Fiction Over Fact: When an Homage Watch is Best

[Music] hello watch enthusiasts and welcome to watch chronicler today i'd like to take a look not at the past but at the present and the future of watches until now homage watches have been a popular niche for watch lovers without quite the budget to afford the brands designs or histories they want or perhaps those with access to aspirational watches but without the stomach to risk the damage of daily life but think back to the world five or six years ago when youtube's watch space was filled to the gunnels with steinhardt's and squaley's rolex submariner homages arriving at a time when eta movements were still relatively easy to get hold of the ability to buy a relatively well made sub 500 pound independent swiss dive watch was a genuine possibility today you can actually find some similar products from the aforementioned brands yet rather disappointingly the desire to buy them just isn't the same there are no doubt plenty of reasons for this the fact that in real terms we've all learned that swiss made at this price doesn't really mean swiss made the fact that seiko has risen to be the dominant brand in this price segment and the recognition that you don't need to replicate a watch exactly to bring back a lot of its charm all of these are likely reasons for the decline of this market rather curiously the direction of this market is perhaps best shown by the directions of the steinhardt and squalor brands squaley under new and as i understand it much wiser management has shied away from homages on the whole and is now doing much better with its unique and historically important models steinhardt however has largely remained the same with a range of rolex homages which haven't aged particularly well in my eyes and an additional collection of watches designed before steinhardt became known for the aforementioned homages which either mimic designs for which other brands tend to be known or are simply cripplingly ugly nevertheless in spite of this market trend there are some funny moments when to acquire the most appealing product you have to choose fiction over fact that's to say that you have to choose the homage over the product actually made by the original creator today i'd like to speak about the most interesting moments when if you wanted a nice watch or an interesting watch the original manufacturer just didn't know best by the way i must emphasize that when i say homage watch i don't mean a watch made by the original manufacturer to draw on the past model the only exception to that rule due to its particular brand structure is the tudor black bay but i'll explain that later on in the video first i'd like to introduce the sponsor of this video aquastar if you're enjoying this video i suspect that dive watches and the history of subaquatic exploration will be of interest including work of jed cousteau following his joint invention of the aqualung in 1943 with emily genyon kuster's influence on many of our imaginations came with episodes of the undersea world of jacques cousteau appearing from 1966 to 76 in its first run what few may know however is that the watch seen in the first episode of this hugely influential series was the aqua star deep star perhaps the most important diving chronograph of all time usable down to 100 meters and with the provision to calculate necessary decompression for consecutive dives nevertheless by the 21st century the brand had all but disappeared from the diving scene however in 2020 under the new ownership of the synchron group the company that brought back icons like the doxa sub in the early 2000s aquadive and also the isofrane and tropic straps aquastar is back with the brand new deep star with modern specifications and classical looks watch our review to find out more or head over to aquastar.ch to get your own piece of dive watch history for the first part of this video i'd like to address a watch which did a seriously impressive job of lending perspective on an influential but rather unremarkable watch the value 72 powered rolex cosmograph daytona of course i'm being facetious because evidently the daytona was and remains a cornerstone of the chronograph market nonetheless one has to accept that it's not on mechanical merit the daytona has found its reputation as an auction house sweetheart originally introduced in 1963 the original rolex daytona was a simple watch following the reference 6234 and 6238 models the latter being produced well into the daytona's production period the daytona added an external tachometer and a simplified dial to the rolex chronograph formula originally born of astronautic aspirations later crushed by the technically superior omega speedmaster in the 60s the daytona was initially simply the cosmograph and subsequently took its new name from the famous race amusingly it was far later that the daytona actually gained popularity when the italian market a key proponent for steel sports watches in the 1970s started to appreciate this watch as seen in a magazine on the wrist of paul newman the actor and racing driver the rest as they say is history today this manually wound generation of daytona has reached a level of true stardom with models ranging from the truly basic steel bezeled non-waterproof 6239 to the 6243 complete with acrylic bezel and screwed pushers being at least hundred thousand pound items inevitably one cannot forget the original paul newman daytona worn by the man himself which sold for a record price in 2017 at phillips and which solidified the daytona as an investment piece here ladies and gentlemen is where our homage comes in you see when a wealthy collector is prepared to pay a few millions for a watch it's of very little consequence to even moderately thrifty types whether the homage they're buying is unoriginal if it reminds you of the thrill of porsche 917s and ferrari 512's banging wheels why not buy it for a reasonable price plenty of homages to the daytona exist from steinhardt to the now unfindable gabriel tribeca but these thousand pound remakes seem to grovel at the foot of the temple of that rolex with features actually far more advanced than the original such as higher water resistance sapphire crystals automatic winding and solid modern bracelets the watch to really show up the daytona is the humblest of them all it is the holy grail resplended in simple clay beside a heap of bejeweled golden alternatives it is the alpha daytona produced simply in china to let's be generous unexacting standards the alpha is a near facsimile of the 1960s and 70s daytona it has the same slightly crude case finish the same acrylic crystal the same style of dial the same rattley bracelet and courtesy of a seagull st-19 a chinese replica of a manual column wheel lateral clutch swiss venus movement from the same period a very similar movement feel too sure it's poorly made and thousands of times cheaper than buying an original but in its characterful bargain basement tattiness we actually get to experience an approximation of vintage daytona ownership as it was in the day without all the pomp and circumstance of being an auction top lot and a multi-million pound item after all in its day the daytona was a profoundly uninteresting and undesirable rolex across the whole of their collection if you're enjoying this video why not subscribe to always catch the latest videos here on youtube also remember to follow us on instagram and to head over to watch chronicler.com to find all our podcasts and articles to show you a different side to the watches we all love so if the alpha daytona could show the reality of the core of the rolex daytona where can we go next well let's stay with rolex the most faked and homaged watch brand in the world let's not forget because it's time to address the tudor black bay now i know this hardly fits the game rules i mentioned at the beginning of the video but bear with me it's 2010 and rolex has just launched the new ceramic submariner with its super case and maxi dial everything is bigger better more luxurious and more impressive than before in fact you could argue this is the largest stylistic change since the addition of crown guards and different bezel in the early 1960s however rolex is forgetting something popular preference to guide it back on its way a side player once a true partner of rolex was needed this was tudor since the late 1990s tudor had been absent from a number of major markets and offered the woefully ugly or perhaps just too confused hydronaut dive watch range however as rolex prices rose in the 2000s i can only assume that rolex decided that it was time for tudor its sister brand to offer an accessible alternative to bring new customers in the result aside from a range of other products was the 2012 to the black bay this watch was not truly innovative as in reality seiko longine and others had already pioneered the vintage style dive watch before this point it was with the black bay though that it became clear that bigger bolder and more modern designs might not be right for rolex or its customers placed next to the submariner particularly in its original eta-powered guys before the highly technically advanced in-house movements came in the black bay was clearly a step down the ceramic bezel was replaced by an aluminium one the water resistance was dropped to 200 meters the bracelet was simpler and of course the movement was an eta 2824-2 with initially no date option available even the crown guards were removed no matter the black bay was an instant classic to the extent that today almost tudor's entire brand rests upon this collection's sales of course you could argue that the black bay was nomage to tudor's own watch in the form of the submariner from the 1950s yet that isn't actually true you see 1950s tudor submarines did not use applied markers or snowflake hands and the format was comprehensively different with the black bay tudor brought back the simple charming spirit of the submariner in tudor and rolex forms and in its less vintage versions it became an easier submariner for someone for whom simplicity functionality and the absence of rolex's modern day elevation are important this was and remains a watch which also costs less than half the price of a