Top-10 Living Legend

 

Top 10 Living Legend Watches To Own

If you look at many of the most popular watch brands, you'll notice that their collections usually contain a few (or many) classics whose names have been around for years. Brands like Rolex don't really release new models, but rather continue to improve on their core collection over time. Models like the Submariner and Datejust have been around for generations. Other brands also keep tradition alive by continuing to offer modern versions of designs that have proved successful for many years. To recognize and help suggest those watches which are "living legends" we've come up with a list of the top 10 worth owning. To be clear, to be a living legend, a watch must have historic roots and still be produced today. We know we couldn't include them all so mention your favorites in the comments below.

1. Rolex Submariner

It was 1954 that Rolex originally released the Submariner, and the watch industry hasn't been the same since. The Submariner was never released as a luxury product, but rather a professional diver's watch that anyone could enjoy. It attained a cult status for being a damn good sports watch and later in the 1980s when the mechanical watch gained a more luxury status and Rolex began its long path to become the world's most desirable luxury timepiece brand. The Submariner is their most popular model for good reason. Durable and legible, its slick style remains timeless, and most importantly - suitable for most any man (and many women) regardless of look, style, or age. It goes without saying that the perennially good design of the Rolex Submariner is alive and well today in its newest renditions featuring 40mm wide cases available in steel, two-tone, or 18k white or yellow gold. Pricey with an average price of about $8,500, but sure to be timeless and retain value. rolex.com

2. Omega Speedmaster

Regardless of price, prestige, history or technology, the Omega Speedmaster is widely considered to be the quintessential sports chronograph. You want a handsome but not showy chronograph with a great history, distinctive look, and a long enough life to offer many different versions? That's a Speedmaster. Why? The Omega Speedmaster was good enough for NASA and one was strapped to Buzz Aldrin for his 1969 moonwalk. The Moonwatch is basically the Submariner of chronographs, there are lots of versions, plenty in the used market, they hold their value well and have evolved relatively slowly. Whether you fancy a manually wound 3570.50 or the updated co-axial automatic Speedmaster 9300, you really cannot go wrong and you'll own a piece of horological history Priced from about $4,500 - $8,700 for steel versions.. omegawatches.com

3. Audemars Piguet Royal Oak

Facing bankruptcy in the expanding wake of the quartz revolution, the Royal Oak is the watch that saved Audemars Piguet and made them the brand they are today. Knowing they needed revolution and not evolution, Audemars Piguet brought in none other than Gerald Genta to design a watch that could introduce the brand to a bigger market. Genta created the AP Royal Oak ref 5402ST which launched in 1972 with a price tag so aggressive that not only did it vastly exceed the price of any of its competition, it even out-priced most gold watches on the market. The world had no reference for a steel luxury sport watch, making the Royal Oak an all-in play by Audemars Piguet. While the Royal Oak may have been a polarizing idea from its inception, it created a new watch archetype, the luxury steel sport watch, and acceptance grew fast enough to keep Audemars Piguet in business and the distinctive Genta design is a now an integral part of their brand iconography Starting around $20,000. audemarspiguet.com

4. Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso

1931 saw the debut of the Reverso, which was one of the original partnerships between Jaeger and LeCoultre, which subsequently merged to form a singular brand. From the start the Reverso was destined to be a high-end watch being made for members of Britain's elite society as a timepiece to be worn while playing polo in then colonial India. While the flipping case concept seems simple by today's standards, it proved complex to initially industrialize. The rectangular case originally flipped to display a solid metal back to protect itself. The art deco styling and handsome mannerisms of the angular timepiece made it a quick hit among high-society folk especially in Europe. The middle of the 20th century saw a halt to Reverso production and it wasn't until the 1980s that the Reverso started to come back. This was especially the case in the last 20 years. Its handsome styling is of course classic, but also timeless and inherently masculine. Jaeger-LeCoultre has also offered a dizzying array of Reverso styles and sizes to appeal to most luxury watch customers. The Reverso case and movement are made totally in-house by Jaeger-LeCoultre. Prices average around $10,000. jaeger-lecoultre.com

