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Feb 23, 2017, 08:00 PM
#1
Automated Admin
Hodinkee - Vertex: A 'Dirty Dozen' Military Watch Reborn (With A Unique Retail Strate
Most vintage watch and military ephemera collectors will know the name "Vertex" from the brand’s history on the wrists of British soldiers in World War II. Vertex was one of the so-called "Dirty Dozen," the 12 companies that built and supplied watches to the specifications of the U.K. Ministry of Defense.
Arthur covered these watches in an article last year, so I'll leave the explanation at that.*Vertex's history both goes back further and continued long after World War II, before it finally folded under the pressure of the so-called Quartz Crisis. But now Vertex is back.
Don Cochrane is the great-grandson of Claude Lyons, Vertex’s late founder, and he has revived the company’s name and is introducing its first new watch since 1972. The M100 will debut in late spring of this year and draws obvious design cues from that wartime "Watch, Wrist, Waterproof" that is the most desirable Vertex to collectors.
The M100 has a 40-millimeter 316L stainless steel case (up from its forebearer's 35mm), a double-curved anti-reflective sapphire crystal (no more acrylic), and will boast 100 meters of water resistance, a fair upgrade to that of its "waterproof" ancestor. Inside is a hand-wound, top-grade ETA 7001 movement with rhodium finish and Cotes de Genève decoration, plus a ratchet wheel engraved with "VERTEX" just like the movement found in many of the company’s older watches. The new one will come packaged in a Pelican case with two straps – a black leather two-piece strap with integrated quick-release spring bars, and a nylon NATO-style strap in, of course, Admiralty Grey.
The dial of the M100 will bear obvious comparisons to the WWW watch, with a matte white on black railroad track minute scale, oversized sub-seconds register, and the famous "pheon," or crow’s foot, that indicated property of His (and later Her) Majesty’s government. Hands are a similar pencil style with luminous paint for nighttime visibility. In a bold departure however, the Arabic dial numeral markers are not painted on, but rather three-dimensional blocks of molded SuperLuminova that should leave no doubts as to the time after dark.
From the early photos and design specs, the Vertex M100 looks like a winner, one that fans of vintage-inspired tool watches might line up to pre-order. But there’s a catch. The M100 will be sold by invitation only. That’s right, Vertex owner Don Cochrane is making the first 60 M100s available to purchase only to a select group of people that he has hand-picked and invited. Then those 60 owners (assuming they buy the watch) can each invite five more people, and so on down the line. The watches will cost £2,500 (approximately $3,115 at time of publishing).
How many of those initial 60 people will actually buy a Vertex M100 is a question yet to be answered, as is just how successful this novel sales model will be. My initial reaction was that it seems elitist and undemocratic to sell watches this way, and I anticipate that this article will inspire vigorous discussion in the comments. So I did the reporterly thing and called up Don Cochrane at his home in the U.K. to get some background.
"I think it's really democratic [to sell watches this way]…because at the moment, the only democracy really is capital," Cochrane tells me. "I know Patek or whomever makes limited editions of six watches, but you're only on that list if you buy 20 other watches. Even then, they're going to be super expensive. It's still exclusivity based on price, and I wanted to not do that. Obviously the Vertex isn't cheap. It's two-and-a-half thousand pounds, but that's more because it places it in a category that you respect. Less than that, people don't really take it seriously."
Cochrane says the kernel of the idea for Vertex came to him when he got a Panerai for a wedding gift from his wife 12 years ago.
"At the time, Panerai was so special and you could only get it in a couple places, and I felt really lucky to have one. Now everyone's got one and it's not as special, and that kind of annoys me. I wanted to think of a way that I could protect Vertex from becoming that, so that people would always feel that it was more than just a commercial acquisition."
Cochrane’s disdain for the exclusivity of price may seem odd if you consider his career path. Despite his Vertex family roots, he did not grow up in the watch industry. He’s worked in the luxury car industry with the likes of Tesla and Ferrari, as well as in Formula 1, and he is currently an executive with the private jet company VistaJet.
"I'm kind of sick of people buying things and I wanted to create something where people couldn't just buy it," he says without a hint of irony.
And who are the 60 people he’s chosen to give the opportunity of purchasing a Vertex? I told Cochrane I’d have a hard time putting together a daunting list like that.
"It's really people I like and there's a couple other people I know who have been influential as well," he told me. "The real kind of driving icon of who is on the list is I wanted someone that if you sat down next to them at dinner, at the end of dinner you'd be like, 'That was amazing.' Those people. I think you could base something around that sort of person who loves telling stories and being part of a story. It gives a really great foundation for the brand."
Cochrane went on to tell me that he made up the list of 60 by pulling from various walks of life, fields of interest, and professions. He limited himself to five or six from any particular field, and he’s got quite a range, none of whom he named specifically. But there is a champion freediver, a few entrepreneurs, even a Victoria’s Secret model on the list. Who those people will then choose for their five inviations is anyone’s guess. But Cochrane hopes it will result in a select network of very interesting people wearing his watch.
"I'm sure some people won't introduce anybody, and then some people are quite keen to introduce five people straight away. It'll be interesting to see how it works," he says.
