This watch has a special significance for me as it was a gift to me from my wife when I graduated watchmaking school in December of 2016. We had moved from Montreal to Vancouver and I had just started working with Jason at Roldorf and Co. It was a couple of months of living in Vancouver before she gifted me this watch because she knew I had become increasingly difficult to shop for when it came to watches. As a watchmaker, my tastes change so much that she didn’t want to take the chance and surprise me with something. So she told me her intention to gift me a watch and then we started looking at different options together. I think this is a fail safe way to gift something. We looked at many brands and it wasn’t easy. I knew this would be a watch I would keep forever and that definitely added some pressure to the decision.
This is the only watch in my collection that I acquired new. The things that individuals look for in a watch obviously vary quite a bit. That’s why there are infinite watch companies and models with-in each brand that are all so different. What I was looking for was simply a cool watch. Not a dress watch, not a complicated watch, something with history and a tried and tested style, basically just something for everyday fun. The Flieger watch offerings from other brands such as Stowa and Sinn all fit this specific need but what helped decide was that we already carried the Laco line in the store. We already had a connection with the brand and I wanted to contribute to the community that we had already established. Check out this good guide on Flieger watches,
https://wornandwound.com/from-stowa-to-iwc-a-guide-to-10-flieger-watches/
What I like about this watch is the big pilot dial. For Laco, this is the B-dial, with the minute markers in large numbers and the hour track as a smaller inner dial that is less prominent. The thought for me was, how often do you NOT know the hour? It’s the passing of minutes that is harder to estimate. The lume is a tasty green and it lasts well into the night. The case has a nice brushed finish and the display back is always a win for the watchmaker in me. It houses the workhorse Miyota 8215 movement. The newer version of this watch has the 821A, which is a hacking movement.
This watch doesn’t get a huge amount of wrist time at the moment as I am cycling through the other stuff in my collection. It’s the biggest watch I own and I wear it usually if I’m needing a tough timekeeper. If I go for a long bike ride or if I’m doing some physical labour.
Check out the Laco website and see all their latest offerings.
The Dialed In Watchmaker 