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It’s all in the details! Before we get to those charmingly anachronistic vintage details, Unpolished Polishing Cloths are back in stock. Paid members, get yours for free here:
UNPOLISHED PODCAST
Titaniumize Everything
On this week’s pod: Austin Rogers, a scuba-certified, mountaineering watch enthusiast who goes by @rehaut on Instagram. We talk just after he tried to summit Mount Baker for the third time but encountered some truly terrible luck (again). He’s had a Rolex Explorer on his wrist for each attempt.
We talk about tossing Doxas in a quarry lake to test visibility; the watches he’d titaniumize, from Rolex to Laurent Ferrier; which Tudors from the 2013-onward rebirth could be collectible in 20 years; the Submarinerization of the Longines HydroConquest; his Grand Seiko problem; and plenty more.
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13 vintage details I love
Vintage watches aren’t necessarily better than modern ones, but the details usually are. I posted a few of my favorite vintage details over on Instagram this week. Most of those photos were macros of a favorite typeface, markers, or hands, so I wanted to do a post with more context on each.
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1/ The orange hand on a Rolex Explorer II ref. 1655
Rolex made the Explorer II ref. 1655 from 1971 until the mid-1980s. Designed for spelunkers/speleogists (people who love caves—if released today, Rolex probably would’ve called it the Cave-Dweller).
The orange hand is simply a 24-hour hand. Not the most useful thing nowadays, or at least until the AIs figure out how to hack our power grids. The original orange paint ages in all kinds of different ways. Pale ones are called “Albinos,” but I like these bright orange ones best.
The 1655 isn’t usually the first or even fourth vintage Rolex you get, so if you see someone with a Freccione, give ‘em a nice ciao.
2/ Jaeger-LeCoultre Memovox Parking 🅿️
Launched in 1958 as part of Jaeger-LeCoultre’s jubilee celebration, the Memovox “Parking” is a simple variation on Jaeger-LeCoultre’s classic alarm watch, but with a little parking emoji that lets you set a reminder for your parking meter. So much more elegant than the thirsty push notifications I get nowadays, reminding me about the terrible parking meter deal the city of Chicago cut in 2008.
The Parking can be found on a few different references, but it’s also often faked or put together (all you need to do is replace the inner disk on a normal Memovox).
A friendly subscriber sent me a Memovox Parking that sold on LoupeThis for $4,600 last week—pretty cool watch for the price, I think.
3/ Lollipop Hands, Like on This Omega Speedmaster CK2998-2
There are plenty of lollipop hands, but they’re not usually as jaw-hingingly delicious as on these early Speedmasters. Omega made the CK2998 in a few variations from 1959 until 1962, and a few of the subvariations have that luscious, luminous lollipop on the running chronograph hand. Eric Wind sold this one a few years back.
Similarly, it’s the reason the Tudor Submariner ref. 76100 with a big, fat lollipop hour is my favorite Submariner.
4/ Movado M90/95 ‘Kris’ Hands
The Movado M90/95 is already a great in-house chronograph. Here’s an in-depth article from 2019. Some have these squiggly snake “kris” hands, named because they look like the East Asian Kris dagger. You’ll sometimes see these hands on other brands, like this, but it’s super rare. Mostly Movado.
Once every year or so, I see posts about how vintage Movado is “under the radar,” or “why we should all be paying more attention to it,” etc. And yes, Movado made some excellent vintage watches, and yes, it mostly does not make excellent watches today. But it will never be more than the adorable quaint niche it is for any number of reasons!
5/ The Patek Philippe ‘Amagnetic’ Script
The Patek Philippe Amagnetic in stainless steel (ref. 3417) and gold (ref. 2570) has the best script in all of watches. The Amag was Patek’s first true sports watch, an elegant, anti-magnetic, mid-century design. There are also examples without the Amag script, and I think they sell for ~50% less. It’s easy to say, wow, many thousands of dollars just for one line of text??
But I suggest you expand your mind and embrace the beautiful, flowing irrationality—just look at that loopy “A”—it belongs in the Declaration of Independence.
6/ Patek Philippe 2508 Geometric Markers
Of all the many Patek Philippe Calatravas, the 2508 is The Best. It’s insane to me that some people sometimes pay more for a practically antique and certifiably tiny ref. 96. As I say though, embrace the irrationality.
Produced through the 1950s, the 2508 has a 35mm waterproof Taubert (née Borgel) case. The best ones have non-lume geometric markers. What look like squares, upon close inspection, reveal themselves to be tiny little pyramids that strike more awe in me than the Pyramids of Giza. The second-best markers ever made.
…And the best markers ever made:
