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Wear a wristwatch, because it’s a badass thing to do
Summary
This month we discuss finding value in a mechanical watch, plus all the fun things you can do with a chronograph
Nearly two years ago, I wrote a lament in this column regarding a number of excellent watch brands not being available in India. Amongst these, I counted such great favourites of watch enthusiasts like Tudor and Hamilton. I’d also mentioned some other such bugbears, like the lack of fantastic quartz Timex timepieces such as the Q chronograph and the Q GMT, as well as the mechanical Timex Marlin.
One of my criticisms of this dearth had to do with finding value. Good watches do not come cheap, especially when they are mechanical watches with either manually wound or automatic movements. The cheapest ‘good’ watch comes in roughly the ₹20,000-40,000 bracket. This is a band dominated by the two Japanese heavyweights: Seiko and Citizen.
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For Swiss watches, that band begins somewhere closer to ₹70,000, and there is no upper ceiling to the prices of those manufactures. If you are able to shell out over ₹10 lakh for a luxury timepiece, in India, you can. But spending such amounts of money, even if you can, hardly constitutes commensurate value for every rupee spent. A mechanical watch is a mechanical watch, and at higher prices, you will be getting more accurate and luxuriously finished movements, alongside more luxurious materials like yellow or white gold. But does that really constitute value, especially if you also count the price of maintaining such a watch?
This dilemma is true for watch enthusiasts everywhere, even in more wealthy markets like the US and Europe. In fact, if you go through popular watch publications or YouTubers, you will regularly find stories on the “best watches for $1,000", whether one is looking for a discreet dress watch or a robust sports watch—including the perennial favourite, dive watches. To serve this sizable niche are big brands like Hamilton, as well as a slew of highly respected microbrands, none of which are available in India. On the “affordable luxury" end are brands like Tudor, Rolex’s sister company.
Well, since I wrote about it, the scene has gotten better somewhat. Tudor is available here, though not all models—and you can access Hamilton watches at eye-wateringly marked up prices on Amazon. As far as the people’s champion of enthusiast brands, Timex, is concerned, most of their best lines are still not available in the country. One line that is, as I was surprised to find out a few months ago, is the excellent Q chronograph.
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The Q chronograph was launched two years ago, expanding the hugely popular line from Timex, alongside the Q GMT. As the ‘Q’ suggests, these are actually quartz watches, offering a very affordable way to enjoy 70’s era watch designs, and adding heaps of functionality in the process. The Q chronograph is a clear throwback, with its three-sub-register design referencing famous models from brands like Rolex, Zenith and Heuer. And while Swiss-made mechanical chronographs begin from about ₹3 lakh, this quartz beauty can be had for as little as ₹11,000, when factoring in discounts.
A chronograph is probably the most popular watch complication there is, and sports chronographs in stainless steel even more so. Chronograph movements in wristwatches have a long and interesting history, as I have written about in this column before. And since watches were once actual tools for professionals, chronographs—beyond their basic function of measuring elapsed time—were also adapted for specific needs, and you can tell what those needs were by looking at the chronograph scales.
These scales are usually either marked on the outer edge of the dial, or on the bezel. There are five popular scales, with the most pervasive one being the tachymeter scale. This is the one you find on most famous chronographs, be it the Rolex Daytona, the Omega Speedmaster or the Zenith El Primero. Such chronographs are called racing chronographs, because they were developed initially to time races and were tools of choice for both race officials and drivers. The tachymeter bezel effectively helps you determine the speed of an object (in either miles per hour or km per hour) over a given distance. Back when mechanical speedometers on vehicles weren’t the most accurate things (as late as the early 1960s), a chronograph with a tachymeter scale would give a better measurement of average speeds.
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Some of the other popular uses of the chronograph were as a pulsometer (featuring a scale that doctors could use to measure heart rate), as a decimeter (used by scientists for accurate timing of specific calculations), as a telemeter (a scale popular with soldiers, that would allow them to gauge how far away an explosion was by juxtaposing the speed of sound with that of light) or as a regatta timer (used by yacht racers in order to accurately build up to top speed in order to be ready to dash off the line at the beginning of a race).
Admittedly, no one uses chronographs for these purposes anymore, with more accurate digital computation available. But chronographs still come with these markings—especially the tachymeter—so you could perform such calculations if you choose to.
So why all this information about chronographs? Well, I bought the Q chronograph last month, and I’m thoroughly enjoying it. For about the 11k I paid, I have a beautiful looking watch with a black dial with three cream sub-registers (what is called the reverse panda chrono dial configuration), a glossy tachymeter scale on the aluminium bezel and two vintage-style pushers on either side of the crown to start and stop the chronograph seconds hand. I use the chrono to time pointless things, because I can, and I wear it because it looks badass. Let’s be honest, that’s the only reason one wears watches these days, because they possess more personality than a soulless ‘smart’ rectangle on your wrist.
Handwound is a monthly column on watches and watchmaking.
