I let you in on a little secret. I actually have a soft spot for IWC. When I look back at my horological life, then my first ever Swiss watch I bought from the first money I earned was a…ahem…Breitling. I was young. However, already my second watch was a Girard-Perregaux Richeville Chronograph and guess what, my third ever watch, an IWC. It happened also to be my first solid gold watch, a rather overlooked model but nonetheless I liked it very much.
IWC Novecento (photo credit Juwelier Rieger)
The Novecento stayed in my collection for many years, only after I shifted my focus to Girard-Perregaux and started to build a collection, I traded it. What I can say for sure though, it kept the fire burning for my love of rectangular watches till today and the GP Vintage 1945 is now of course my favourite in that category.
Regardless, I have kept my eyes open over the years and getting engaged with the watch collecting community had given me numerous occasions to see other IWCs and most notably a few IWC 666.
So I have kept my eyes open for a long time to find a nice IWC 666. It had to be the first generation and I always wanted the AD. Many say the date is too centred on that watch and it is, but I think it gives the watch a special charm, something unique. The date-less 666 is also cool but for me it misses that little “extra” that puts it apart from the abundance of silver sunburst 1960s vintage watches.
Really wanted that quirky “too centred” date window
And there is another factor. It’s an “Ingenieur” watch and I’m an engineer or in German Ingenieur. The antimagnetic properties are a great feature and something that is lacking in GP history. True that some of the C-Shaped Chronometer HFs, mostly Ref. 9086 also had a amagnetic soft iron lid protection but they were never really marketed as amagnetic watches.
I let you in on a little secret. I actually have a soft spot for IWC. When I look back at my horological life, then my first ever Swiss watch I bought from the first money I earned was a…ahem…Breitling. I was young. However, already my second watch was a Girard-Perregaux Richeville Chronograph and guess what, my third ever watch, an IWC. It happened also to be my first solid gold watch, a rather overlooked model but nonetheless I liked it very much.
The Novecento stayed in my collection for many years, only after I shifted my focus to Girard-Perregaux and started to build a collection, I traded it. What I can say for sure though, it kept the fire burning for my love of rectangular watches till today and the GP Vintage 1945 is now of course my favourite in that category.
Regardless, I have kept my eyes open over the years and getting engaged with the watch collecting community had given me numerous occasions to see other IWCs and most notably a few IWC 666.
So I have kept my eyes open for a long time to find a nice IWC 666. It had to be the first generation and I always wanted the AD. Many say the date is too centred on that watch and it is, but I think it gives the watch a special charm, something unique. The date-less 666 is also cool but for me it misses that little “extra” that puts it apart from the abundance of silver sunburst 1960s vintage watches.
And there is another factor. It’s an “Ingenieur” watch and I’m an engineer or in German Ingenieur. The antimagnetic properties are a great feature and something that is lacking in GP history. True that some of the C-Shaped Chronometer HFs, mostly Ref. 9086 also had a amagnetic soft iron lid protection but they were never really marketed as amagnetic watches.
Share this:
Like this: