LIST: Andrew’s top 3 picks under $10k from SIHH 2019
Andrew McUtchenTo atone for our tardy 2018 Top 10 lists, and to prove we haven’t just spent a week in Geneva looking backwards, we’re moving quickly on now to what has been the work at hand the last five days – reporting on the first major watch fair of the year, something we call SIHH, or Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie.
As usual, we have handled hundreds and hundreds of brand new watches. But slightly different to usual, instead of spending all of our time in Geneva bashing away on laptops in the evenings or in the 5-minute spaces between presentations, we dragged our cameraman Marcus around with us literally everywhere and – given a moment – we would quickly recap our picks. They are ordered by price (Australian dollars, by the way), because that seems to work best for you all.
So, consider this a serious shout of ‘FORE!’ on the golf course. We have a veritable hail of videos of our picks incoming — it’s almost like you’re about to live the fair in its entirety, just a few days after the fact.
The structure is this: Felix and I weigh in separately on our top three picks in three price points, up to $10kAUD, $10-35kAUD and $35kAUD+ and then round it off with a joint list of our three favourite high complications.
GET INVOLVED BY TELLING US YOUR LISTS, AND WIN A LAPEL PIN
If you’d like to be in the running for one of a handful of rather fancy high-grade sterling silver Time+Tide lapel pins that are not currently available for purchase, just list your picks in each price point in the YouTube comments. If you’re the most-liked comment and your list is legit, on July 1, 2019, you win. Simple. But read more here if you’d like more details.
Cartier – Santos Dumont
Cartier offer a slim, sartorial and small-sized Santos Dumont in steel, two-tone and gold, with a quartz movement guaranteeing six years of battery life, twice the industry standard.
Baume & Mercier – Clifton Baumatic Cadran Bleu
A dial and movement variation on a highly feted COSC-certified (or non-certified for less money) ‘one good watch’ contender — the Baumatic, launched in 2018 — that brings the heat via a gradient blue dial. Hot. Thanks Baume & Mercier.
Girard-Perregaux – 1966 “Earth to Sky Edition”
Slim, contemporary and once again featuring a midnight blue starburst dial and a black ADLC case, this is comfortable, high-quality watchmaking with a focus on style and wearability.