I would buy the original IWC Mark XI. It’s a sturdy watch which looks beautiful and it will cost you less.

 

Pretty sure an XI will cost significantly more than either a XII or a XV.

 

It fell on the floor ! After that it was losing at least 1-2 minutes a day so was basically impractical (plus of course it was likely damaging itself further) so it went back in the box. Need to get it sorted really as it’d still be a great daily watch.

And the strap is just one for a UTC. I bought the XV pre-owned and hated the deployant it came on, so bought the UTC strap as I wanted to be a bit more casual than black leather. The lug width on the XV is 1mm less than the UTC but it fitted OK. Pretty expensive strap though. I was in Japan at that time and I remember it was around ¥45000, which would have been about £250.

 

I would be interested to see a Mark XI that costs less than a Mark XII/XV? I regularly see them being offered for much more.

 

Ouch! That watch needs a restoration with TLC. Hopefully it is still okay

That is definitely on the expensive side for a strap, but I’ve read those UTC ones will last you a lifetime if reasonably used. So your watch originally came on the engineer bracelet? I’d wear that bracelet to death lol but if you’re going for a more casual look I think the UTC strap is the right way to go!

 

A little update: I’ve had the chance to try on a Pilot 36mm with slate gray dial at an AD. Was thinking of a more modern alternative to the Mark XII.

Upon closer inspection of the Pilot 36mm, however, I’ve noticed that the specimen on my wrist had “bubblier” arabic hour markers than the ones usually seen online. It looks cartoonish and downright awful.

Here it is compared to one i found on watchpatrol.

IWC’s quality control can’t be that bad, can it?

 

IWC Mark XI are regularly coming at auction and authentic models (correct hands, Tritium dial and MoD engraving on the back of the case) sell for 3’000-5’000. The original dial with radium are more expensive and if the dial has the numeric 12 (extremely rare) the price would be north of 10’000.

 

Doesn’t sound too far out but that’s more money than either the XII or the XV.

 

With the Mark XI you are buying a bit of history. The watch is likely to give much more satisfaction and will certainly fare much better than any of its copies...!
For me it only makes sense to buy a re-edition if the original is not available or the price of the original is prohibitive. It is definitely not the case with the Mark XI