Reissue Design, Much Ado About Faux Patina, & How Brands Should Interpret the Pre-Owned Watch Market

A Resurgence in Watch Appreciation

To begin, and to meaningfully explore these topics, we first need to determine why there is such a rise in this hobby now. Why now? What is growing and cultivating the watch community?

I suppose there aren’t really solid answers for these questions – at least not ones that could be globally applied and inclusive of every individual watch enthusiast.

For me, I can put my finger on the exact moment I fell in love with watches. Well, maybe not “watches” writ large – but I certainly fell in love with a watch.

It was during the evening of April 22, 2012. On my television – being broadcast for the first time – episode 6 of Mad Men’s fifth season – an episode called “Far Away Places”. As always, I was deeply involved in the plot as it unfolded. Everything about that show is genius – but that’s a topic for another day. Eventually, the storyline sees the show’s protagonist, Don, alone and defeated at the bar of an era-accurate Howard Johnson’s Restaurant & Motor Lodge.

Frustrated and concerned with his current predicament, he raises his wrist to read the time on his watch. The viewer is then offered an up-close look at the timepiece, as if they were standing over his shoulder – sneaking a glimpse.

At that moment, I laid my eyes upon a material object that grabbed my attention like no other had ever done before. Sitting beautifully on his wrist, like a little black pool of oil was a classic mid-60s, 34mm, applied logo and indices, crosshair dialed, date windowed fascination. Just like that, my attention was torn from the comings and goings of my favourite show and planted squarely on finding out more. What was this watch? Who makes it? Can I buy one? How much will it cost?

With some searching around on the net, it didn’t take long to put a name to that face – the Omega Seamaster DeVille. It even sounded as beautiful as it looked. My feelings toward the watch were truly genuine, as I knew nothing of brands and their standing – at that time. I just had a true love for the aesthetic. When you love a particular watch design, you know (and this was that to a tee – love at first sight).

Unfortunately, another common experience for the uninitiated watch novice is the painful realization that sticker shock inflicts on those poor souls who know not what they’ve stumbled into. We all have to go through it and I was going through it right then and there. Of course, there are far more expensive watches than a vintage Seamaster DeVille. But at the time, I couldn’t believe that someone had the nerve to ask thousands of dollars for an old watch, and even more of a conundrum to me – that someone was willing to pay it.

So, I decided ever owning this beautiful object was a pipe-dream, and began to look for alternatives. I settled on a Junkers Bauhaus 6060-2. For a while, it scratched the itch. However, during its time serving as a stand-in for the real McCoy, I began to behave like an enthusiast instead of just an outside admirer. I started consuming as much content as I could on all types of watches.

As my knowledge grew, my horizons expanded, and my preferences became more and more specific. Slowly, that Bauhaus stopped resembling a Seamaster DeVille to me (of course, it never really looked like it in the first place).

Years go by – watches come and watches go. Having now spent enough time in the hobby, I had acclimatized myself to the level of investment that comes with owning any watch of note. I was mentally ready to go after the watch that triggered the obsession – the “Don Draper Special”.

I did end up buying that watch. Unfortunately, the example I purchased had some serious flaws. Luckily, the seller I bought from had integrity and allowed me to return the watch for a full refund. As much as I thought I knew, I didn’t know quite enough to ensure I was protecting myself in the deep waters of vintage watch buying.

All this to say, we all have a story that resulted in our love of watches, but I don’t believe my particular story, or any other variation that resembles your own, is what caused there to be a significant and sustained resurgence of appreciation for watches. A bunch of siloed, personal experiences don’t have the glue to establish a collective identity or tribe mentally. To accomplish this stickiness, something needed to serve as common ground – where we could plug in with our own experiences but find mutuality.

I believe that bonding agent was, and still remains, Hodinkee.

Founded at an opportune time in 2008, it came into existence as early millennials were hitting their mid and late twenties. The noughties were an era of gentle contradiction – we were keen to adopt technology early but leaned heavily in the favour of nostalgia. This interesting hypocrisy in appetite played right into Hodinkee’s wheelhouse, given they were an internet friendly resource that started out focusing, for the most part, on subject matter from another time.

But it wasn’t only that dumb-luck recipe of right time, right place that allowed Hodinkee to create community. It was how they were doing what they were doing – how they were talking about watches. It goes without saying they weren’t the first publication to address the watch industry. However, I submit for your approval that they were the first to consistently and consciously build narrative around watches, so they could become more than just material things.

Then and now, the stories Hodinkee tell about the watches they choose to feature accomplishes something unexpected in the world of luxury – it de-commodifies these relatively and actually expensive little trinkets so that readers can associate something more aspirational than just status or image to these objects.

