups). The stats are outstanding: 108 Billboard Hot 100 hits, 18 of them number 1s (that’s 67 collective weeks in the top spot); 31 feature films and musicals; 837 consecutive sold-out Vegas shows. Elvis even released 10 Billboard hits while drafted in the US army from 1958-60. His iconic watches, from Omegas, Rolexes and Hamiltons, to Corum and Mathey-Tissot tell tales from his epic career. The Tiffany & Co Omega with Omega’s hand-wound calibre 510, set in white gold with 44 brilliant-cut diamonds, is an elegant yet blinging showpiece. The inscription on the backplate, “To Elvis 75m records RCA Victor 12-25-60”, tells us the watch was a Christmas gift from his record company on his return from the army. Hits like 1956’s Heartbreak Hotel and 1958’s Don’t Be Cruel sold 1m units that year alone – gift-worthy numbers indeed. The story goes that Elvis traded it with a buddy for a similarly diamond-encrusted Hamilton. Sold at auction in 2018, it reached CHF1.5m and was won by the Omega Museum Biel, Switzerland (the home of CW’s atelier). That wasn’t the only Omega in Elvis’s collection. A black dialled, gold-capped, COSC-certified late-’50s Omega Constellation had raised indexes and date at 3. Elvis gave it
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to his friend Charlie Hodge, with whom he was stationed in Germany. In a similar tale, an 18K solid yellow gold Corum Buckingham was gifted to Richard Davis, a friend and employee. Saying that there seemed to be something wrong with the watch, Elvis handed it to Davis. Flipping it over, Davis found the engraving, “To Richard from E.P.” The then-American, now Swiss Swatch Group-owned Hamilton were kept busy by Elvis in the three decades of his career. The Hamilton Ventura, 1957, had a groundbreaking electric movement and striking case design. Working on a moving coil system, the balance wheel had an integrated coil, with permanent magnets embedded in the movement plate and mechanical contacts. He wore one in the 1961 movie Blue Hawaii, as a product placement. Incidentally, the watch was worn again by Will Smith in 1997’s Men In Black. Some watches in Elvis’s collection were received as gifts and kept, like the Rolex King Midas given to Elvis in 1970 by officers of the Houston Astrodome Livestock Show and Rodeo, Texas, thanking him for what must have been an unforgettable six days of sold-out live shows. Nothing like any other watch before or since, its asymmetric case holds a hand wound movement, the design forming a point at the left-handed crown. It’s a glamorous, knock-out piece – and, with water ingress clearly visible on the dial, more than a little damaged.
How to
Beat the market? You buy watches for love, not money. But when the time comes to sell, what’s the best way to profit from the trade?
Expert horologist Adrian Hailwood has seen the watch industry from every angle as a consultant, auctioneer’s valuer and Breguet store manager. In this series he shares his
Despite endless entreaties to ‘buy what you really love’ by watch writers down the years, the fact that I use the word ‘market’ in the title indicates that watches have been commoditised to be traded as units of value, rising or falling in the manner of stocks and shares. I have been in the watch business long enough (25 years+) to see seismic shifts in how watches are traded. Rolex sports models have moved from ‘boring’, through ‘a bit flash’, to ‘I must own one at all costs… though I’ll flip it in a heartbeat if the prices keep rising’. eBay used to be a great hunting ground for interesting old stuff, with sellers just looking to clear out watches that were excess to requirements. Today, prices are pitched at
experience to help you build your watch collection
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the wildly optimistic end of ‘speculative’ with watches that previously would have sold for little more than £100, being priced closer to £1,000 just because they’re a dive watch or chronograph, despite an unknown brand name. The low cost to ‘list – end – rinse – repeat’ encourages sellers to ask way more than a traditional auction house might achieve, just on the chance of a gullible collector. Many of these sellers are simply waiting for the market to come to them. I’m reminded of a story told by a friend who had family in Zimbabwe at the height of its inflation crisis. He asked a roadside watermelon salesman how he priced his wares. The seller answered, “When I get up, I think of a ridiculous price
