Talk to Me about Watches!

[UncleDave]

Look, I bought my Breitling to enjoy it.

I’m wearing it at breakfast right now (Mountain Time).

I’ll wear it to work today.

What is the point of buying something nice if you’re not going to use it?

My Montblanc fountain pen writes very nicely, so what if a Waterman, or other decent fountain pen, writes just as well? I bought the Montblanc in Geneva so that I had a memento from a trip with my wife and so that I had a pen to enjoy, a pen that wrote a big bold line. I use it all the time. Carry spare ink cartridges in my cockpit bag.

Buy something nice and enjoy it.

Period.

If you want a $500-$600 watch that has a mechanical movement and you can enjoy it, then buy that. Don’t buy the fake, buy a Shinola, or Hamilton, or something that is honest about what it is, not some look alike because you wanna look like you spent $13,000 on the watch.

Buying a fake is silly, you’re really only fooling yourself.

I thought I was the last guy to carry pens.

I carry a Montblanc, and a Omas T2.

 

[bunnspecial]

Look, I bought my Breitling to enjoy it.

I’m wearing it at breakfast right now (Mountain Time).

I’ll wear it to work today.

What is the point of buying something nice if you’re not going to use it?

My Montblanc fountain pen writes very nicely, so what if a Waterman, or other decent fountain pen, writes just as well? I bought the Montblanc in Geneva so that I had a memento from a trip with my wife and so that I had a pen to enjoy, a pen that wrote a big bold line. I use it all the time. Carry spare ink cartridges in my cockpit bag.

Buy something nice and enjoy it.

Period.

If you want a $500-$600 watch that has a mechanical movement and you can enjoy it, then buy that. Don’t buy the fake, buy a Shinola, or Hamilton, or something that is honest about what it is, not some look alike because you wanna look like you spent $13,000 on the watch.

Buying a fake is silly, you’re really only fooling yourself.

Mass produced Swiss watches may hold their value, but few are going to go up. Rolex makes how many Submariners and Datejusts every year? Actually I don't think anyone outside Rolex knows, but it's a lot.

Vintage watches are hot right now and a lot of rare ones are appreciating. Even some pocket watches are climbing, although at least in American watches the interest seems to be in boring, cookie-cutter railroads and not the really interesting, rare, or super high grade. I saw two nice Waltham 1872 Americans from the NAWCC National a few weeks ago for $3500, and probably could have bought either one for $3K-that's an unprecedented number to me, and both were still unsold at the end of the show.

As for fountain pens-most days there's a Montblanc 149 and a 146 in my pocket, and I have several more 149s at home. IMO, of current makers, Montblanc makes the best all around nibs-every grind has a unique "look", especially when you get to the larger sizes, they have just the right amount of springiness to them(although I like the current 18K nibs less than the older 14K nibs on the 149-my daily carry EF is a late 80s one with a 14K) and they are the only maker to offer grinds like OBB and O3B as regular catalog items. One of my favorite modern ones is a special edition 149 that is roughly a 6B stub that-by design-can be held on the edge to make a beautiful EEF(it's called the "Italic Edge" by German retailer Fritz Schempf). A lot of people put Pelikan and Montblanc head to head, but IMO the Pelikan nibs are too smooth across the line(MB gets the amount of feedback just right, especially in the 149) and the big M1000 nib is just mushy. A good buddy of mine always argued with me that he liked his M1000 better than any Montblanc he had until he tried and then convinced me to sell him one of my OB 149s-not too long ago I had to deep clean his M1000 for him as he'd basically forgotten about it for 3 years or so. The only current pen that I think is in the same league as any Montblanc is the Parker Duofold.

With that said, I know vintage pens aren't for everyone, but there's so much more variety of 1930s-1950s pens that I think it's hard to beat. Between Vacumatics and 51s, I pretty much universally love Parkers of this era. Wahl is a very under-rated maker and I think their best flex nibs are better than high-dollar Watermans of the same age. Montblanc 1950s nibs are wonderful and tend to be a lot more flexible than their modern ones. I have a different opinion of vintage Pelikan than I do modern, although I still think they're sometimes too smooth/overpolished and all of their vintage pen bodies are too small for my liking.