A Man & His Watch: Iconic Watches and Stories from the Men Who Wore Them (A Man & His Series Book 1)

by Matt Hranek

Vacheron is a beautiful brand. In the collectors’ world you have the classics, like Rolex and Cartier. But when you talk about complex watches, brands like Vacheron, Patek Philippe, and Breguet are very special. It’s about the craftsmanship and, in a sense, the artistry.

Vacheron is a beautiful brand. In the collectors’ world you have the classics, like Rolex and Cartier. But when you talk about complex watches, brands like Vacheron, Patek Philippe, and Breguet are very special. It’s about the craftsmanship and, in a sense, the artistry.

While Patek Philippe is credited with inventing the wristwatch, the style was largely thought of as a timepiece for women. It was not until the Cartier Santos-Dumont that men began equating the wristwatch with exploits of daring and courage, and imbuing them with all manner of romance and nostalgia—a feeling any true watch lover knows all too well. If you’ve ever wondered where this crazy passion for wristwatches all began, odds are it started with this very timepiece.

And a vintage watch is the ultimate luxury—it’s owning something that no one else has, but it’s also being the keeper of its story. It’s a book; there are chapters. And then you have that object and you write your own chapters into it. Doxas aren’t impossibly rare watches to find, but they’re certainly not everywhere. I’ve never been the guy who buys a watch to start a fresh book, to start something new. I’d rather write my chapter into something that’s ongoing. Perhaps forever.

I like to wear things that people don’t know about. When you notice a man with a watch that you’ve only seen in a magazine, or heard about, there’s something unique about the guy wearing it. If you see a guy with a lot of diamonds on his watch, the way I see it—the way I’ve experienced it with other people, and even myself—you know that guy likes to have a lot of fun. He’s looking to have a good time.

There’s a term we use in archaeology, “material biography,” which refers to the life story of an object. So just as we can talk about what happened to the person who wore this watch, we can also imagine what happened to the watch itself—where was it manufactured, where has it been in its life, what has it seen?

There used to be a chronometer competition in the Neuchâtel Observatory, in Switzerland, and Seiko started entering the competition from the mid-sixties on, submitting various calibers and designs. I believe that the first year they placed 192nd, but over the next five years, developing their skills and designing better and better calibers, they actually took 4th place. The Swiss stopped the competition the next year, but if you look at the watches from that year and compare the performances, Seiko would have taken the top spot. Actually, they would have taken seven of the top ten spots, with more traditional brands like Omega and Rolex filling out the rest.

The best example of when the Omega Speedmaster Professional paid off for NASA was during the Apollo 13 mission, when all power was lost on the Command Module. The only things the astronauts had to time the critical burns to bring the Apollo 13 safely back to earth were their Omega Speedmasters. Most critical was the last burn, which had to be a precise 14 seconds. The commander’s chronograph was used to time the burn. The watch was exact, and the rest is history.

I also like that it’s a manual-winding watch. I believe we’re alive for a brief period of time; whether it’s fifty years or a hundred, in the scheme of things, that’s a short blip. And it’s up to us to use that time intentionally. Running a company is a fast-paced life, and being at home, with three kids, is an even faster one. So taking a moment to wind my watch means giving myself twenty seconds of the day to create a sense of purpose as to how I’m going to use my time—to ask myself, Am I going to live today with intention? It forces you to reflect, because during that tiny window you are literally giving yourself the time.

But to some degree, the world of vintage Rolex is a science; we collectors always have a loupe, and we’re examining the colors, the serifs on the fonts, the way the Rolex coronet is printed. It’s a grown-man science. I’m forty-seven years old, and I never truly understood what the word passion meant until I discovered my love for timepieces.

In Japan, watches aren’t traditionally status symbols; gifting someone a watch is considered to be a bad-luck gesture—you don’t give someone an object that tells them how much time they have left to live.

People wear watches for their associated value. You wear an Omega Speedmaster and you’re Neil Armstrong. Or you wear whatever watch James Bond wears, or Sir Edmund Hillary wore, and you become that person—even if you work in an office, at least your watch is the same as that hero’s. That always seemed phony to me, because I’d rather be an astronaut or a spy or a mountain climber, with all the risks that go along with the rewards of those careers. Having done a lot of extreme things, I needed a watch for those situations, especially so that I would have the time without getting sucked into the black hole of my iPhone. An armored digital watch works better in every possible scenario with the exception of nuclear detonation, when the magnetic pulse would make all electrical things stop. But I think if that happens, you’ve got bigger problems.

My dad has a fancy Swiss watch that he says he’s keeping to pass on as an heirloom. He quotes the manufacturer’s ad: “You never actually own a Patek Philippe. You merely take care of it for the next generation.” We laugh about how the cliché advertising motto has come true. I’m sure that watch might hold some meaning, but I like the idea of something that costs $40 that you own, versus something that costs $4,000 that owns you.

My father taught me early on to acquire things not based on monetary value, but because you love them. You live with them and enjoy them—and then you let them go. So I took a bit of the money and bought this Rolex Cosmograph watch secondhand to commemorate the time when I was a kid, when my father was alive.

I don’t gamble; I don’t believe in stocks and bonds. I believe in work, bricks, earth—and I like watches and nice cars. Don’t ever get attached to money, because you can’t take it with you six feet under. It comes and goes. My father lost a lot of money once, and he made it back; I also lost a lot of money at one point—there were days I had to ask my assistant for twenty dollars because I was completely broke—and I made it back, too. Even if I were to lose it all again, I would never sell these watches, whether they’re worth a dollar or a million dollars. I will eat less, get thin, work hard, start over.

I’ve always loved the beauty of things that were made to be used. That’s why I love beautiful vintage vehicles—amazing racing machines like my Ferrari 250 GTO, rugged utility vehicles, or even a weathered truck. Each one was created for a specific purpose, and therein lies each one’s peculiar beauty. I’ve always thought of my cars as moving art. I feel the same way about watches. It’s moving art, worn on your wrist. I don’t think there is anything like it in the world.

“I don’t wear a Tank watch to tell the time,” Warhol once said of his signature Cartier timepiece. “Actually I never even wind it. I wear a Tank because it is the watch to wear!”