Starr Long Watch Collection

A friend of mine told me to be sure to ask Starr Long what watch he was wearing.
And we've heard him say a couple of times that he's fascinated with time.

So, I gather Starr has an impressive watch collection.

I'd like to ask Starr to tell us about his fascination with time, and maybe share some of his favorite watches with us.

Please, and thank you!

 

Great question! Of course I would love to talk about my watch collection!

I have always felt that time is precious and because of that I have always wanted a constant awareness of what time it is. I also enjoy using accessories like rings, necklaces and bracelets to express myself and watches for me are the penultimate way to express myself. In fact I take that self-expression to an intense level by wearing a different watch each day to match a variety of variables including mood, clothes, events, who I am going to see, etc.

My watch collection is unusual in that unlike many watch collections it is not based on value (most of my watches are in the $100 - $200 range) nor rarity. My criteria include things like nostalgia (ex. family pieces), unusualness (ex. does it display time in a non-standard way), relevance to my other interests (ex. BMWs or space), and/or historical significance (ex. marks a significant landmark in watchmaking). My love for watches began with my father’s watch, an Omega Genève (see #1 in the doc). He was an antique and art dealer so he had an amazing sensibility for beautiful things and this watch was certainly that.

In February 2011 at the suggestion of a friend I started a “Today’s Watch” series of postings on Facebook that included a picture and a brief description of the watch including historical notes, personal relevance, etc. To date I have posted 97 different watches (almost my entire collection). I have picked 16 of my favorites to highlight from those posts.

Genève: by Omega. Vintage watch from the late 1960's. This was my father's watch (Max Cary Long). He wore it every day of his life. I coveted this watch and I especially loved the style of the numerals. My Dad knew how much i loved his watch so he gave me a Tiffany watch for graduation that had similar numerals. When he passed I inherited it and I feel closest to him when I wear it.

Accutron Spaceview: by Bulova circa 1966. Accutrons were the first electronic watches and used an electromagnet powered tuning fork instead of a quartz crystal. This watch belonged to my grandfather, Max Long, who put it in a drawer 50 years ago when the battery ran out. It was his first battery powered watch and living in rural Louisiana it was hard to find new batteries. My father, Cary Long, found it amongst Max's things 10 years ago and restored it for me.


Untitled: Hunters case gold pocket watch by Waltham circa 1906. Hunters Case watches are pocket watches with covers. This was my Aunt June Klein's pocket watch. She died when I was young and this watch reminds me of how wonderful she was to me when I would visit her in Coney Island. The initials on the case are S L (the same as mine). It may be a family peice but we are not sure whose initials these would be. Walthams were prized for their accuracy and was the brand of watch Abraham Lincoln favored. The fob (a gift from my father) is from the same period and has the initials A E.


Untitled: Hunters case gold pocket watch by Waltham circa 1906. Addendum: This is the inside of the watch which is beautifully engraved and has a lever to regulate the speed of the watch's movement to maintain accuracy. The other picture is of the stand (a gift from my father) that I display the watch on. The watch hangs in the mouth of an eagle flying over a giant shell and dates from around the same time as the watch (1906).


Smokey Bear: circa mid Fifties. Gift from family friend A.E. Probst when I was in High School (it was his watch when he was a kid). I credit this watch as the start of my collection. Smokey recently enjoyed a full restoration.


Camera by STORM. The face of this watch is revealed by pulling the bottom lever to the right. This action opens overlapping leaves of metal like the iris of a camera (hence the name). This is considered by many to be THE signature model of STORM and is the only model they consistently revisit every year. This was one of the very first watches I bought for myself back in 1995 and it really started me as an avid watch collector. It also set the tone of my collection which consists of mostly unusual watches. I have more STORM watches than any other brand. I bought this at Hemline in the French Quarter of New Orleans. It is a women's clothing store but in a stroke of retail brilliance they had a small case of men's watches to lust after while your lady was trying on clothes.


Avenue: by XEMEX. Automatic watch designed by Ruedi Külling whose watches and posters are in the collections of MOMA New York, Chicago Museum of Architecture Design, the London Design Museum and the Guggenheim New York. Automatic watches self-wind using the motion of the wearer's arm via weight attached to the main spring.


Mach 2000: by LIP. This series of watches are characterized by the colored spheres on the crowns. The series was designed by Roger Tallon who also designed the TGV high speed trains in France and is featured at the Pompidou where I first saw it. This drove me to purchase it the next day in Paris (we were there for with my family for Richard Garriott’s wedding). LIP is a French watch company who made the first electric watch with a diode (see my Accutron postings for other examples of pre quartz crystal electronic watches). I get bonus points for posting a picture of this to Facebook from a Eurostar high speed train between Paris and London.