that no one will pay, and I write this on the sign. At 9am everyone laughs at me, at 12pm they come to buy and at 6pm they are desperate to see if I can get more at that price.” The watch market may operate more slowly, but it seems the case that eventually even the most speculative price may prove correct. If you’re going to ‘beat the market’, first it’s important to understand the difference between price and value. As Christopher Ward buyers know, price is what you pay – value is what you get. If you’re looking for more ‘value’, there are a number of routes open to you. The first is to learn your brand and movement
histories. As suggested in my last article, there’s a hierarchy of brands that all used much the same movement. So a Hamilton Chronomatic watch may cost significantly less than a comparable Heuer, an El Primero chronograph is priced lower if it comes in an Ebel case rather than a Zenith, and an Omega calibre 33.3 can be found beating away inside a Tissot for not much money. The same movement as found in a 1950s Rolex chronograph can also be seen in, of all things, an Invicta, albeit a 1950s one. Sadly, even such insider knowledge is becoming harder to exploit. As a good watch-dealer friend of mine says, “Where there’s mystery, there’s margin.” In today’s watch blog-educated, Google-guided world
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everything is accessible for those who chose to look, meaning that you can only get bargains from the lazy or ignorant. If you really must have a watch from a sought-after brand, then you have to play the market’s game, but that doesn’t mean you have to pay top whack. Private sales maybe riskier than a store, dealer, or auction, but a friend in need may just be the way to avoid VAT, margin, or commissions. Online forums and Facebook pages can allow you to suss out vendors before parting with your cash, especially if the seller is a long-standing member. At a risk of committing heresy: do you really need the box and papers? People like me bang on about how they add value, but if this
is your grail, you’re absolutely certain of authenticity, and you are never going to sell, who cares? Buy the one without and pocket the difference. For those who prefer the ‘first owner’ experience, options are more limited, but don’t forget interest-free credit or cashback credit card deals. As the saying goes, ‘Every little helps’. One topical tip – under current conditions, international travel is a lot less… international. If you’re one of the very few who has to travel, keep your eyes open in the watch shops of airports and resorts. A severe lack of traffic may mean that otherwise unobtainable watches are left marooned and unbought, possibly offering a significant saving.
To ‘beat the market’ in the traditional sense, you have to be ahead of the curve. No stockbroker got rich trying to buy Apple shares cheap. They have a price – and that’s what you pay. It is a question of spotting the value that others don’t see now, but eventually will. It’s a gamble, but with research and patience, it can pay off. A clear example is the rise of independent haute horlogerie. If you had been lucky enough to put your name down with Philippe Dufour for one of his first ‘Simplicity’ watches, you’d have paid just over £26,000 – a hefty sum for a simple three-hander. At Sotheby’s in October 2020 after years of escalating results, one sold for £500,000 and there is little sign of the market slowing down. Early F.P. Journe
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tourbillons are now selling for around 10x the original retail price, hardly the sharp depreciation that had been expected. This has led speculators to cast around for the next big thing. Rexhep Rexhepi, the young Kosovo-born watchmaking prodigy is often cited as one to watch and his limited annual production is over-subscribed. Early independent watchmakers such as Daniel Roth, Roger Dubuis and Franck Muller are having their archives scrutinised for the most meritorious pieces from before they went ‘mainstream’. The feeling is that, when prices for vintage Rolex reach a certain point of insanity, true connoisseurs will realise that they can get much more watchmaking for a lot less money and pile into these brands instead.
Speed read:
Five tips for profitable flips Keep your eyes open in airport watch shops: a lack of traffic may mean you make a significant saving
What does this mean for affordable watch collecting? Maybe it’s time to look sideways from the current favourites. Vintage Seiko is booming, but vintage Citizen is yet to catch fire in the same way. Early quartz pieces in well made cases, either analogue or digital are generating interest, but are not yet silly money. Pieces from the ’80s from brands such as TAG Heuer and Breitling are just tipping from ‘old’ into ‘vintage’, changing their status from unfashionable to collectable. Maybe it’s just a matter of being a contrarian and recognising quality rather than hype. Then like that Zimbabwean watermelon seller, waiting for the market to catch up.