5. Rolex Datejust

Easily Rolex's most fundamental watch, the Datejust has been around since 1945 when Rolex added a date feature to their Bubbleback watch.  The Datejust is evidence to what Rolex believes to be most essential in a watch. Rolex is a conservative brand and the Datejust is their most practical model, offering everything you need in an everyday piece and nothing more. While a 41mm version was launched in 2009, the Datejust was previously available only in smaller sizes including 36mm (mens), 31mm (mid size) and 26mm for the ladies. This enduring model has been worn by many famous individuals including President Dwight Eisenhower, literally countless actors, and even Tony Soprano. One of the quintessential Rolex models, the Datejust offers excellent versatility, working just as well with jeans and a t-shirt as it would with a suit and tie. Prices start around $9,000 (for the Datejust II), but the sky is the limit if you like yellow gold and pave diamonds. rolex.com

6. Tag Heuer Monaco

The Heuer Monaco was launched in 1969 as one of the first automatic chronographs in existence and one that Jack Heuer named in honor of the famous Monaco GP Formula One course. With its square case and now-famous Calibre 11 automatic movement, the Monaco was even seen on Steve McQueen's wrist in the 1971 film Le Mans. An absolute classic in the chronograph world, the Monaco was discontinued after only a few years but the design saw a McQueen reissue in 1998 and was later relaunched by Tag Heuer in 2003. Vintage and limited edition Monacos are extremely desirable and claim a considerable fee in the used market. Whether you're channeling Steve McQueen or Walter White, a Monaco will provide about as unique a wrist presence as can be found today From about $4,500. tagheuer.com

7. Glashutte Original Senator Navigator

In addition to diver-style watches, the most popular sport watches are pilot-style timepieces - and there are tons of them. Pilot watches are some of the original "big watches" and it is hard to pinpoint exactly who created them first. People tend to agree that many of the early ones were German and Swiss from as early as the 1920s. This particular quintessential design is sometimes referred to by the "B-uhr" name and has been reproduced by dozens of brands. Because we like them, we chose the Original Senator Navigator by Glashutte Original to represent this iconic living legend watch as there is no clear "living parent" to the design. Glashutte Original makes a few pieces in their Original Senator Navigator pilot watch collection with an average price of about $7,000 and they are very high in quality even though they are rare to be found even where Glashutte Original watches are sold. Other brands who offer this design sell them at prices from a few hundred to many thousands of dollars. glashuette-original.com

8. Breitling Navitimer

The early 1950s heralded in the era of another famous pilot watch - the Navitimer by Breitling. What made this piece famous was its combination of chronograph and slide-rule bezel. While not the first Breitling piece to offer these complications, the Navitimer was quickly adopted by military and professional pilots as a useful tool because in addition to telling time, it was able to offer a range of necessary inflight calculations. This was thanks to the slide-rule and chronograph combo. When cockpits went digital, the utility of the Navitimer subsided, but today many pilots are still trained using traditional analog calculation systems as a backup if electronics fail. The Breitling Navitimer is much more than a tool having attained the status as a high-end tool watch for the discriminating and intelligent active guy. Today, Breitling offers version of the Navitimer with their own in-house movements and it remains one of the brand's top sellers. Price is about $9,000. breitling.com

9. Cartier Santos

The Cartier Santos is a surprisingly enduring design that is actually quite closely linked with the birth of manned flight. Alberto Santos-Dumont was the first man to achieve sustained flight in a fixed wing aircraft circa 1906. Dumont was close friends with a French jeweler named Louis Cartier and had shared with him the difficulty he experienced when trying to check his pocket watch while flying. Cartier set about to design a wrist-mounted watch that would allow Dumont to view the time without removing a hand from the flight controls. In helping Dumont with a practical problem, Cartier created the first pilot's watch and likely kick-started the trend of men wearing watches on their wrists, which was generally only done by women at the time. The original Santos design lives on today as the Santos 100 in which the distinctive square-style case and roman numeral dial have been updated to a modern 51 x 41.3 mm size. The Santos has endured because of both its origins and its functional sporting design which looks great despite being over 100 years old. Starting from about $6,700. cartier.com

