PRECIOUS TIME

With steel watches still streaking, collectors may want to shift their attention to more personal propositions. Nothing is more personal than a yen for precious metals

- ASHOK SOMAN

There is something about precious metals that speaks to me, so in a departure from our usual practice in this section, I will close things off with my own opinion. On that note, some disclosures are necessary. First of all, our usual section for opinions is Agenda, but I wanted to tackle the hot mess that is the MoonSwatch there. Second, the bulk of serious watches in my own collection are steel and titanium pieces. Of course, the world of precious metals is much wider than watches, and wearing objects in these materials is something many of us have in common. I have the unhappy condition of not being able to wear reactive metals so my go-to has always been gold…which was my gateway to appreciating the virtues of platinum.

As implied in the previous segments, you will most likely encounter platinum in the form of rings, and perhaps more than a few of you have platinum wedding bands. If you made this particular decision - and you likely did it over white gold - then you have probably found all sorts of reasons to love platinum. Indeed, you may not even need reasons.

Sometimes the facts alone will not do, and a discussion of precious metals in watchmaking is also one of those times. The reason is simple enough, yet I will begin counterintuitively. Consider for the moment something we all know – that some watches in steel are valued as highly as, or even higher than models in gold. I trust I need not point out the specific examples as every year since 2016 has seen these examples trotted out far too often. One consequence of this has been the reinforced perception that steel is a precious metal, or as good as one anyway. On that note, Joshua Munchow’s Here’s Why article for QP early last year on this subject inspired this riposte of sorts, but I digress.