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When does a nuance becomes a snobbery? Enter the Longines Column Wheel Chronograph


Small nuances in the watch world are endless and sometimes we watch lovers lose perspective. We hear: “ oh, is that is a red sub?” Or “ is that a guilt dial?”, it feels that there are subcategories of everything and we overlook sometimes what is most important which is the mechanism of the watch. Don’t get me wrong I do care about the look of a watch, when buying my Rolex perpetual in white grape the sales person was actually trying to convince me to buy a blue one with an explorer dial because the one I wanted was an ugly color (the blue one was 1 200 pounds more and 3 years older so I ended up with another retailer, shout out to watchfinder.co.uk). I digressed but the point I am trying to make is that the looks make us forget what really matters. Enter the column wheel vs the cam actuated mechanism, is this important or is just another nuance? Longines reputation is always built on giving lots of heritage plus value and this chronograph is no different. Is elegant, simple and it has a great movement with a column wheel but is it better than an actuated cam one? The answer is yes and no, for us mortals that enjoy watches as a hobby and not as a profession the differences are barely there. I compared the action against a Speedmaster cal. 1861 and yes button feels harder and the hand jumps a little bit more but this is the territory I want to avoid, of course they are different in construction and also haute horology uses column wheel chronographs but let’s remember that NASA opted for a cam actuated movement, I am sure that if this system was good enough for them to take into space It would definitely be ok with my everyday travel to London right? , to leave an open question then, when does a nuance really becomes a snobbery?

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