10. IWC Portugues

The story of the IWC Portuguese collection starts with its name. According to IWC, a group of Portuguese ship merchants traveled to their manufacture in Switzerland in the 1930s asking for a legible and highly precise watch able to be worn while onboard a ship. At the time it was necessary to have precise marine chronometer clocks while at sea because there was no way for the ship to update its clocks while far from land. The men from Portugal wanted precise wrist watches as opposed to having to rely on stationary clocks. While it is unknown how precise these original clocks ended up being, what is known is that the watches to come out of the relationship proved very popular. Their design is based on ship instrumentation and marine clocks, and they remain extremely popular sellers for IWC today. The Portuguese comes in a range of styles but each has that large-size dial look with applied Arabic numerals and properly proportioned hands. To many, it is watch design perfection, and by all accordingly a living legend. Average price is about $10,000. iwc.com

 

10 Top Complicated Watches

1.Patek Philippe Sky Moon Tourbillon

IWC (see No. 10) wasn’t the first brand to think of putting a celestial chart on the back of a highly complex watch. Good old Patek got there first with the breathtaking Sky Moon Tourbillon, Patek’s most complex watch ever. The front is a classically ravishing design, with a perpetual calendar with retrograde date, mean solar time, moon phases, and that gorgeous embossed opaline dial. On the back: a heart-stopping starry sky with astronomical indicators. Oh, and it has a tourbillon and minute repeater -- the two ultimat.

 

2.Franck Muller Aeternitas Mega 4

With no less than 36 different complications -- of which 25 are visible -- and containing 1,483 separate components, this is arguably the most complicated wristwatch ever produced. Its creator, Franck Muller, is seen as the watch industry’s wild child, and this piece reflects the sheer, unfettered nuttiness of his ambition. Split-second chronograph, three different time zones, minute repeater, huge tourbillon, elaborate date displays, and plenty besides. Good luck trying to read the damn thing, or coming up with the $2.7 million needed to buy it.

3.Jules Audemars Grande Complication

In case anyone thought that Audemars Piguet was just the producer of classic sports watches with the word “oak” in the name, here’s a reminder of just what extraordinary things the brand can do in the exalted world of the ultra high-end. A watch with the classic combination of perpetual calendar (with day, date, week, month, leap years, and moon phases), minute repeater and split-seconds chronograph, its most exquisite incarnation is in skeletonized form, which shows the intricate workings underneath. 

4.Patek Philippe 5208P

This watch really is Patek doing what Patek does best: presenting phenomenal complexity through phenomenal simplicity. For a watch that’s full of haute horological functions (including a two-gong minute repeater to chime the time, perpetual calendar [across three windows] that won’t need adjusting for 100 years, chronograph, moonphase, day/night indicator) it’s a stunningly measured, readable timepiece.

5.Urwerk UR-1001 Zeit Device

It’s been a bit of a thing of late to see watch brands producing unusual pocket watches, and Urwerk is leading the way with this futuristic slab of a watch. It’s a sort of amplification of all the weirdly brilliant ideas behind the Urwerk brand, with customary avant-garde displays for complications, including day/night indicator, running seconds, power reserve, and calendar, plus, er, 100-year and 1,000-year indicators for proper forward planners.

6.Greubel Forsey Invention GMT

Why have a boring old dial displaying separate time zones when you can have an entire globe spinning around in the face of your watch? Robert Greubel and Stephen Forsey’s watches are dizzyingly inventive examples of technological wizardry, made in small numbers for clients prepared to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars. The company specializes in ultra-high-spec tourbillon mechanisms, but in this watch, it goes a stage or 10 further, with the globe spinning once every 24 hours in accordance with the planet’s actual rotation.

