Alon Ben Joseph from ACE Jewelers has recently posted this sneak preview of an upcoming Longines release for 2019. https://www.instagram.com/p/BvPTyAZHVp4/ Well it looks like this might have been embargo restricted, as the original instagram post has been taken down. I am therefore deleting the attached image / photo to avoid any embarrassment for Alon Ben.
Longines is finally circulating the memo about dates (or lack thereof)! Looks great, but the big question is "How big?".
Alo Ben had another post which he took down, where I think he mentioned a 38mm case size, or something around that size. Fingers crossed I would be very pleasantly surprised if they did offer a new manual wound ETA movement, but with Longines forced to keep within a price point below Omega, I would bet on the "standard" L888.2 (ETA A31.L01) automatic movement with 21 jewels, 64 hours of power reserve / 25.200 vph.
It'd be nicer if they reallly emulated the 12.68 or similar manual wind watches they are trying to be..these new releases including the ben clymer heritage would have been a manual wind back in the day.
Logo seems a bit off. And the hour and minute hands seems a bit off in ratio. Maybe could have been leaf hands or otherwise thicker.
Manual wind watches are just better. Hamilton's Khaki Field Mechanical is an OK watch that I would not have paid much attention to if it were automatic. But it's manual, and I bought one because of it
Watchbase has now posted the new 2019 sector dial watch. https://watchbase.com/longines/heritage/l2-828-4-73-2
Looks great - Automatic would be a no-go for me, but aesthetically Longines did a nice job with this one.