Horological Meandering

Jay (Eire)
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WatchProSite Watch of the Year. What would it be?

For those that check in regularly it’s usually pretty evident which watches are trending here, which watches seem to have the most incomings and or which watches drive interest and comment on threads.  

Sometimes that watch may be directly influenced by the forum itself, I’m thinking the collaboration watches like the Hentchel and others that came prior.  

But putting those aside it’d be kinda cool to look back every January to try and identify the WPS “watch of the year” based solely on ownership here.  

Below are my non statistical observations over several years past, culminating in what I personally perceived as the WPS “watch of the year” based on activity, posts, ownership etc.  Many times these are new or newer watches, but sometimes like in the first “look back” below they are not new watches.  

Looking Back - The LGF Submariner 

When I think of prior years what comes to mind for me are watches like the Rolex Sub “LGF” which was originally highlighted by Baron - Mr Red towards the end of 2018 as part of a series of posts on “collectible Rolex”.  

This is 5 digit Sub (14060M) which during a transition period from 2 line to 4 line text on the dial had a “long f” in the print for a short period of time.  

My recollection is that in the months following that post we saw numerous forum participants acquire one of these watches. 

Looking Back - Rolex Air King 

Other contenders I can think of in the past several years have been the Rolex Air King, perhaps inspired by Nicolas and his Air King “misadventure and fantastic community recovery”.  

The Air King, because of its uniqueness, could be characterized as a counter culture Rolex.  A unique dial given the abundance of script and the colours.  One which has been speculated from time to time might not be a long term survivor in the catalogue.   

I’m not sure there was any single year where the Air King was “king” but perhaps if we could consider the cumulative appreciation here it might deserve the award. 

Looking Back - Omega CK 859

More recently there was the Omega CK 859.  

Again I’m not doing a statistical analysis but in my brain that one seemed like an avalanche from first incomings to multiple happy wrists.  

It was infectious for sure, perhaps helped along by a somewhat friendly retail price (relatively), which can make quick decisions easier. 

It was also a watch that seemed to be on trend, surfing a wave of vintage inspired releases and perhaps standing out a bit inside the broader Omega catalogue. 

Looking Back to 2023 - Is it a bird, is it a plane?  Not exactly, it’s a Chopard Eagle !

Again no statistics behind this observation but it would seem hard to argue that Chopard hasn’t taken top spot for 2023. 

We’ve seen more eagles here in the past year than one would at a bird of prey sanctuary ! 

It seems to have been a slow burner of sorts, the Alpine Eagle is not a new watch as it was first introduced in 2019 and I recall going to check them out in November / December 2019 not long before our world shut down.  

But from a slow start it does seem to have caught fire a bit over the last year or so.  Did the XPS which arrived earlier in 2023 fuel this fire?  A bit for sure, but the Eagle seemed to soaring before that too.  (Apologies for the lame choice of wording and puns).  

Did I miss a watch over the last 4-5 years which could have merited watch of the year here? 

If you own one of the above it be great to see some pictures and perhaps thoughts on whether or not the forum might have played a part in the acquisition.  

Finally, I wonder what 2024 will bring?

Photos below credited to the original posters. 

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