7.Christophe Claret 21 Blackjack

A casino in a wristwatch, basically. Master watchmaker Christophe Claret produced this wonder last year, and it enables you to play blackjack, roulette and dice games by pushing a few buttons. Card-marked discs rotate beneath windows in the dial for the blackjack game, a roulette wheel spins away on the reverse side and a housing in the side of the case contains a couple of tiny dice.

8.Fortis F-43

Just to show that watches with lots going on aren’t solely the domain of the superstar brands, here’s a new watch from Fortis, an independent that specializes in aviator watches (several of which have been worn in space by Russian cosmonauts, as it happens). Just announced, this is being trumpeted as the world’s first mechanical GMT (second time zone) alarm chronometer with two separate power reserves, one of which shows the power for the movement and the other for the alarm itself. It’s an impressive piece, and at just $20,850, a bargain compared to the others in this list.

9.Jaeger-LeCoultre Hybris Mechanica Grande Sonnerie

Two-sided watches? “Child’s play!” said Jaeger-LeCoultre in 2006, and launched a watch with three faces. It unveiled a version of its famous flappable Reverso pieces with a secret extra face lurking in the case beneath the main reversible body of the watch. It has a bevy of astronomical complications, including a zodiacal calendar -- and the added bonus that the extra face, with moonphases and perpetual calendar, actually resembles a smiley face. To me, anyway.

 

10.IWC Siderale Scafusia

Released last year, this is IWC’s most complex watch and is more interesting for what’s on its rear side than its dial. Namely, a phenomenal map of the heavens, each designed on a bespoke basis to reflect the night sky according to coordinates supplied by the buyer. Watch it rotate through the yellow horizon circle, reflecting exactly what you see as you look up. Throw in a complex perpetual calendar, sunrise/sunset indicators, a sidereal time display (time unadjusted for the earth’s irregular orbit, astronomy fans), and a humungous tourbillon escapement rotating in the dial, and you see why IWC charges 750,000 Swiss francs apiece.

 

10 TOP-SIHH 2012 Watches

1.Montblanc - TimeWriter II Chronographe Bi-frequence 1000

This is a chronograph that can carry out the remarkable feat of measuring to an accuracy of 1/1,000th of a second and look bloody good doing it. It’s a state-of-the-art piece of engineering from Montblanc’s Villeret workshop, designed by young Spanish genius Bartomeu Gomila. While Montblanc has broken new ground with this piece, I’m also ranking the brand No. 1 for the strength of its overall SIHH offering -- evidence, if any were needed, of how serious a force the onetime pen company is in the world of highly original luxury watches.

 

2.A Lange & Sohne - Lange 1 Tourbillon Perpetual Calendar

Astonishing complexity and detail meet with calm simplicity and balance in this stunner, the most complicated watch ever produced in the emblematic Lange 1 range. The tourbillon, you’ll note, is not shown on the front -- an unusually understated act in watchmaking these days, but a brilliant one. Instead, there’s the ingenious peripheral month ring, the off-center dials, a beautiful moonphase indicator, and that tremendous outsize date display. The Calibre L082.1 movement inside is as refined and gorgeous a movement as you’ll find.

 

3.Richard Mille - RM 56 Felipe Massa Sapphire watch

Only Richard Mille could pull off something as crazy as this and avoid seeming utterly ridiculous. This is a reworked version of the landmark Felipe Massa piece that’s housed in a case made entirely from sapphire crystal, which is the stuff that sits over the dials of most watches and is almost as hard as diamond, making it a hell of a thing to produce. It retails at well over a million bucks, and only five are being made.