To truly imprint culture onto something, there has to be more in it than just a price tag. A connection to the past, to great achievements, to how the wearer aspires to be and how they’d like to be remembered – these are the elements that stimulate passion. And, with enough people being made to feel these feelings – a community forms.

Hodinkee, through their spotlighting of vintage watches, transformed these things from material frivolities to treasured artifacts that contain much more than they convey at face-value.

Vintage Love Affair

Hodinkee’s effort to stimulate interest in the vintage watch market, whether arbitrary or strategic, worked beyond questioning. For the better part of the last decade, the vintage watch market has enjoyed greater and growing success – both in interest and sales.

The folkloric tales of adventure, conquest, and self-realization that Hodinkee attached to timepieces of old made it impossible for the watch community not to fall head over heels for vintage watches. Frankly, I don’t see this love ever waning. There’s such an appreciation for heritage now that historic watches will continue to be admired for as long as there are parts to keep them serviced and functioning.

While a majority of the community has entered into the hobby through the vintage market, this has also created a backdoor into the modern watch world – stimulating growth in sales of currently catalogued pieces.

Omega’s CEO, Raynald Aeschlimann (who I consider to be one of the leading minds when it comes to brand marketing in the watch industry), has made it clear multiple times the demographic he is most interested in capturing is that millennial age group. Knowing how they entered the hobby and what they’re looking for is key to accomplishing this and it seems clear that Omega has done their homework by offering many options throughout their lines that harken back to design language pulled straight from their archives.

The love for this archival aesthetic, whether genuine or simulated, seems like it’s here to stay. Prices in the vintage market continue to rise and the demand isn’t subsiding. To say that mid-century design is better than modern is obviously subjective. However, measuring the performance of the vintage market offers objective metrics that lend themselves to the reality that there’s something currently resonating with watch buyers. This fact doesn’t mean you have to like vintage design if it doesn’t move you – however, you should acknowledge there’s a visible trend that favours a recognizable design language.

Risk-Based Approach

Eventually, my love affair with genuine vintage came to an end. Not with the design language – but with the potential caveats that come with vintage watch buying and ownership. As described earlier in this article, I’ve had some close calls when buying vintage pieces, and the ones I still own are (obviously) delicate and can be finnicky.

I’m not saying this to dissuade anyone from becoming or being a vintage watch collector. I just encourage everyone to consider the type of collector they want to be. Many vintage watches, no matter the type (dress, dive, field, pilot, etc.), are essentially museum pieces. They typically need to handled and worn a certain way to ensure their continued longevity. If you intend to wear your watches casually, without testing their limits, this isn’t an issue for you. For me, it is.

That’s not to suggest that I’m hard on my watches. On the contrary, I take very good care of every watch in my collection. However, I like the idea of wearing my watches for purpose. That is, if I’m wearing a dive watch, I want to be able to swim with it without any concern whatsoever. Or, if I’m wearing a field watch, I want to be able take it with me on an overnight hike across rough and varying terrain without having to wonder whether it will survive the trek.

So, the functionality needs to be there for me. But that doesn’t mean form takes a backseat. Unfortunately, for my tastes and how I want to wear my watches, both form and functionality are equally important. It’s demanding – I know – but you have to know what you want, and I do. My threshold to risk the well-being of a vintage piece is less than plentiful, to say the least.

If you’re like me – someone who wants vintage design paired with modern manufacturing – there has most likely been a portion of your tenure in the hobby that involved wanting for watches that didn’t exist. Plain and simple, this dejected feeling isn’t fun. However, the good news is that most (nearly all) brands – some a little slower than others – are beginning to thumb through their archives to resurrect design language that has been dead and buried for quite some time.

Having Your Cake & Eating it Too

I’ve always hated this turn of phrase – “you can’t have your cake and eat it too” – because it’s simply not true. I don’t care how ridiculously literal this is – the saying should be, “you can’t have your whole cake and eat it too”. Because, without question, I can have my cake and eat it too. And guess what? That’s typically what I want.

The same goes for many in the watch community. We are a nit-picky bunch by nature. We covet these small little things. We drill in and analyze the details – scrutinizing the slightest things. This behaviour is logical when you live in the macro-photography world we do. The devil really is in the detail.

So, what is it that I (and many others) want? As stated previously, I want the timeless class of vintage design with the technological and structural advantage of modern manufacturing. Fortunately, having to legitimize this want is no longer a necessary undertaking – as it has been in recent years. This approach to product design is already well underway in the watchmaking world.

I feel confident in saying that every single brand, whether in actions or words, is using the vintage idea to market their watches. Even more encouraging than that – the vintage inspired or 1-to-1 reissues found in the catalogues of each respective brand are being bought up as soon as they taste the fresh air outside the factory walls where they recorded their first tick.