Don’t be duped
Know your stuff
Know that there is a difference between ‘price’ and ‘value’
Learn your brand and movement histories
A friend in need
Take a flight
Private sales can avoid VAT, margin and commissions
The Covid-19 pandemic has marooned watch bargains at airport watch shops
Get ahead of the curve Spot the future value that others don’t yet see 49
23h 56m
Timespan
One revolution of the earth – a sidereal day
Counting time Humans have been counting time in seconds – thanks to the Babylonian sexagesimal system of mathematics and astronomy – since 3,500BC. Sixty seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour. Then along came Hipparchus, around 127BC, who introduced the equinoctial 24-hour clock. The 24-hour clock marks the length of time it takes for the earth to travel once around the sun. Right? But there’s a problem. Mean time versus local time Universally accepted as the starting gun to the 24-hour clock, Greenwich Mean Time, or GMT, is set at noon when the sun is directly overhead at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich. But it’s a whole nine minutes later when the sun is directly overhead in, say, a town like Bath, 2.3° to the west. It’s sun-overhead noon at different local times, in different places, throughout the year, but if we set our watches by true local time, we’d always be late. The difference between standard mean time and sun-overhead-at-noon, local time can be calculated using ‘the equation of time’. And the reason for this gap between local time and mean time?
The declination of the sun: ie, the angle the sun’s rays make with the plane of the earth’s equator. Erratic orbit What complicates things is that the length of time from one noon to the next isn’t constant. If you divide each day into 24 equal hours, the length of a second varies from day to day. Your mechanical watch keeps constant seconds, or mean seconds. The difference isn’t huge, but it accumulates over the year so that on February 19th a watch will be 14 minutes fast, and on October 27th it will be 16 minutes slow, relative to the movements of the sun. Only on four days a year do things match up. The earth’s orbit is like a squashed circle, and we travel faster the closer we are to the sun. We’re closer to the sun (and burning through more orbit-miles) in northern hemisphere winter than we are in northern hemisphere summer, when we’re way off in outfield, doing fewer miles. Time to turn So. As the earth orbits around the sun, it also spins on its axis each day. If the earth’s axis of rotation was perpendicular to the sun, the earth’s orbit would be circular. But it isn’t. The earth’s orbit is rather more eccentric than that. The 50
earth’s axis actually points 23.5° off, towards the distant stars, specifically at the pole star, Polaris – and takes a little over 23 hours and 56 minutes to revolve, what astronomers call a ‘sidereal’ day. That’s from the Latin for star, if you’re with us so far. The difference between the length of a sidereal day and 24 hours is the little chunk of time we’re interested in here. Because the earth’s axis is tilted and we rotate as we orbit around the sun, the angle between our axis and the sun at noon changes during the year. It’s this change that gives us the seasons. Confused? Use a sundial A regular sundial’s pointer should point along the earth’s axis, towards Polaris. The length of the shadow cast during a day is equal – it makes a circle. However, the shadow on an analemmic sundial – one with a vertical pointer – will waver through the day, because of the varying height of the sun. Points on this figure can then be calculated using the equation of time to convert back to mean time. Suddenly the comforting regularity of our hours, minutes and days seems rather less reliable than we may have thought. Thanks then are due to our trusty mechanical watches, steadfastly counting mean time.
For watch servicing, we’re the pits Christopher Ward’s service department is a little like a Formula 1 garage. We have a team of expert engineers, all trained to spot and rectify problems. If your watch needs a specific cog, spring or wheel, we’ve got them. And because no one knows our watches like we do, your 60|60 Guarantee remains unaffected. Something that puts you and your newly-serviced watch in pole position. christopherward.com
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