 

4.Jaeger-LeCoultre - Duometre a Spherotourbillon

Tourbillon means “whirlwind” in French, and the revered mechanism lodges the escapement in a sort of caged housing that negates the accuracy-damaging effects of gravity. They tend to be truly remarkable works of engineering and handcraft. But they’re also 10-a-penny in the world of expensive watches. Trust JLC to do something properly special with it, in this case a cylindrical tourbillon that rotates on two axes, so as to further compensate for gravitational effects. It also allows for ultra-accurate timesetting to the second, something previously impossible with tourbillons. A quite remarkable -- and very handsome -- watch.

5.Baume & Mercier - Capeland

Baume & Mercier made great strides last year with an effective relaunch that brought a new brand identity and, more importantly, some impressive watches. In 2011 the limited-edition, retro-styled Capeland flyback chronograph was its top player, and this year saw a beautiful black-dial version of that watch. But strength in depth is what a good watch brand needs, and the magnificent electroplated blue hue of this chronograph from its mainstream Capeland range, combined with a chunky-but-streamlined new bracelet, has real edge.

 

6.Jaeger-LeCoultre - Deep Sea Vintage Chronograph

Last year Jaeger-LeCoultre revived one of the most suave watches in its history, the 1950s-era Memovox Deep Sea. This chronograph is also based on the look of that great dive watch but is in fact an entirely new watch in its own right, and one of the sharpest chronographs around this year.

7.IWC - Pilot's Watch Worldtimer

This year IWC has revamped its famous range of pilots watches, adding some bold new versions and upgrading some old favorites. For my money, easily the best of the new additions was this Worldtimer piece. A Worldtimer allows the wearer to keep track of time in different cities around the world -- a handy thing for the global traveler or the business person dealing with clients on the other side of the world. This one bears the white-on-black readability of the classic aviation watch and is a worthy addition to the IWC family.

 

8.JeanRichard - Diverscope LPR

Girard Perregaux’s sister brand JeanRichard tends to go somewhat under the radar compared to all the big names at SIHH, but this year it produced something really rather memorable, in the form of this funky addition to its range of diving watches. A sturdy piece in the customary cushion shape of JeanRichard’s sports pieces, it boasts a completely original power reserve display. As the power dissipates, the large 12 numeral gradually drains from white to black. That’s thanks to a luminescent panel behind the dial that simply slides down -- a cunningly simple, effective piece of design for a robust watch powered by JeanRichard’s in-house JR 1010 movement, based on its respected JR 1000 calibre.

9.Vacheron Constantin - Les Metiers d'Art

Vacheron Constantin’s Les Metiers d’Art collection is a series of ultra-limited-edition watches designed to fuse high watchmaking with the finest artistic crafts. This year it produced watches inspired by the repetitive, illusory work of 19th-century artist MC Escher, and a trio of more beautiful pieces would be hard to find. One watch featured tessellated motifs of fish, another of shells and starfish and another of birds, applied in the tiniest detail through the techniques of engraving, guillocheur and cloisonné enamelling. Hold one of these pieces in your hand, and you could marvel for hours on end. The Calibre 2460 automatic movement reflects the finest qualities of Vacheron’s watchmaking, bearing the hallowed stamp of the Geneva seal, applied only to the most finely crafted watches.

 

10.Girard Perregaux - Laureato Tourbillon with three bridges

Grace, elegance, harmony, taste -- Girard Perregaux seems to embody these terms at the moment, though that doesn’t prevent it from making bold moves in the art of watchmaking. The three gold bridges that traditionally house the tourbillon mechanisms of its haute horological pieces are GP’s most recognized calling card, and this year the company has transposed them into bridges made of translucent blue spinel while housing the tourbillon movement in its sporty Laureato watch. It’s a rather brilliant fusion of classical values, modern engineering and subtle, shimmering style, all the more interesting for the fact that the Laureato was originally launched in the 1970s as a luxury quartz answer to Audemars Piguet’s birthday boy, the Royal Oak (40 this year). The arrival of renowned master watchmaker Dominique Loiseau at GP is also major news, and it’ll be fascinating to see what he comes up with when GP displays at BaselWorld, rather than SIHH, next year.