These throwbacks don’t come with dents or dings, scratches or scuffs. They are a new canvas where you can tell your story and yours alone. Many of them look nearly identical to their ancestor and if you had the opportunity to hold the old and the new in your hands at one time, you’d be hard-pressed to differentiate the two. They maintain the look of a more classic era in design while offering the latest and greatest in materials and performance. What’s not to like about that?

Breitling Navitimer Ref. 806 1959 Re-Edition

I suppose it’s fair to hold the position that one is the genuine article while the other is a tribute to. I certainly hold no ill-will toward this sentiment. Frankly, I understand it fully. However, this goes back to the question of – what kind of collector do you want to be? I have no interest in putting my watches behind glass – I want to wear them, as they were intended to be worn. My collecting strategy is somewhat inward-facing you might say. I don’t want to share the life story of any particular watch with someone else. I get the romanticism behind doing so – it’s just not for me. I want to own my watches as much as anyone can ever own any material objects for the span of their lifetime. I want my children to receive my watches, when my time is up, knowing that these were their Father’s watches and only his. They’ve only ever known one man and the stories his life contained.

The many re-editions that have already been released, and the many more to come, provide me and the greater majority of the watch community with everything we want:

Vintage design language.
Modern manufacturing advantages.
A watch we can truly call our own.

That’s a beautiful recipe.

It’s rare to be told you can have it all – when a loved watch design is faithfully reissued, it’s one of those rare times.

The Fauxtina Scourge

I want to preface this section by saying, I’m not interested in convincing anyone to like faux patina if they don’t. For those who don’t like it but just move on calmly when they see it, this message isn’t for you. I’m responding to those who don’t like fauxtina and make every attempt to deconstruct the validity of owning any watch that sports a simulated creamy, rusty, or tropicalized colour. They certainly aren’t being forced to purchase and wear the watch, but they seem offended by their existence nonetheless.

For anyone who is upset by faux patina, first off, take a breath – everything will be alright. Don’t worry, there will always be watches that offer stark white lume plots. I’m confident in guaranteeing this. It’s not as if, by letting faux patina take any kind of a foothold in the industry, that normal lume will be rooted out and driven from existence.

Now that you’re tucked in and have been told there are no monsters in the closet, let’s shed light on what faux patina is. This might shatter your worldview but… it’s just a colour. In the infinite spectrum of colours, there are an endless number of hues that one could like or dislike. Personally, I don’t prefer lume plots that show a dull shade of green when they aren’t illuminated. However, I haven’t gone into the shed and pulled out the old pitchfork and flaming torch. I just say to myself – “that’s not my preference so I’ll look elsewhere”.

This is really more of a lesson in decorum than a discussion about watch details. Typically, when someone is voluntarily sharing or speaking about something they’ve invested a considerable amount of time and money in, they’ll be quite discouraged to hear it said that they were a fool for having the interest that they do. If you don’t like what they do, don’t lie – just walk on by.

My last line of thinking on this topic is that I find it very strange that there’s so much love for vintage watches (and their patina), but when those aged colours are simulated in new watches, it’s wrong or contrived somehow. I’ve actually seen people make the argument that faux patina hasn’t earned the colour it’s mimicking. Let’s be clear – there’s no meritocracy to the aging of physical features. We can appreciate natural aging but appreciation is something different than assigning greater value to something over another. And, for the record, for those who aren’t familiar with the aging process of radium or tritium – many watches that were clad with this material did not come out of the box (brand new) with white lume that turned custard over time. These watches began with a creamy tint – becoming more pronounced as the years went by. So frankly, many of these vintage reissue watches today are being misnomer-ed with the title “faux patina”, because what they are actually emulating isn’t patination at all, but the colour of the lume the original model came issued with.

I know I said the last paragraph of this section was my last thought on this particular topic, but I have to add – I don’t follow the logic of “earned patina”. I understand the concept – patina that’s genuine or that actually degraded over time as opposed to being fabricated to meet a particular taste. However, it’s not really a concept that anyone adheres to, even if they think they do. At this point, the vast majority of people who own a vintage watch with real patinated lume plots tend to be the second or even third owners. Therefore, while the patina they’re buying into is genuine, they didn’t “earn” it in any sense of the imagination. They didn’t age alongside it and watch it change in colour and texture. They bought into it – no different than someone buying into faux patina. The end-user experience is the same – one is just more sustainable than the other (I’ll let you figure out which one that is).

What is Modernity?

While a good portion of this article leans toward a more philosophical area of watch ideas, this topic may be the most introspective. What does modernity mean? In 2021, what does it mean to be forward-thinking? It may mean something quite different than what we may have collectively defined as recently as a decade ago. However, I’m going to suggest that modernity is that thing that an “understood majority” or “vocal minority” decide. It’s decided on by the understood majority or the vocal minority – one or the other, it can never be both.

