These last few months, spending more time working from home, have helped me gain an appreciation for more aspects of watch collecting – specifically pocket watches. Personally, I don’t own any proper pocket watches, but I do have a few stopwatches that I’ve been playing around with more recently. These have the same feeling as a traditional pocket watch, just with a different function. After all this time thinking more about pocket watches, this Longines came across my desk, and it was love at first sight.  

This stainless-steel pocket watch from the ’40s has a beautiful silvered cross-hair dial with small seconds at six o’clock and blued steel hands. When first holding it, I was surprised how solid this thing felt and had to double-check to see if it was gold. I love the way this Longines has aged with patina on the dial. The bow at the top around the crown has even remained tight when adjusting it. Legibility was clearly the motivation behind this pocket watch, with bold hour markers and hash marks around the dial. Today, pocket watches might seem a bit anachronistic, but they are an ideal desk companion, especially when working from home more.

In the realm of chronographs, the Daytona is considered king by many. And for good reason, too. Once you put this watch on your wrist, you can’t help but stare at it. This model we have here, the 6239, is the original reference quality AAA fake Rolex came out with in 1963. However, this very watch is from 1966. By this time, it was already being referred to as the “Daytona” instead of the original “Cosmograph” name, yet it features both “Daytona” and “Cosmograph” on the dial. The watch we have here today has a black dial with silver-white registers in the reverse panda fashion. In addition, the combination of the steel bezel and pump pushers are very sleek and unassuming.  

This very watch is called the “Big” Daytona because of the large font used for the Daytona name at the top of the dial. In the watch collecting world, it’s all about the small details, and the same goes for this Daytona. The combination of the “Big” Daytona verbiage and other early features, such as the “300” unit bezel and “long hour hand,” gives this watch some serious character – but, to be honest, these details are quite subtle. This 6239 is really a connoisseur’s watch. It’s a bit under the radar compared to an exotic dial, and for that reason, I am really into it.