A while ago I noticed almost all of my watches were made between 1965 and 1976 or so. Many iconic watch designs preceded that era: Speedmaster, Carrera, Seamaster, Submariner and so on but I like a slightly larger watch like the Heuer Autavia and Speedmaster Pro (and never really got round to buying earlier examples!). 1969 was a key year with the arrival of the automatic chronograph and electronic watch, not to mention deep sea exploration requiring watches like the PloProf, 1000M and Big Blue.
All this new technology coincided with the era of space travel and the moon landings and manufacturers took the opportunity to use new technology in their watches to showcase new design a very long way from the fairly simple round watches of the early 1960s. Change happened quickly – from Electroquartz to ChronoQuartz (via the Marine Chronometer) was only seven years but by the end of the 1970s the small digital and quartz watch revolution was on its way and the powerhouses of Swiss watch industry were left behind by Swatch, Casio and so on. What seven years though, within that timeframe Heuer also produced the iconic Monaco and Autavia 1163 and Omega tried out a few other Speedmaster designs.
I was hoping the recent arrival of the likes of the Apple smart watch would bring with it some new design and ideas but so far everything seems to either look like a traditional watch or a small phone!
Back to my watches, I’m not a huge fan of modern watches, some I admire but most are continuations of old designs (which is as it should be – the 2254 for example is almost the perfect watch, probably why I sold both of mine, I wouldn’t wear anything else…) and for me I’d rather buy the originals. I have a couple of modern watches – Ninja Turtle and 42mm Explorer 2 I wear two or three days per month - but wear vintage the rest of the time. Aside from a few manual and automatic Heuer Autavias, two Heuer Montreals, four 1970s Seiko divers, Seiko Bullhead and UFO and probably a couple of other watches I’ve forgotten, my collection is based around this lot:
Some gone but not forgotten:
!
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