The Stopper

I haven’t bought a new watch in nearly a year and haven’t bought a vintage watch in nearly three months. The new watch interval is normal. It takes me months to decide what I want and how much I will pay. Vintage is always a more impulse process: see something, research it, figure the costs of minimal maintenance, and buy. This has been a fairly long drought for me. I am not a seven watch collection person or even a “one in, one out” type. It occurred to me why I have slowed down a bit.

My favorite period of vintage watches is 1945-65. I think this was when wristwatches came into their own and we saw an explosion of stylistic and technological advancements. This period brought us the first real sports watches, aviation watches, field watches, chronographs, and divers. But really the most common watch by far, and the one that fills vintage marketplaces, is the ubiquitous three hander. We might call it a “dress watch” now, but it was just a watch.

1950 was a stylistic dividing line. For the first time the majority of watches were round, not rectangular. The military style watches that dominated the 1940’s gave way to many varieties of telling time on the dial. We see jump hour watches. We have only Arabic numerals either divisible by two or three, not all twelve. We see dagger indices and stick indices. Eventually, we have all stick indices with no numerals. Lance and leaf hands are replaced by dauphine hands and later baton hands.

Watch companies began to give us varieties of this watch:

White dial, indices and Arabics, but not all Arabics.

I have found that in all eras of watch manufacturing there is a sameness in styles. We buy what is popular. Makers make what we buy. It is nearly circular. I get tired of looking at modern collections of steel black dial sports watches. The white dial 3, 6, 9, 12’s of yesteryear can be just as monotonous in large numbers.

When I am looking at a vintage watch, or any watch, I ask myself what role does this watch fill, and do I have one already in that role? I have watches for all my activities: sitting on the couch, sitting in a comfortable chair, sitting at my desk, etc. I have found that one watch keeps me from buying many that I consider: the Stopper.

This is an early 1950’s Croton. The reviving of Nivada Grenchen has brought new attention to Croton who sold NG watches under their badge in the United States from the 1930’s until the 1960’s.  Aquamatics and Antarctics with the Croton name will bring a premium in the right condition. This is a mere 32mm with a base metal case that is showing its age. The dial is still bright and the blued second hand with the red tip is a nice little touch. Here is the best part, it keeps accurate time. Not just accurate for a vintage watch time, but actually accurate time, to within seconds a day.

To enter my collection any potential purchase has to outdo the Stopper. Is the dial or the case in better shape? Is it more visually interesting? Will I have to spend hundreds of dollars to make it as accurate as this humble Croton? The Stopper has saved me hundreds of dollars just be being a slightly better version of whatever I was looking at and considering purchasing. The Stopper has kept more elaborate Croton models from consideration. They cost five to ten times what I paid for it. What would be gained?

I don’t think collecting is just about checking boxes or an arbitrary list of attributes that we must acquire. We may not “need” a Flieger or a diver. We can set our own perimeters. I guess one of mine is “can you beat the Stopper?” Someday a watch will, but not today.