“Vintage is the same classics but not mature indeed and that’s why it is extraordinarily tasty“. This witty saying belongs to one reputable watchmaker who likes to hunt for original ticking paradigms from different periods of time and give them up-to-date lustre. Real vintage has little chance to become classics quickly: it can’t even become mature as very often it’s taken out of old dusty boxes to gratify new generations of connoisseurs and collectors.
Vintage watches have the imprint of their time, whether romantic 1930s or military 1940 or “quartz” 1970s. This peculiarity in some magic way passes on to their owners. And if we take into consideration a strongly pronounced “professional” specialization of such watches which were designed in their time to serve their owners in the most extreme conditions, we’ll understand why watch vintage is so popular nowadays, especially among men. Several original timepieces were chosen for this review as representatives of the “family” of chronometric remakes. And probably they will make someone of our readers to reconsider their watch priorities and to make a final choice in favour of retro style which so fashionable at the moment.
Earth
Among the all “automobile” timepieces Ferrari Chronograph Pink Gold 45 mm is probably the most vintage. For the designers from Panerai it was not just an ordinary project for the Ferrari brand but a real complex task which demanded deep knowledge of automobile history, culture and traditions. They studied thoroughly all the creative drafts of the Pininfarina body atelier and particularly the legendary Touring and Scaletti models which are considered to be the examples of an automobile elegance of the mid 20th century. Under the motto “All great ideas are simple” the designers of Ferrari Chronograph Pink Gold 45 mm used basic geometrical shapes getting them up in full compliance with the then design rules and in the result got an “ideal vintage“. A circle in a square, black in gold, Italian in Swiss – each of these combinations had been accurately estimated and kept in certain proportions. The inscriptions “cronografo” and “tachimetro” in Italian make this watch even more authentic.
But the design is not the only merit of this timepiece. Its golden cover houses a Calibre OP XXVIII based on the transformed Minerva 13-20 movement issued in the 1940s. All in all Panerai managed to find 50 Minerva 13-20 movements and this predetermined the number of pieces in the new collection. Each of the artefacts was disassembled, cleaned, modified and reassembled. The result is amazing: Ferrari Chronograph Pink Gold 45 mm is a really alive watch with the spirit of the eternally young Ferrari.
Air
Long ago, in 1969, Breitling designed the first mechanical chronograph with self-winding which gave birth to the Chrono-Matic collection which in its turn became the portent of the fashion for watches in massive cases. Chrono-Matic 49 is the last generation of the legendary series which combined in it all the merits of the collection. Its creators skilfully used the contrast between the 40-years-old refined shape and massive 49-mm case. The case itself is made in the shape of a circled octagon and is crowned by a black rubber collar. The collar operates the logarithmic scale and plays the role of an element of decoration. The watch is notable for the chronograph pushers. They look very simple. But for this “simplicity” the designers had to sacrifice the level of water resistance which is only 3 ATM.
This model is produced in two steel versions with different dials and in limited edition series in gold. The most striking is the model with light dial supplemented with Aero Classic bracelet: such watches were favourites of air aces, soldiers of fortune and other daredevils. But this watch actually was designed for such brave men.
Water
70 years ago, in 1938, Longines created its legendary watch for the Italian hydragraphic institute. The watch served loyally to the cartographer officers of the national Navy, which came to a bad end during the World War II. But this is another story. What is more important is that the choice of a Swiss watchmaker proved to be one of the few lucky choices made by Italian Navy. And the vintage model Istituto Idrografico R. Marina Watch is the evidence of this. Having produced Istituto Idrografico R. Marina Watch Longines demonstrated to the surfeited with the technical vanguard watchmaking community how the chronographs of the first half of the 20th century looked. They looked really modest, almost classically: circular case without any decorative excesses, lacquered dial, blued steel hands, hesalite crystal, and modest rectangular pushers. Its special purpose is only revealed trough the big luminescent markers easily read during the night raid to the enemy’s rear. Small inscription Istituto Idrografico R. Marina adds vintage spirit to the watch and allows to call its owner a person not alien to aesthetics…
Technorati tags:watch, wrist watch, Swiss watch, chronograph, tourbillion, Armitron, Cartier, Casio, Citizen, Longines, Omega, Seiko, Swatch, Tag Heuer, Tissot, news
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