THE GOOD LIFE Watches 5.
‘If the Rolex market is somewhat maddening, the market
for “entry-level”
Patek Philippe is utter lunacy’
5. A Patek Philippe Nautilus will now set you back more than £100,000. 6. Vacheron Constantin’s Overseas is also trading at well above its official price, but still well below the Nautilus. 7. Czapek & Cie’s Antarctique offers both beauty and value
6.
this year; there will be new models – just good luck getting hold of one. It’s quite exhausting, but so is keeping up with the proliferation of watches in the brace- let-bound, Seventies mould that the Nautilus defines. Everybody’s at it: Piaget, Girard- Perregaux, Chopard, even Rolex’s junior sib- ling Tudor all have interesting options (and special mention must be given to Tissot’s hugely credible PRX Powermatic 80, a stylish snip at just £565).
of course, but anyone who’s seen No Time to Die will have seen the quite fabulous 007 ver- sion of Omega’s equivalent dive watch, the Seamaster Diver 300m. Cased in titanium (and therefore surprisingly lightweight) on a lovely beaded bracelet, its beige markings against matt black dial and bezel have a won- derful, lived-in warmth. For my money, it’s a superior bit of kit.
I
f the Rolex market is somewhat madden- ing, the market for ‘entry-level’ Patek Philippe is utter lunacy. This takes in the Aquanaut, its most casual sports watch that comes on a rubber bracelet, and the legend- ary Nautilus – perhaps the world’s most hyped luxury object. A new version of the basic steel ‘Jumbo’
Nautilus is due this year, having been discon- tinued at the end of 2021. Examples of the discontinued version, priced officially at £26,870, now trade at well over £100,000 – up over 60 per cent in the past year alone. You might get away with coughing up half that sum for the £16,760 Aquanaut. Meanwhile, the Royal Oak from Audemars
Piguet – the yin to the Nautilus’s yang, having both been conceived by design legend Gérald Genta – has been on a similar tear. It turns 50
7. H
owever, I’m going to pick a couple of contrastingly interesting options, both of them handsome, beautifully
made and technically exceptional. First off, Vacheron Constantin’s Overseas,
developed in 1996 from the famous Seventies model Ref 222, has been lovingly refreshed in recent years. Long a staple model from Swit- zerland’s oldest watchmaker, it’s now its su- perstar – a gently sculptural, rippling thing of beauty that I like all the more for the fact that it’s supplied with a bracelet, a rubber strap and a leather strap, which are easily switched in and out. It’s priced at £19,100 in steel, but currently trading for around £35,000 – a steep increase, but as nothing compared to the eye- watering prices for equivalent Patek models. Of a completely different order is a watch from a brand named Czapek & Cie. Revived in 2012 after more than a century of inaction, it’s become an unlikely success story, making small runs of high-grade watches, dealing di- rectly with clients around the world. The Ant- arctique, its bracelet watch, is both a true genre piece and beautifully original, with ar- resting details in its unusual bracelet links and dial textures. Most impressive, for those who like such things, is its movement – a modern, complex work of horological art. At £18,570, the Antarctique offers something harder and harder to find: fair value. S
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