submariner and as such offers you all the watch your father wore back in the day at an approximation of the price he actually paid for it if you account for inflation and a slightly raised price in the case of in-house models in short the black bay was revolutionary because it demonstrated just what the rolex submariner could no longer provide with its current branding and the general image which rolex now commands thus far we've seen a watch which lends perspective on just how a timepiece was experienced in its day and another which suggests to us what we actually want in the luxury timepiece something far removed from technical advance an homage which we haven't addressed however is one which actually betters the watch which spawned it for this we need to look at the breitling navi timer and for the german watch enthusiasts amongst you the watch i'm going to present will already be obvious the zin 903 when the original navi timer reference 806 was unveiled in 1954 it was designed for a very different world than the one which we live in today putting to one side the very early examples which housed the same value 72 as the aforementioned rolex daytona the navitimer was powered by the venus 178 a manual chronograph movement closely related the movement in the alpha daytona production of this watch in all its variants finished in the early 1970s yet the design barely changed beyond some dial color variations including the introduction of the recognizable contrast colour subdials importantly this was a watch designed for aeronautical calculations in the jet age by contrast to most pilots watches from before this watch didn't have the high contrast dial and enormous hands of inter-or watches as in a jet plane the vibrations impeding the reading of the time were far less i'm assured that trying to read one of these in a propeller driven aircraft is akin to reading a smudged newspaper in a mirror whilst hanging upside down and being tickled in any case with its slide rule bezel and chronograph functions this watch could be used to calculate ground speed fuel consumption rate of ascent or descent or to perform multiplication and division in the late 70s however brighton was facing hard times the looming quartz crisis and the reducing interest in mechanical watches was hitting the brand hard and some additional money needed to be made as a result breitling sold the rights to in essence the navitimer to helmut zinn the man at the helm of german pilots watch firm xin since 1961 as a result we have today the zin 903 or simply germany's navitimer sized at 41 millimeters this watch is considerably more manageable than many of breitling's own offerings but more importantly it's a very different interpretation too you see where breitling is doing a brilliant job of adding in-house movements and making the navitimer a gentleman's luxury watch the zinn is very different it isn't more complicated as such but takes all the classic navy timer weaknesses and removes them for example it's kept the broad stable lugs and the polished case but has added a crown to control the slide rule this gives hundred meter water resistance to the minimal waterproofing of the breitling it's also low pressure resistant to keep the crystal in if you eject at high altitude as of this year we also see a balance of reliability and serviceability with technical improvement as the selita sw500 previously used a clone of the venerable automatic chronograph value 7750 has been replaced with the leisure pereira 8000 this movement a relative of the one in the aquastar deep star i mentioned earlier adds a column wheel chronograph an increased dual count of 28 a chronometer balance wheel and full decoration sitting at half the price of the in-house modern breitling navitimer if you need a tool this is probably the better watch of course it isn't as luxurious and isn't perfect with a clipped second track but it is exactly what the navi timer would be if brighton were not more of a luxury brand than a tool watch brand today but what do you think of these homages i think that each in their own way they enrich the market and make a very good case for being bought over the original even if by necessity in the case of the daytona if you enjoyed this video please remember to like subscribe and hit the bell icon for more here on watch chronicler and to make sure these videos can keep coming thank you very much for watching this is arman from watchchronicle.com out

Channel: WATCH CHRONICLER

Views: 15,618

Rating: 4.8850226 out of 5

Keywords: homage watch, Rolex Submariner homage, Rolex replica, best Rolex replica, fake Rolex, Tudor watches, Tudor Black Bay, vintage Rolex Submariner, 1665, 6538, 6200, 6204, 6205, 5513, Breitling, Navitimer, Sinn watches, Sinn 903, Sinn chronograph, Alpha Daytona, Rolex Daytona, Cosmograph, 6238, 6239, 6263, Paul Newman, Paul Newman Daytona, Steinhart, Steinhart OVM, Squale, Squale 1545, best homage watches, homage watch to buy, vintage watch auction, Seiko Marinemaster, Longines, Legend Diver

Id: JlSE0Yha9-I

Length: 13min 59sec (839 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 06 2021