Kind of surprised I havent seen a thread on this release here. I apologize if
I missed it, but I searched and couldn't find any posts on it.
First off, Hodinkee did an amazing job on the landing page for this watch. The
online presentation/article/images for it was among the best I've seen for any
online product offering:
limited.hodinkee.com/iwc/
Hodinkee and IWC definitely created a wonderfully oddball Mark XVIII with this
new limited release. From friends in the industry I heard that it took a
little over 2 years of collaboration to make this piece a reality. The use of
Ceratanium was a huge sticking point. Also it seems the material will not be
used much in the future due to the difficulty to work with and the difficulty
in marketing it. Most people just don't see the value, so expect fewer and
fewer references using this material in the future.
The Hodinkee Mark XVIII features a basic time only movement, usually
considered "entry level", but it is paired with a extremely exotic and high
end case material usually reserved for the upper echelons of the IWC
collection. That alone to me, makes it an odd watch. Other uncommon traits: it
is also one of the few IWC automatic watches that doesn't feature the word
"AUTOMATIC" on the dial and a "SWISS" only designation at 6 o'clock to keep
the minimal aesthetic.
At $6,400, this is definitely not a cheap watch, but they managed to make the
caseback, crown, and pin buckle out of Ceratanium as well, another
characteristic usually reserved for much higher end watches from IWC. Some
have disliked the HODINKEE branding on the caseback and the fact that this
piece uses a movement that came from a Selitta base. To each their own.
If Hodinkee worked on this with IWC for 2 years I think they at least deserve
to put their name on the caseback, I think it's well deserved. As for the
movement,
since this project started over 2 years ago, it actually begun before IWC's
time-
only in-house movements were finished and ready for production. Sure a $6,400
watch would have been more "worth it" with an in-house movement, but for a
time-only watch, it would have been a point of overkill that would have had an
even greater negative impact on the price.
Basically this is watch that IWC would have probably never made on their own
since some of the characteristics do not make business sense to include in one
watch. It is truly an enthusiast piece so I wouldn't expect it to meet
everyone's tastes.
At least they used the actual "HODINKEE" font to brand the caseback, that's
actually a nice detail rather than if they used the same generic font across
the entire caseback.
Overall I'm glad it exists. ;)
Really nice
