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Watch Snob on Jaeger-LeCoultre, Moser and Omega

Elegant Simplicity

I bought my first significant watch this year - a steel lady Reverso. I've since started saving for another watch. Despite my best efforts to learn about other watch brands and styles, I wind up returning again and again to JLC-type watches (classic, uncluttered dial, nothing muscular). Give me a Rolex lineup and I'll pick up a Cellini vs a Sub, give me Omega and I'll pick up a DeVille vs a Speedy, I like an IWC Portugieser but I love a Portofino ... You get the idea.

I have not yet been able to fall in love with dive watches, aviator watches and the likes. I don't doubt that they are great, and they look great, I just won't look at them twice.

There's nothing wrong in knowing my own taste, but I wonder if it is too narrow. I don't want to miss out on whole categories and brands of watches. Please tell me how I can learn to appreciate them more?

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To be utterly frank, it doesn’t seem to me that you have a problem in appreciation; you give me the impression very much of knowing what you like and what you don’t like. You can appreciate something without feeling you have to spend money on it, or want it in your living room. I appreciate many things without feeling the inclination to own them, including McLaren sports cars, Islay single malt whisky, the films of Jerry Lewis, the technical feat represented by pre-packaged frozen foods, and on and on. You can understand and appreciate something intellectually but that is not the same as loving something enough to want to own it – well, let us not say “own” as that merely implies possession (young folks especially often confuse a desire to possess, with love; they are not the same thing) but rather, make a part of your life.

Do you know what I think would happen if you forced yourself to buy and wear a Speedmaster, out of recognition of its importance in horological history and design? You would find it at first novel, then you would pass through a period of finding yourself feeling nothing much of anything at all, and then you would find it, I bet, simply galling and you would get rid of it. If by chance you are going to break out of what you think is a rut, I suspect it will happen in its own due time; in the meantime, I strongly suggest you not try to make it happen arbitrarily.

The Moser Misgiving

I want to purchase a sports watch and I like the Omega Seamaster 300 with the blue wave dial and display case back. However, I truly love the H Moser & Cie. Pioneer Center Seconds with the blue fume dial. While the one is significantly more expensive than the other, I could with discipline save up the $12000 grand for the H Moser.

Are these two watches in anywhere near the same league and would I be settling by purchasing the Omega (by same league I mean horological significance and respectability?)

The other problem I have is the fact I am an unrefined redneck who regularly wears nothing more than blue jeans, t-shirts, and ball caps. Would I be doing either of these watches a disservice by wearing them in the aforementioned attire?

Please forgive my ignorance in these matters and I will very respectfully submit myself to your wise admonition.

H. Moser & Cie is an odd little company, and not always in a good way. They have devoted what I consider to be an ill-advised amount of time, energy and effort in attention-getting devices, which I mean in a literal sense – they did a watch a few years ago with a case that was quite literally made of cheese; they did a so-called Swiss Icons watch that was a mashup of design cues from Rolex, Panerai, Audemars Piguet and Patek (and maybe some others – honestly I forget, and I’m not inclined to work that hard to remember any of the details) and there are other examples. A bit of attention getting is usually a good thing and I understand the inclination to try humor on for size, but satire is the easiest thing in the world to get wrong and I think Moser has passed the point where it is fun and getting to the point where it is a distraction.

If you combine that with the fact that they have copied, of all things, the design of the Apple Watch for some of their pieces, you get a brand which seems to have lots of energy but to not quite know what it is and what it wants to be, and there is nothing about the particular Moser you mention that does much to change one’s mind.

If you are a redneck that is your own affair; but if you have an aversion to wearing anything even semi-semi formal, and your occasions do not require you to don a tie and jacket, I think the Seamaster makes a good deal more sense. There are things I like about Moser – they have some good technical assets – but at some point they need to figure out how to get attention for their watches rather than for clever one-liners.

On Boring Watches

I’m planning to buy two watches, a dress watch and another, sporty. Can you please provide your kind and expert advice for choosing the right mix?

Dress watch: Carl F. Bucherer Manero Flyback Chronograph in gold, offered at $10,000, versus Manero Perpetual limited edition in gold, offered at $15,000.

Sports watch: Omega Planet Ocean 215.30.44.21.01.001, at $3900, versus Omega Aqua Terra GMT Chronograph 231.10.43.52.06.001 at $4600, versus Omega Seamaster Professional Chronograph 212.30.44.50.03.001, at $3700, versus TAG Heuer Grand Carrera CAR 2A1Z.FT6044, at $3850.

First of all, for a dress watch, at a cost of between ten and fifteen thousand dollars, there are an awful lot of fish in the sea and why you should have concluded that that much money is well spent on one of two gold watches from Carl F. Bucherer, of all companies, and moreover two complicated pieces to boot, is something that mystifies me. The company doesn’t make bad watches; they are however rather expensive for what they are and they are also not especially interesting from a design perspective. They seem to me to suffer a bit from some of the same lethargy that affects Parmigiani Fleurier, and for the same reason – both companies got into the business with a good deal of financial might behind them (CFB from the retail business, and Parmigiani from the Sandoz family’s fortune) and both produce technically good, often well finished, but also, a bit too often, not especially exciting or interesting watches. Now more than ever, one wants a philosophy with any luxury products; to be mundanely excellent is not enough. I would look at other alternatives (and as I said, at that price, they are legion).

As far as your sports watch choices, the Heuer is easy to dismiss; it looks like a copy of a Zenith at this point, and the Zenith watches that it looks like it is copying, look like cheap copies of unsuccessful Roger Dubuis designs; if that sounds like it is not a compliment, it is because it is not. If I had to, with a firearm pressed to my greying temple, pick one of the Omegas you are looking at, it would be the Seamaster Professional Chronograph. It is a bit of a garish piece but at least it has some character, which is more than you can say for the Bucherer pieces.

Send the Watch Snob your questions at editorial@askmen.com or ask a question on Instagram with the #watchsnob hashtag.

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Watch Snob, Khareem Sudlow