Flip it and reverse it – the Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso Tribute Moon
Editor’s note: Everybody loves a watch with a party trick, and the party trick of the two-faced Reverso is hard to beat. Especially when you add a moon into the mix, as is the case with the Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso Tribute Moon. It’s fair to say that, for most people, Jaeger-LeCoultre in 2017 has been synonymous with the Master Control series we’ve spoken about at length. On the one hand, these watches deserve their time in the sun; on the other hand, you might have missed the truly stylish Reversos JLC released this year. For me, the star of the swivelling show is this two-faced beauty, the Reverso Tribute Moon in steel. Last year, JLC launched a Reverso subcollection – the Tribute Line – that honours the spirit of historic Reverso models, a mission the Tribute Moon well and truly delivers on, with equally beautiful night and day dials. I’m always struck by just how much watch you get with a Reverso. Of course you get one elegant watch with two distinct personalities, but on top of that you get the practicality of two time zones and, in this case, the romance of a moonphase (matched with the less-romantic but eminently practical date),…
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A Collected Man recently interviewed Daryn Schnipper, and if you don’t know who she is … you really should. Schnipper has been working at Sotheby’s in New York since 1980, first as a watch expert, and now as Senior Vice President of the auction house and Chairman of the International Watch Division. What’s more, Schnipper has been responsible for selling some truly amazing timepieces over the years, not least the Henry Graves Supercomplication pocket watch, which she has sold not once, but twice, for $11 million and $24 million respectively. Schnipper also talks about how the horological landscape has changed so drastically in the last 40 years, and how the quartz crisis simultaneously almost killed the mechanical wristwatch industry, and in doing so, made wristwatches collectible for the first time. Anyway, it’s definitely worth a read, and you can do so by clicking this link.
We watch enthusiasts love an excuse to come over all opinionated, don’t we? A little “controversy break” from our worship of calibres and references. So how about this: after-market customising. Would you or wouldn’t you? Is it cool to ice-up a Patek and black-out a Rolex – or is it a crime against horology? One thing is sure: it makes some very prominent watch producers quite hot under the collar. But why the controversy? When you buy a watch it becomes your own property – so shouldn’t that mean you can do whatever you want with it? Change the colour, pimp it up in whatever way makes you happy and makes the watch feel more “yours”. It’s never been an issue for cars: take your Bentley to Mansory or your BMW to the local foiling shop and you’ll be praised rather than disparaged. Weirdly, though, different rules seem to apply for watches. Modifying high-end timepieces is far from new (1980s; Hip-Hop; the early days of Jacob & Co with the iced-up Cartiers …) but even so, having a watch customised by a third-party workshop is, apparently, close to sacrilege for many. Is that because of some deep-rooted conservatism in the…
Editor’s note: There’s a lot of Black Bays out there, but one of the coolest, in our humble opinion, is the 2017 Tudor Black Bay Steel – a version that strips the colour from the model to reveal its purest, most tool-watch attributes … The story in a second: When the going gets tough, wear a Black Bay Steel. Did you know that this year the Black Bay family is five years old? Well, it is, and the fundamental design isn’t showing any signs of flagging. Case in point is this watch, which represents the Black Bay stripped back to its essentials. The Tudor Heritage Black Bay Steel. The case There’s not too much to be said about the case of the Black Bay Steel that hasn’t already been said about every other Black Bay. It’s steel, it’s 41mm across and has those high, smooth sides that make the Black Bay such an easy watch to spot from under a cuff — though it must be said the big Tudor rose on the crown is a bit of a giveaway, too. The real point of difference here is, as you’d expect, the bezel. The watch takes its name from the…
Editor’s note: In one of our favourite Sandra stories of all time, she takes aim at all the sacred cows of watch collecting, and skewers them. In style. When I talk with other women about watch collecting, the most common reaction runs along the lines of, “Oh, that’s just a sad guy thing” or “I totally don’t get why my husband bought such an expensive one/has to own so many/is so geeky about them …” Or even, “Ha! Boys’ toys – you know what they’re a substitute for …” So yeah, a luxury watch is really just a much more portable version of a muscle car or a mid-life Harley-Davidson. Compensation. For something. Sure, it’s also “a reward for all those years of hard work”. But, in truth, that watch/car/bike is a grown-up security blanket. And, as Linus knows, it’s hard for a guy to live without one. OK, so I’m heading deep into cultural/gender stereotyping territory here. But there’s science and study to back it up – from the seriously academic (Cambridge Professor Simon Baron-Cohen) to the pop psychology of John Gray’s Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus. (And let me say it now: I do know…