Vintage Archives - Watchisthis

21Fév 2019 by Jonathan Kopp 1 Comment

TBT – Dive into a vintage world

Vintage

Once you go down the rabbit hole of vintage watch collecting, it can be a difficult task to find your way back out again. With countless brands, designs, and price points to work with, not to mention the thrill of tracking down that elusive ‘rare bird’; there are many ways a collector can structure his collection. Some choose to solely focus on one brand or reference, whereas others are happy to simply go after designs they like and develop some variety. Over the years I’ve been actively collecting vintage watches, I’ve ended up building ‘collections within collections’, with Swiss, German and French skin divers being regular additions! Skin divers are lesser diving watches, in that they generally lack a depth rating and screw-in crown. What they forgot in actual diving…

13Juin 2018 by Jonathan Kopp No Comments

How to use the little pocket of your jeans

Vintage

In our dressing we all have a pair of jeans and it's easy to say that it's the perfect companion no matter what we do (except the sport of course). Well, it's simple, despite the many modes that pass, the jeans never passes. It seems that pocket watches are making a big comeback as a lot of watch enthusiasts are looking for something different, and so it's time to tell you about their shared history. You see this little pocket that is sewn inside the biggest one that is at the front of your jeans? You know that little pocket on your jeans? The one that doesn't really function as a pocket due to its tiny, tiny size, that sits inside a real pocket which actually has a real function.…

04Juin 2018 by Jonathan Kopp 15 Comments

A Soviet Design Classic – The Raketa Kopernik

Vintage

When it comes to listing famous watchmaking countries, most people could name Switzerland, Japan and maybe Germany or France, if they had only a passing interest in watches. However there is one region that arguably surpasses those in terms of the level of fanaticism of its collectors, and that is the former Soviet Union. Russia and the USSR have a rather rich horological history, with a large number of manufacturers in operation over quite a long period of time. What most of the brands lacked in high end mechanics and expensive hand-finishing compared to their European counterparts, they made up for with an astonishing array of unique designs, robustness and hearty doses of utilitarianism. Soviet-era watches scored wins for the USSR during the Cold War too, as it was a…

14Mar 2018 by Jonathan Kopp 15 Comments

Buser Frères & Cie S.A. – A Brief Introduction

Vintage

There have been countless Swiss watch companies come and go over the last 200 years or so. Literally every single day I come across at least one defunct name I’ve never heard of before, and I know of many Swiss watch brands (not to mention German and French brands too)! A sizeable proportion of these old brands were merely that – brands only, meaning that they did not manufacture any components of the timepieces they marketed. Rather, they designed (sometimes they didn’t even go that far...) or assembled watches from components supplied by other factories; a successful business model that continues today in the Swiss watch industry. Buser Frères & Cie S.A., a family owned business whose origins began in 1892 in Niederdorf, Switzerland; were a true ‘manufacture d’horlogerie’. Buser…

14Fév 2018 by Jonathan Kopp 3 Comments

Winding Back the Years

Vintage

The vast majority of wrist watches, from their very conception, have a crown on the right hand side of the case, at 3 o’clock. Most crowns protrude from the case, where they are grasped for setting and winding of the watch, if the watch is of the mechanical variety. However in 1953, Jaeger LeCoultre released the Futurematic, with the technically impressive calibre 497 bumper automatic movement. What was different about the Futurematic, lies in how the watch was set – there was no crown to be found at 3 o’clock. This watch was the first ‘back-set’ wristwatch, a true innovation where the tiny coin-like crown was located flat against the back of the case, in contact with the wrist when worn. The crown would slide one way to be rotated…

17Jan 2018 by Jonathan Kopp 5 Comments

The 40’s still amaze us with some treasures

Vintage

The 1940s are indisputably one of the golden decades for watch design. Benefitting from being preceded by both the hugely influential Bauhaus design school and the Art Deco eras; watches from the 1940s developed an identity of their own, becoming recognisable for their simplicity, style and class. This decade in particular is known for its outstandingly beautiful chronographs, which are highly sought after by many collectors (with increasingly deep pockets). Quite remarkable really, that so many fine watches were conceived in the 1940s; for half of that period Europe was embroiled in the resource-draining effects of World War II, where both materials and of course labour were under stress. Although the fact that neutral Switzerland avoided widespread bombing (unlike Germany and France), probably helped its watchmaking industry weather the storm…

Catégorie : Vintage