So, if applied to the watch community, each brand needs to decide who they’re going to listen to. I’m going to take a generally unfounded leap here and say that the “understood majority” of the watch community is comprised of vintage appreciators. I say generally unfounded because there are reasons for making this claim that I can refer back to within this article, but those reasons are by no means concrete and irrefutable pieces of evidence (such things do not exist for either side of this argument). If love for the vintage aesthetic is common among this understood majority, that would mean that the people who make up the “vocal minority” are the very antithesis of this preference – and they make sure to let people know.

One of the more common instances of this behaviour (which I believe should now be on its last legs – given Rolex’s most recent releases during Watches & Wonders 2021) is the idea or utterance, “Rolex doesn’t move backward – only forward”. I’m not going to go into detail here how that’s completely false (reference the 2020 Submariner update without the maxi case, the 2020 Oyster Perpetual Stella dials, the 2021 36mm Explorer, and the 2021 reintroduction of the oyster bracelet to the GMT line) – what I’m more interested in is deciphering what the statement could even mean. Fashion, design, and engineering are not directionally or linearly definable endeavours. There is no “forward” or “backward”. There is, however, “what has been” and “what is again”. Nothing in this space is a true revelation. Well, I suppose you could get pretty close to something that looks like sovereign innovation if you want to buy a Richard Mille or an MB&F watch. But frankly, that group is tiny and they won’t have much in relation with a good majority of the watch buying community.

Modernity is whatever a particular group decides it is at any given time. Whatever group gets catered to decides what everyone should have the opportunity to buy. So, if that vintage loving understood majority is in the favour of the brands – what is considered historical design language will be made new again. To use the unintelligible turn of phrase and revise it according to this line of thinking – “backward will now be forward”. I swear, this article wasn’t written by Willy Wonka or some character from Alice in Wonderland.

Those Brave (and Increasing) Few

If you’re one of those poor souls who wants to live in a world devoid of vintage reissues, I’m sorry, but you were born in the wrong time.

The collection of brands that are offering up whole product lines to satiate the appetite of vintage lovers is steadily growing by the month. Omega, Breitling, Hamilton, Blancpain, Longines, Oris, Tudor, and on and on. And, it’s not just that these brands are offering these vintage designs – they’re also having great success with these models.

There is money to be made in this area and you can bet your life that large companies such as these aren’t going to miss out on a boomtown where one pops up. Some may try to hold out a little longer but one by one, they’ll all give in – no exceptions.

The first couple of brands that said…

“Hey, why are we letting our vintage models, that we don’t even sell anymore, outperform our current models?”

…and then took action to mitigate the issue certainly deserve a ton of credit for being genius and brave enough to have taken the plunge into heritage reissuing. However, at this point, capitalizing on this profit stream is a no-brainer and it simply doesn’t make good business sense to voluntarily and consciously avoid the money that can be made.

So, What Now?

I’m an inclusive guy. In my opinion, when it comes to the watch community, the more the merrier.

That’s why I believe brands should continue to offer both – vintage-inspired designs as well as what they consider to be modern interpretations of their models. Personally, I always choose reissue over revision. However, I also know that we’re all different. So, why can’t we all be taken care of? I think we can.

Furthermore, I think some of us can learn to be a little more respectful of other tastes, or at least learn to move on instead of demean. If I’m wrong, and if you’re reading this after being told your preferences are invalid or foolish for some reason, remember this – you need to maintain the overarching attitude that your watches are for you, not someone else. Own what you want to own, like what you like – and if someone tries to get in the way of that, tell them they’re wrong. Don’t ignore them and don’t bother giving them reasons why – just tell them they’re wrong. And, as their temper rises behind their keyboard and they demand an explanation, tell them the truth that eludes them. Any opinion they have regarding the validity of your owning a watch that you choose to own is completely and objectively irrelevant. Want to know why? Because they don’t own the watch – you do. And, while they’re entitled to their opinions, their opinions do not diverge on and conquer over yours (especially when the stakes are whether or not you should wear a particular watch on your own wrist).

Never, ever, ever give in to what others say you should prefer. You like what you like – that makes you, you. Do not dilute who you are because of someone’s one-off commentary that comes from a place of self-loathing and inadequacy. Enjoy your watch because you do, not because someone else does.

I appreciate the kind comments I receive regarding the watches I choose – it’s great camaraderie. However, as nice as those things are to hear, it’s just icing on the cake because I’m already totally in love with the watches I choose for myself. You should be the same way about your own collection.

Lastly, to round this whole diatribe out – be nice to each other. It’s good to be nice. Life is easier and you feel a lot better when you make the choice to be nice to someone.

Cheers, watch people.