One Of The Most Underrated Watches Ever
IWC is one of those brands that every watch guy knows.
Sure, if you asked some random guy on the street, he'd probably have no idea what you're talking about, but people who love watches will always understand what a great brand IWC is.
To give some brief history on the brand, IWC (International Watch Company) Schaffhausen was founded in 1868 by an American watchmaker and engineer called Florentine Ariosto Jones. He had a vision to combine the techniques of American engineering with Swiss craftsmanship, which is what eventually led him to creating IWC in Shaffhausen, Switzerland.
If you had to ask a watchguy to list out some great watches, models such as the Day-Date, Datejust, Nautilus, Royal Oak, Submariner etc. would come to mind...
But today i'm gonna talk about a watch that I feel like should be in that conversation.
The IWC Yacht Club.
The Yacht Club was made because Jones realised that there was a growing demand for rugged watches that were still elegant in design, something that could be used for basically anything (sport, leisure and anything in between). And at the time (1960s), there weren't really any watches with both of those characteristics. To put it simply, Jones noticed a gap in the market and capitalised on it, and in 1967, the Yacht Club was born.
The first Yacht Club watches were part of IWC's Ingenieur line (a line of watches that were anti-magnetic and very precise). They had very easy to read dials, as well as shock resistant and water resistant capabilities, which made them really popular with people who enjoyed water related activities (such as yachting).
It was because of this same reason that the Yacht Club became one of IWC's best selling models in the 1970's.
And that makes a lot of sense, who wouldn't want a stylish, durable watch what you could wear for basically anything?
Unfortunately, the Yacht Club stopped being produced in the early 1980's, like many other Swiss watch models. The reason for this was simply because of the birth of quartz watches. They were more precise and (more importantly) you could grab one for way cheaper, making the demand for automatic watches drop significantly.
Luckily, IWC reintroduced the Yacht Club with the Portugieser line in 2010. The Yacht Club still retained all the things that made it desirable when it was first created (robustness, versatility, etc.), as well as a chronograph function.
Nowadays the Yacht Club is still produced, in a variety of models with different complications, such as perpetual calendars, and are still loved by watch collectors to this day.
I hope i've shown you guys why I think this watch should be one of those models that everyone thinks of when someone brings up luxury watches. It really is one of my favourites, and hopefully it's become one of yours too!
(P.S. We have a really cool one in the store right now, if you want to take a look at it click here!)