[SOTC] Off the Beaten Path

Here, I’m showing the two latest acquisitions. The first being the Longines Legend Diver 39mm in green while the second is the Nivada Grenchen F77 date in Smoked Brown. Just wanted to briefly discuss how sometimes, the uncommon choice, may be the right choice. Both watches play on the “vintage reissue” field. Many like pieces in this category because you get some vintage charm/design language while not having to baby the watch since it has modern specs.

First, let’s discuss the LLE: 39mm in diameter, 47mm lug-lug with female end-links, 12.7mm thickness but sporting a 2mm boxed sapphire crystal with AR coating on both sides, and a beautifully finished 20mm bracelet which tapers down to 16mm at the clasp which now has 6mm of on-the-fly micro adjustment. The numerals are painted with bi-colored lume on a flat glossy green dial. Dial dimensionality is provided in the way of the internal bi-directional bezel which is extremely smooth and controlled by the 2nd screwed-in crown at the 2 o’clock. Longines put in this watch a COSC certified, 72 hours power reserve, anti-magnetic, and anti-shock movement that beats at 3.5hz. They also have ISO certified the piece for 300m WR. Comps for this piece around this price range would be the Tudor BB58, the Seiko SLA 62MAS reissues, the doxa sub 300, Aquastar, Oris Divers 65, and probably more. It’s weird to call a watch from one of the largest watchmakers from one of the biggest watch groups in the world unique but, the Legend Diver definitely doesn’t get as much love. This is partly because of this dual-crown super-compressor case. If you like this design language, there is simply nothing at this quality level expect at the JLC Polaris. Thus, for me, its uniqueness makes nothing in the market compare to it while it definitely oozes quality and charm.

Secondly, I’ll dive deeper about the F77; Nivada Grenchen was a watch company that started in 1926 and eventually closed in the 80s due to the quartz revolution. It has been reborn in 2020 thanks to Guillaume Laidet who has done the same with a few other brands like Excelsior Park. His vision for reestablished brands is that of pride in history. They make almost 1:1 reissues of watches in the past with modern parts. This is of course a great market for people like me. Guillaume used to work for Zenith where he definitely saw them as pioneers of this genre. The F77, as the name suggests was made in 1977. The original had a 38mm diameter with a day & date complication. The modern reissue measures 37mm in diameter, 12.65mm in thickness with a beautiful domed sapphire crystal (this makes the mid-case extremely thin and elegant!), and has a lug-lug of 45mm (since the first link doesn’t articulate all the way down like many integrated bracelet watches, it would measure at 51mm for those who have smaller wrists). I’m confident that it uses bracelets made from Forstner which makes sense; they have a vintage vibe to their bracelets with modern tolerances. That bracelet taper from 22mm all the way down to 16mm at the clasp. Unique for this category of watches, the clasp has 6 holes of manual micro-adjustment! The watch has lume but, in keeping with its philosophy, not much of it. Comps around this price range would be the Tissot PRX, the Formex essence 39mm, and the CW 12. Great watches that I’ve owned except for the 12. However, if you yearn for that vintage charm with amazing finish (only the essence has slightly better finish out of the 4), this is the obvious choice!