The Collector’s Series – Justin Hast and his Platinum Grand Lange 1
Today we’re talking with non-other that Justin Hast about his platinum Grand Lange 1. You might remember Justin from when he did The Collector’s Series for MONOCHROME. So now he’s on the other side of the table, being the interviewee! After helping us out with The Collector’s Series, Justin continued to work in the world of watches; photography for several auction houses, writing for Hodinkee, and much more. Justin also recently published his first book, but today he’s explaining why he spend a hefty amount on a pretty simple classic watch, the A. Lange & Söhne Grande Lange 1.
Some chapters of our sexual lives are best left behind – so why aren’t erotic watches dead and buried? This question sprung to mind last week after reports of Conor McGregor’s latest watch purchase that we wrote about here. In case you missed it, one of the pieces the UFC fighter bought was the Jacob & Co Rasputin Diamond Erotic Minute Repeater Watch, a $1.5m USD timepiece smothered with nearly 30 carats worth of sparklers over the case and dial. Above the blue skeltonised hands, two swans gaze lovingly each other’s eyes until this innocent pastoral scene gets an X-rated twist. If you lightly press the slider protruding from the left side of the case, a secret compartment on the dial opens to offer a glimpse of a woman in black stockings being pleasured by her lover from behind. How to make sense of this baffling object? It’s hilariously tacky, of course, and about as erotic as having a migraine on a bus. But there must be something more going on here to have persuaded The Notorious to fork out over a million bucks. Maybe there’s something about the clandestine nature of the thrill? The sudden exposure of the hidden…
Editor’s note: There’s a lot to be said for collecting vintage watches. In an industry built on anachronistic foundations, going straight to the source of these cultural and historical artefacts makes a great deal of sense. And that is even before you consider the pulse-quickening elements of minutiae that you can get lost in when it comes to hunting down the vintage reference that your heart desires. But there is one downside to vintage watches. They aren’t always as robust as they once were, and you’d hate to be the person who put a scratch on a watch that’d survived decades in otherwise pristine condition. And that doesn’t seem quite right when it comes to watches that were designed with vigorous action in mind. Whether it’s a dive watch or tool watch, you want to wear them in the rugged pursuits they were intended for. This is where the beauty of the inspired reissue lies. A design that offers a nod to the past, in a package that is more than able to handle anything you can throw at it. You can have your cake and eat it too, and that’s why the Seiko SPB153 is my favourite Seiko of…
Ok, here’s a fact: The Rolex Daytona owes a debt to the Zenith El Primero. A modified version of the El Primero movement powered the Daytona for 12 years, and marked the first automatic Daytona models. This all happened when I was merely 12 years old, in 1988. And now, Zenith is taking that debt back with a black ceramic bezel twist that dawns a new era and a new name, in the Zenith Chronomaster Sport. There’s some pretty nifty mechanical trickery going on with the new 10th of a second caliber, too, but we will get to this once the initial impression wears off, and is – in my opinion – thoroughly justified. The Zenith El Primero is famous for two reasons. One, as a watch that deserves to be called iconic even amongst the most towering icons, and that holds various important claims in the pantheon of 20th Century watchmaking, including, but not limited to the first fully integrated, Swiss made, self-winding automatic chronograph, hence the name, El Primero. The second is the El Primero’s fame as a movement alone. Even 19 years after its release in 1969, the movement was so reliable, robust and well regarded that…