Untitled: by Nonesuch. This is a vintage WW1 Trench watch with shrapnel guard and is the oldest watch in my collection. Some historians believe wrist watches were primarily invented for military purposes around 1880 due to the impracticality of pocket watches during combat with projectiles. Interestingly, most watches of this era were pocket watch conversions as evidenced by characteristics like hinged case backs and wire lugs welded to the case. Shrapnel guards were introduced during WW1 to protect the watch crystals from accidental breakage


Gibeon Meteorite Watch: by Starborn Creations. The face is made of a polished slice of the Gibeon Meteorite from Namibia, Africa. The distinctive metallic crystal pattern is known as the Widmanstaten structure. It is created over thousands or millions of years in a low gravity environment at an extremely low rate of cooling producing large crystals of nickel-rich and nickel-poor metallic bands. Such a structure is impossible to forge making the identity of this and similar iron meteorites absolute. Laboratories are only able to imitate it on the microscopic scale.


Think the Earth: by Seiko. A small needle is set to your position on the northern hemisphere. The Earth and the needle rotate over a 24 hour period. By lining up the needle with the numbers on the outer bezel you can tell the hour. The orange satellite indicates minutes. Purchased at the Amsterdam Watch Company. Can you figure out the time indicated in the picture?


Zoom: Made by Sprinto which was supposedly founded by one of the lead designers from Swatch.


327: by BMW. Automatic watch based on the dashboard clock of a 1938 BMW 327 Cabriolet. Note that like the clock the numbers are on the crystal not the face.


Spaceman Audacieuse circa 1974. A gift from my lovely wife. In the late sixties Claude Lebet, owner of the Bulle based watch brand Catena asked famed architect Andre Le Marquand to create a timepiece inspired by man's conquest of the moon and the astronauts who made it there. Mr. Le Marquand provided him with his first wristwatch design called, what else, the "Spaceman." This particular model was supposedly modeled after the astronaut helmets in 2001. "Open the pod bay doors HAL!”


ABACUS by Erich Lacher Watch Factory designed by Roy Schafer. A magnet hidden under the face holds and moves the ball bearing around the dial. Sharp movements will knock the ball free and then it will snap back to the magnet. Purchased at the Stedelijk Museum of Modern Art in Amsterdam.


Navy Seal 3200: by Luminox. This is a dive watch that uses Tritium filled chambers on the hands and the hour markers so they glow in the dark continuously (vs standard glow in the dark which had to be charged with light). Tritium has two major uses: watches and boosting the fission primary in multi-stage hydrogen bombs. It is produced in nuclear reactors and only about 500 lbs have ever been made since 1955. Tritium costs approximately $30,000 per gram (so there must be microscopic amounts in watches).

 

Very cool. Thank you for sharing.

 

wowza. that bit about shrapnel guards is very interesting! practical AND attractive! also, the Abacus is really neat. thanks for sharing, Starr!

the whole history of timepieces (and astronomical clocks!) and the development of the current clock face is fascinating

 

Tritium Whoa way cool. One question though. Where is your sundial watch or a sextant to mark the time?

 

I'm going to watch this thread. Thank you, I'll be here all week.

 

I'm a fan of ABACUS. Clean. Simple.

 

It'll wind up going somewhere, I'm sure.

 

Facinating collection! Thanks for sharing

 

Pft! I don't even have a watch.
But these are some really nice timepieces!

 

Yea, but does Starr have a LEGO YODA WATCH?!?!?!?!

 

Frank: I see what you did there

LoneStranger: No I don't have a Lego Yoda

 

“...I give you the mausoleum of all hope and desire...I give it to you not that you may remember time, but that you might forget it now and then for a moment and not spend all of your breath trying to conquer it. Because no battle is ever won he said. They are not even fought. The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools.”
― William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury

 

Thanks for posting your watch collection Starr Long. After I saw your Waltham I thought you might be interested in my collection. I only have 5, all of which my father, a clocksmith, acquired or restored. The Chateau is my favorite (it has sentimental value), and then the Waltham, but the Longines is from the 1800's and is worth $800 or so. http://postimg.org/gallery/91s1kjky/dce86720/

Also, is the answer to your question about the Think the Earth watch 12:15 (in New England)?

 

And woot takes it home today for the win, with watches on sale... (I am in no way affilitaited with Woot, etc.. I just thought it was appropriate that right after this topic, they run a watch sale):
http://www.woot.com/offers/timex-we...il&utm_term=0_c5ca76da11-9d94235b88-292007581

 

@DarkStarr If you don't have this yet, you should really ask to have it made into a wrist watch. I could see that being quite an epic time piece.

 

Very nice pieces DarkStarr and thank you for sharing. Quite an impressive collection. And I concur with RelExpo, that would be a pretty badass piece to see. I'd buy it.

 

Impressive watch collection, DarkStarr. Yes, I also concur with RelExpo. You really could sell a lot of these in the add-on store

 

Love those watches Mordecai!

And the time answer was 11:20 Pacific time

 

Here's a ring you might want to add to your collection