Cochrane anticipates a mixed reaction to the relaunch of Vertex, with both praise and plenty of criticisms but he goes back to his exclusivity-of-price argument. "It's really weird that [people will think how I’m selling watches is] bad whereas selling a watch for $250,000 is okay."
"In the end, I just wanted to make something good that I like. It's made of beautiful things, it's waterproof to 100 meters, and it's manual. It's got all the SuperLuminova that glows like a bugger in the dark, which I love. It's just good. What can you do in the end? You're never going to make everyone happy."*
The Vertex M100 will launch at the end of March, with delivery of the first 60 watches sometime in May. More information about the M100 and the history of Vertex can be found here.
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Last edited by tribe125; Feb 24, 2017 at 02:03 AM.
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Feb 24, 2017, 01:43 AM
#2
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Feb 24, 2017, 02:13 AM
#3
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Feb 24, 2017, 03:04 AM
#4
Blasphemy
I'm on instagram: @iyonk_strap
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Feb 24, 2017, 04:11 AM
#5
Reads like an April Fools joke. £2,500? Whaaaat?
Pyramid scheme if not a joke.
Too many watches, not enough wrists.
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Feb 24, 2017, 04:13 AM
#6
Man builds watch for his friends. Brags about it.
"When other people have the same stuff that I do, and they're not as good as me, I feel bad that they get to have things that are like mine," Cochrane said, as he ate a Tyrannosaur egg, coated in gold leaf, shell and all. "It's one of those things, like, 'Why do you deserve to have the same things I do?'" He looked down at his watch, the Vertex. "When I was working for Ferrari, I felt disgusted that normal people could work hard, save up a lot of money, and then ask for the privilege of buying one of their cars. Like, who the **** are they?"
I followed Cochrane to his study, where the rich smell of white rhinoceros leather filled the air. He took his shoes, made from baby pandas, off and made fists with his toes on his Tasmanian tiger rug.
"I know they said it in Die Hard, but it's real. Making fists with your toes really calms you down after a long day of looking down on people. When I worked for Ferrari--I used to work for Ferrari--I used to think to myself 'I work for Ferrari.' And I also worked with Tesla--the car company that's never made a profit, not the long dead inventor and futurist. I would look around and think to myself, 'The world needs more things that regular people can't afford.' Then I would get into my Tesla--I drove a Tesla, because I worked for Tesla at the time, you see--drive ten miles home, park my Tesla, get into my other Tesla, while that one charged, then I'd drive my second Tesla ten more miles, where I would get into my third Tesla and then drive home."
"I'm sick of people buying things. I want people to be able to tell a story, like the Most Interesting Man in the World commercials for that beer that I have my cleaning staff use to clean out the cages where I keep the human beings I hunt for sport." He lit a cigar, made of the finest Colombian tobacco wrapped in bits of the Shroud of Turin instead regular cigar paper. "This cigar is one of 10 made by Mother Teresa. The cigars are hand rolled on the inner thighs of Victoria's Secret models before they're chosen to be in the catalogues, where disgusting normos can look at them." He picked up a solid gold double barrel over/under shotgun, had his valet load two shells in, and yelled "Pull!" I watched in amazement and horror as a refugee was flung into the air. He fired two shots blindly in the general direction of the fatally plummeting refugee, coming nowhere near him, but wounding gravely his valet.
"The truth of the matter is, democracy is the only real money. And money is the only real democracy. When I saw people working to make money, I was worried that they'd take my democracy from me," Cochrane said, without a hint of irony, as he, one by one, threw 10,000 one dollar coins mercilessly and with all his might at a homeless man. "If he survives the barrage, he gets to keep the money." He spat on the homeless man, whom I'm not sure was still breathing. "But he still can't get one of my watches."
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iyonk,
skywatch,
stewham,
crownpuller,
meijlinder,
litlmn,
tribe125,
FuzzyB,
mlcor,
93EXCivic,
CFR,
popoki nui,
Smeagal,
GaryF,
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Matt,
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The Watch Smeller,
Muad'dib liked this post
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Feb 24, 2017, 05:40 AM
#7
Originally Posted by
Raza
Man builds watch for his friends. Brags about it.
.................
."
That was brilliant! Exactly how I felt reading that article.
Grand Seiko SBGR053 ¦ Nomos Tangomat Datum ¦ Tudor Pelagos ¦ Grand Seiko SBGA011
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Post Thanks / Like - 1 Likes
Raza liked this post
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Feb 24, 2017, 10:55 AM
#8
Originally Posted by
Raza
Man builds watch for his friends. Brags about it.
i know a story about Man built straps for his friends. but there's nothing to brag about.. and nothing as interesting as your story Raza
I'm on instagram: @iyonk_strap
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Feb 24, 2017, 11:57 AM
#9
Top, top marks, Raza.
Especially the Mother Teresa bit.
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Feb 24, 2017, 12:41 PM
#10
The true irony is this exclusivity is the direction Hodinkee has moved in the past few years. They cultivate and encourage exclusivity. And just like Mr. Cochrane, the author doesn't quite realize the irony when he states that his initial reaction was that it seems elitist.
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