Hello from Montréal, Canada.
The first time I ever heard of IWC was when I was in Boston, around 1994, to see a photo exhibit. In my time off, I walked around the city, taking pictures- I'm a street photographer, so I let my eyes and my feet lead me. At one point, I found myself across the street from a posh-looking shop called European Watch Company. I was wearing a Seiko 1/100-seconds chronograph- I was already interested in watches, but didn't know anything about them, except that I coveted a Rolex GMT-Master. Anyway, I went in, a ball of sweat in jeans and a T-shirt, off the street.
"Good afternoon, sir." A young man, impeccably dressed in a sober two-piece suit.
"Good afternoon. I'm just... curious. May I please have a quick look around?"
"Certainly! And if there's anything you'd like a closer look at, just ask."
"Thank you." I walked around, looking at various brand displays, lingering at Rolex, which made me salivate, strolling past a bunch of other stuff I'd never consider buying, and then I came to the IWC case. I scanned it, yeah, okay, right, bunch of chi-chi chronographs with no lume, some weird integrated-bracelet things, and then one watch stopped me cold. I almost touched my nose to the glass. The young salesman spotted me, and calmly walked over. I pointed. "What. On Earth. Is that?"
"That's the Mark Twelve. It's a modern recreation of a watch produced for the British Royal Air Force in the late 1940s. Would you like to see it?"
"Yes, please."
He put the white gloves on, hauled out his keys, opened the cabinet, and placed the watch on one of those baize pads. Slid it across to me.
"Try it on, if you wish."
I picked it up, hefted it. My eyes bulged. "This isn't stainless steel." I'm a metals geek. I know a bit about density.
"You're in fact correct, sir. The normal ones are cased in steel, but this one's cased in platinum."
"Platinum." I'd never even seen platinum, never mind held any in my hand. IWC and that severe, practical, black-dialed watch that was selling for roughly 4 years of my rent immediately entered my consciousness.
Thirty years later, I'm not so much a collector as an aficionado and daily wearer of interesting tool and instrument and waterproof watches, most of them produced before 1970. The key factor behind my finally acquiring my first and only IWC, an Ingenieur ref. 866 AD, was how uncommon and unusual it is- I'm not likely to see another one on the street in this part of the world, nor is anyone apt to recognize it. Add to that its sober yet gorgeous appearance, its high legibility, its fine movement (cal. 8541), a case diameter that looks perfectly-proportioned in this day and age, and its amagnetic properties... It's kinetic sculpture. Wearable art. And, with that amag equipment, it carries a secret.
What's next? I think I already have my grail IWC, but I'd purely love to find a Mark 11 or a Mark XII on a flea-market table. Should I win the lottery or find vast petroleum reserves under my kitchen counter, though, I'd not hesitate to fill a suitcase with cash and fly off in search of a clean ref. 812 AD Aquatimer.
I would love to sit at a table covered with similar old anachronisms and talk watches with like-minded people.
My interests outside of watches include street and portrait photography, clay pigeon shooting, kayaking, open-water swimming, and writing short fiction recreationally. I'm also fond of cooking, making bread, and classic cocktails.
