Hi, I'm new to the forum. I suppose these "first IWC" posts are all the same, so here's mine, with a lot of useless background.
I moved to the Basel area in 1991, and wasn't particularly interested in watches. They kept time. I think I was wearing a Timex Ironman then. But when you are surrounded by so many fine jewelry stores, you spend a lot of time window shopping while your wife is buying shoes. It wasn't long before I saw an IWC Portofino hand-wind, and I fell in love with it. Simple, clean, elegant, classic, perfect. But way out of my price class at the time. (The price has tripled since then, I should have bought one).
I struggled along somehow over the years with various cheap quartz watches, and one pretty nice off-brand automatic that was eventually stolen from me.
In 2011, following a tough year, one Saturday my wife said to me "Sod it, let's go buy watches." We bought matching Nomos Tangente, another clean, simple, elegant, classic design. Not an IWC, but I still love that watch.
At some point I also bought a vintage Breitling 2524 dress watch.
But the IWC bug hadn't left me. I picked up the 2015 catalog in the boutique in the Zurich Airport a few months ago, for the first time with serious intent to buy. My wife thought I needed a watch for my son to inherit, and who am I to argue?
Well, although I still love the Portofino, the Nomos covers my need for a clean, simple, elegant, classic dress watch. I looked at the Porto chrono, but it looked wrong on my tiny wrist. The Portuguese Chrono was perfect, though, and still in my price class. So last Saturday in Basel I ordered the chrono in blue (3714-46). Another beautiful, simple, clean, elegant, classic watch. It arrived at the AD on Tuesday, and I picked it up yesterday.
What a gorgeous watch. I realize this is perhaps the most common IWC, and is considered, so to speak, a "beginner's IWC," but the designers were on the top of their game when they came up with this one. I feel like a kid with his first watch, and want to run around telling people to ask me what time it is.
Anyway, that's my story, and my first (and probably my last) post. I'll go back to lurking now. Thanks for your patience.
steven
