Vacheron Constantin

docsnov
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Thoughts on the VC Patrimony world time and luxury watches in general.

Greetings to anyone reading this and I hope everyone had a great Christmas holiday.   I am fortunate to have a rainy Sunday with not much to do but relax and watch American and the other type of football and muse on watches.  I wanted to preface this post with this disclaimer :  this is just something I do to have fun and occupy my mind on a day off work, I do not have an agenda, just feel the urge to throw out some thoughts on VC and other watches and stimulate some conversation to see what others  opinions are on what I throw out.

Having said that I got my patrimony world time back in the last 30 days from the shop, for the third time.  It is working great, no problems, but I don't have a high degree of confidence in how long it will work correctly.  It is a lovely watch, with a beautiful dial and a fantastic working conception with 37 time zones and 3 dials.  I love the shading on one of the sapphire dials as a way to show the day night hours.  Watching the night creep across the dial over the world map is one of the highlights of the watch.   I love that they decided to have all the operations work off the crown without any other crowns or buttons.  With all this being in the watch's favor the major hang up I have is it just doesn't feel very sturdy.  It kind of reminds me of the sports cars you hear about that look great but are questionable with reliability. 

I will detail what I mean by my feeling of the watch's lack of sturdiness.  1.  When the watch is wound there is almost no resistance in the winding stem, it almost feels like the crown is spinning freely.   It is impossible to tell how many winds it takes to fully wind it because the feel never changes.  This has not been my experience with other luxury watches.  2.  When the crown is pulled out to position 1 and 2 it is very delicate to get it to click into place for the operation intended, position 1 for changing the reference city and position two for setting the time ( I will call position 0 the crown pushed in).  3. When the crown is in position 1 to change the reference city the dial is turned through 37 delicate clicks or notches in the time wheel that you have to feel to get the reference city in place.   3.  In position 2 when setting the time again there is no resistance to turning the minute and hour hands, they move too easily in my opinion.  I am not talking about a negative resistance to turning the crown and the hands, I would say they feel flimsy in comparison to other watches.  It is hard to describe but those of you who have experienced it will know what I am talking about.  It is hard to stop the minute hand in a specific place because any light touch makes it jump.  I am most interested to hear others thoughts on this last statement because this movement is a base 2460 with the world time module added on.  It is used in many other VC watches and I wonder how it feels to the owners of those watches.   How does it feel when you wind it or set the hands?  I hope some people will chime in.

Two other brands I can use to compare to VC are Breguet and Patek Phillippe.  I currently own a Breguet Hora Mundi and 7727 Chronometrie and have a Patek 5960 annual calander chronograph and their first annual calendar reference, can't remember the number, it is 37 mm with  subdials for day and month and has the 24 hand, not the updated moonphase.   I used to own a VC Toledo 1951 which I parted with this summer.  So I can talk about the 2 watches I have owned from each brand.  Starting with Patek I will say I stayed away from them because I felt there was a price premium for the name, and still believe their Calatrava and basic chronograph models are way over priced, but I caved in and bought the used annual calendar and found out what I was missing with Patek.   This was a sturdy little watch with a great feel to its winding and setting of the hands.  The 5960 which is priced similarly to the VC world time is also solid.   It has a nice meaty crown, feels good when you wind it and the hands don't jump with every little touch when you set them.  The day, date and month are also perfectly placed in their windows every time.  The watch feels like a tank when compared to the VC.  In car terms the Patek is like a 4 door luxury sedan, the VC would be the 2 seat sports car with the feathery clutch.  On to Breguet which also gets high marks.  The setting of the hands with both Breguets feels smooth and not jumpy, and with the hora mundi when the reference city is changed either by turning the crown or pushing the crown at eight o'clock the operation is flawless with definitive clicks and a smooth pushing action.  One might think the Breguet chronometrie would be flighty with its magnetic pivots and 72,000 beats per hour, but I have not let it stop running since I got it six months ago and it has run perfectly, and feels great when you wind it and set it.   The hora mundi and 5960 are priced in the ballpark of the VC world time,  so I use them for the most direct comparison and pictures which I will have below.  Bottom line is my Breguet and Patek watches feel much better put together than the 2 VC watches I have owned.  I will not talk much about the Toledo but it also did not have the sturdy feel that I get from the other 2 brands.

So, this is what I was thinking about recently and thought I would throw it out there.  I would love some feedback from VC owners with other models and your feelings on the solidity of your watches, and if you agree or disagree with my experiences with VC, Breguet,, Patek, or any other brand that you can compare. I will finish by saying I love my world time VC and I am not getting rid of it any time soon, it just feels delicate when I compare it to the other watches I have that are in the price and complication ball park.  Below are posted some pictures of the watches discussed.  Everyone loves pictures,  I am not good at interspersing my text with pictures so the pics are all below.   Again, I am not trying to start anything, just musing on the watches I have and would love any feedback from others experiences with VC, Breguet, Patek  and how you would compare and contrast them in your hands and on your wrists. 

Stewart

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