Watch Dandy

There’s a wonderful documentary film about Henri Cartier-Bresson, starring the photographer himself, in which he looks back over a lifetime of work and gradually reduces the number of images that he feels represent that lifetime to just a handful. At one point, towards the end of the film, he looks bemusedly at the camera and says, “Really, how many pictures can you look at more than once? Not many, not many.” The same is true of watches. While there are many that are perfectly fine, there are also very, very few that withstand repeated scrutiny and resist the erosion of initial excitement that follows in the wake of even some of the best watch designs out there. The Richard Lange Jumping Seconds is one of those rare watches that not only withstands, but rewards, closer scrutiny and longer acquaintance, and though we did spend some time hands-on with it at the SIHH last January, seeing the watch again just a few days ago gave me an opportunity to experience its impact away from the (many) distractions of the Salon, and to take the measure of the watch in a more considered way.

Thin Roman numerals, a railroad-style minute track, blue hands, and a small seconds register. On paper, the C9 5 Day Small Second reads like a classic mid-century dress watch. But it isn’t. The numerals are printed onto a metal dial; the hands are blued chemically, not heated; and then there’s the inclusion of a date window at 3 o’clock. The Small Second is definitely not a vintage watch, but it is a very convincing attempt at creating an elegant and affordable dress watch using modern techniques (and it’s a much more convincing design than another CW piece we reviewed not long ago). More on that after the jump.