Is there a graduate in your life that you need a gift for? Or maybe you just want
our recommendations for a solid start to your own collection - coming up.
I get a lot of questions about recommendations here at SwissWatchExpo, and people ask me all
the time, Hey, I've got a graduate in my life. I'm looking for a graduation gift,
which watch would you recommend? Or maybe you just want a solid start to your own collection.
You want to know where do I begin? There's so many watches on your website, 2,500 watches.
How in the world do I pick? Well, here I get the chance to do something I haven't done in,
I don't think ever before, which is give you my recommendations for five solid starts
to your own watch collection. This was kind of my dream beginning to a watch collection
right here. Every anytime anyone asks me, what's the next watch you're going to buy
for yourself. I always know what the next one is. In fact, I know what the next five are.
So here they are in no particular order. If you know me very long, you know that I love the Omega
Moonwatch. This is the 42 millimeter Speedmaster Professional. If you type in Speedmaster
Professional on our website, you'll see all these pop-up. This is the full size 42 millimeter. Now I
would not for myself recommend the Speedmaster reduced, but if your graduate or yourself,
if you've got a smaller wrist and you think that a 39 millimeter would look better by all means,
go for it. We sell a ton of Speedmaster Reduced, but this is the 42 millimeter
I've wanted this watch since I was a kid in the seventies, and I saw the ads in Life Magazine
with a Buzz Aldrin wearing his on the surface of the moon. It's a hand wound mechanical watch. So
you're actually going to wind it every day. It's one of the old school charm things about it.
The fact is there's less to go wrong with a hand wound watch versus an automatic.
You don't have to worry about that axle rotor, rotor axle breaking, and it requires less
maintenance. Plus it gives you a little bit of fun every morning when you're winding your watch.
I enjoy it. The high contrast of the white hands and baton hour indices against a black dial,
the black bezel, the 42 millimeter size. I love this clasp with the buttons here on the side. They
pretty much stole from the Seamaster and put it over here on the Speedmaster. And this one has the
exhibition case back, which I'm a huge fan of. So you can see that beautiful 1861 or 1863 movement.
That's just a solid choice. You can't go wrong with a Moonwatch ever. So that one
could be a great choice. You'll see them on our website anywhere from about, say four to $6,000.
So it's not going to exactly break the bank, but it's a really nice watch. Now,
one of the things you'll notice about all five of these watches that I'm going to talk about,
they all have a history and a story behind them. These are not brand new models that just came out
last year. There's a reason for that. These, I tried to pick the ones that are timeless,
that have stood the test of time. They are classics in the watch world. The Speedmaster
dates back to 1957. I mean, crazy that they've been making this watch for over 60 years,
essentially unchanged. It's not going to go out of style anytime in the graduate's life's lifetime.
Next step would be the Breitling Navitimer. Now there's lots of different sizes of this. Watch
this one's a 42 millimeter, which I think again, it's looks great on just about anybody.
It's the same size as the Moonwatch I just had on, but the one with the stitched alligator
strap in particular, I really love this one has the movement. That's based on a Valjoux 7750.
You can tell by the layout there. And it's one of the rock solid bulletproof movements of the watch
world. It's really one of the most classic things you could possibly ever strap on your wrist. Now,
the Navitimer goes back similar to the Speedmaster and we're talking 60, 70 years of history,
and this was essentially a flight computer for pilots. Now it just looks cool because
even pilots don't use that flight computer, but it's one of the all-time classic chronograph
watches. Breitling invented the start, stop reset positions of the pushers on a chronograph.
This is one of the great watches that's ever been made. So you can't go wrong with that one either.
Now this one we're trading into a little bit of less charted territory. In my mind here,
I'm thinking what you really would like to get your graduate as a Rolex GMT Master, which again
goes back to the 1950s with the red and blue combination on the bezel. They call it the Pepsi.
This one is Rolex's sister company Tudor, and this one is I lot less expensive than the Rolex
that you're looking for is probably somewhere from 11 to $15,000. This one's 4690 from Tudor. It's
actually a larger case size, which I think is good for the modern man. Um, your graduate. We would
probably like this case size better than the 40 millimeter that he would get in a, in a Rolex GMT
Master. You get a similar look, the big chunky case, the snowflake, hour hand, all classics to
Tudor, but that price tag is just phenomenal and really in a lot of ways, a more attractive watch.
I mean, let's just come right out and say it. It's gorgeous. You can't go wrong with that one.
GMT, by the way, it allows you to track the time zone
the time and more than one time zone. That's what GMT stands for Greenwich Meantime.
It allows you to check the time in your home time zone and one where you're traveling,
or maybe you're doing business, or maybe your graduates are going to start that job in Japan.
It needs to know what time it is back home. So he knows what time to call you. Here we have the,
this is the Heuer Monaco. Of course the modern name of the company is Tag Heuer,
but it just says Heuer Monaco on the dial, this was one of the first automatic chronographs ever
made, came out in 1969. Really popularized by Steven McQueen and the movie Le Mans.
If you haven't seen it, check it out or kind of corner off your main card.
But this one is phenomenal. It's got the crown on the left side, like the original,
the horizontal, hour batons, like the original, unlike the original has this exhibition case back.
So you can see the movement. And like we talked about on the Speedmaster. I love that detail,
but I mean, this is a conversation piece. It's an unusual watch, but it's a classic does go back 50
plus years. And if you've ever watched Breaking Bad, this is the watch that Walter White wore,
so you can have your Heisenberg watch because you're cooking that blue. Anyway,
you can't go wrong with this watch gorgeous watch and something that not
anyone else probably will have on their wrist that your graduate walks around.
So with no undue, respect to the crown, you got to have a Rolex on the list. If the Rolex is the
watch that you want to give your graduate or start your collection with you can't do any
better really than the Oyster Perpetual. This one is a, it's a thinner watch than a lot of the Rolex
offerings. This one will do well for anything from board meetings to, casual outings, because
it really, if you could only have one Rolex watch, this would be a great pick. It's got the Easy Link
in the clasp, lets you open and close the watch, uh, the size by about five millimeters on the fly
with no tools. So if it's feeling tightened the summer, you can listen to it up. If it's loose
in the winter, you can tighten it down. It's got the Sapphire crystal. Gorgeous, really dark
saturated blue dial with these sort of lime green dots around the edge. So it makes it unusual.
Again, probably no one else around him would have on the same watch, but it just looks great on just
about anybody. So there you have it five great watches, either to start your collection with or
five great choices for your graduate. You can't go wrong with any one of them. Give us a call
here at SwissWatchExpo. We'll be happy to talk more about what's good and bad about each one
and point you in the right direction based on the lifestyle of your graduate.