Maybe Leica introduced watches to combat one of their biggest problems in one of their core markets. Amateur photographers with an M Leica or two, or worse, an LTM Leica or two, don’t know what time it is, and don’t care what time it is. And this affects the group of them who then also own digital M Leicas. Mine are from 2012 and 2013, cameras that came out in 2010 and 2012. My youngest film Leica is an M6 from 1992. My most recently serviced film Leica is from 1958. Then we learn here to use the wonderful Zeiss ZM lenses. And then like X-ray we brew a certain distaste for what Leica has become and go X-pro or Zf.
It is impossible that I would buy a Leica watch, no matter how good it is. I had a quartz Omega for some years, the first watch I bought myself. The need to replace the battery at inconvenient times led to the family’s watch supplier in 2010. I want a steel bracleted, waterproof, automatic watch with a second hand and the date and a large crown, all as plain as possible. You’re kidding. I’m not. OK, well there’s this Raymond Weil, or this Oris. Have you heard of these brands? I’ve heard of Raymond Weil. So you will take the Raymond Weil? No, I’ll take the Oris. Even as he took out two links of the bracelet I think he was ready to accept this was all some elaborate time waster he’d been fooled by. He only smiled once the $1100 or so was taken from my credit card.
That watch needed a service several years later. There was one place in Melbourne. The technician looked at it with his jeweller’s loupe. A piece was loose inside. I had dropped it. His disapproval of me, was part of his defense of the watch and its movement. I got no credit for bringing it to him.
Next door was a second hand watch dealer. I figured my skill with second hand cameras and lenses and cars might see me into a good spare automatic. I repeated my 2010 spiel. They were guarded. I looked at a few Rolexes. Seriously ugly I found them. There was one interesting watch, another Oris. It doesn’t have a steel band..? It’s nylon, waterproof. It will do. It had a domed glass and weird beyond deco principal Arabic numerals at 12, 3, 6 and 9. I sent a picture of it to my son outside after buying it. The Oris 65, nice, he texts me. It is not tall for an automatic. And it is the only watch I can confidently tell the time with in the middle of the night in the dark here without my glasses on. I thought my wife would hate it. She loves it.
For Leica level luxury my son conceived my 60th birthday present, a Tudor Black Bay chronometer. It’s a Rolex ancestor of sorts, less showy, brushed chrome lugs. No date mercifully. Keeps seriously accurate time. Loses 5 seconds a fortnight. Bigger in height than I’d like.
That Oris 65 is beside the bed. No box or papers. It’s like one of my Leicas with minimal branding.
No Leica watch for me.
leica-camera.com
