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Most vintage watch and military ephemera collectors will know the name “Vertex” from the brand’s history on the wrists of British soldiers in World War II. Vertex was one of the so-called “Dirty Dozen,” the 12 companies that built and supplied watches to the specifications of the U.K. Ministry of Defense. Arthur covered these watches in an article last year, so I’ll leave the explanation at that. Vertex’s history both goes back further and continued long after World War II, before it finally folded under the pressure of the so-called Quartz Crisis. But now Vertex is back.
Don Cochrane is the great-grandson of Claude Lyons, Vertex’s late founder, and he has revived the company’s name and is introducing its first new watch since 1972. The M100 will debut in late spring of this year and draws obvious design cues from that wartime “Watch, Wrist, Waterproof” that is the most desirable Vertex to collectors.
The M100 has a 40-millimeter 316L stainless steel case (up from its forebearer’s 35mm), a double-curved anti-reflective sapphire crystal (no more acrylic), and will boast 100 meters of water resistance, a fair upgrade to that of its “waterproof” ancestor. Inside is a hand-wound, top-grade ETA 7001 movement with rhodium finish and Cotes de Genève decoration, plus a ratchet wheel engraved with “VERTEX” just like the movement found in many of the company’s older watches. The new one will come packaged in a Pelican case with two straps – a black leather two-piece strap with integrated quick-release spring bars, and a nylon NATO-style strap in, of course, Admiralty Grey.
The dial of the M100 will bear obvious comparisons to the WWW watch, with a matte white on black railroad track minute scale, oversized sub-seconds register, and the famous “pheon,” or crow’s foot, that indicated property of His (and later Her) Majesty’s government. Hands are a similar pencil style with luminous paint for nighttime visibility. In a bold departure however, the Arabic dial numeral markers are not painted on, but rather three-dimensional blocks of molded SuperLuminova that should leave no doubts as to the time after dark.
From the early photos and design specs, the Vertex M100 looks like a winner, one that fans of vintage-inspired tool watches might line up to pre-order. But there’s a catch. The M100 will be sold by invitation only. That’s right, Vertex owner Don Cochrane is making the first 60 M100s available to purchase only to a select group of people that he has hand-picked and invited. Then those 60 owners (assuming they buy the watch) can each invite five more people, and so on down the line. The watches will cost £2,500 (approximately $ 3,115 at time of publishing).
How many of those initial 60 people will actually buy a Vertex M100 is a question yet to be answered, as is just how successful this novel sales model will be. My initial reaction was that it seems elitist and undemocratic to sell watches this way, and I anticipate that this article will inspire vigorous discussion in the comments. So I did the reporterly thing and called up Don Cochrane at his home in the U.K. to get some background.
“I think it’s really democratic [to sell watches this way]…because at the moment, the only democracy really is capital,” Cochrane tells me. “I know Patek or whomever makes limited editions of six watches, but you’re only on that list if you buy 20 other watches. Even then, they’re going to be super expensive. It’s still exclusivity based on price, and I wanted to not do that. Obviously the Vertex isn’t cheap. It’s two-and-a-half thousand pounds, but that’s more because it places it in a category that you respect. Less than that, people don’t really take it seriously.”
Cochrane says the kernel of the idea for Vertex came to him when he got a Panerai for a wedding gift from his wife 12 years ago.
“At the time, Panerai was so special and you could only get it in a couple places, and I felt really lucky to have one. Now everyone’s got one and it’s not as special, and that kind of annoys me. I wanted to think of a way that I could protect Vertex from becoming that, so that people would always feel that it was more than just a commercial acquisition.”
Cochrane’s disdain for the exclusivity of price may seem odd if you consider his career path. Despite his Vertex family roots, he did not grow up in the watch industry. He’s worked in the luxury car industry with the likes of Tesla and Ferrari, as well as in Formula 1, and he is currently an executive with the private jet company VistaJet.
“I’m kind of sick of people buying things and I wanted to create something where people couldn’t just buy it,” he says without a hint of irony.
And who are the 60 people he’s chosen to give the opportunity of purchasing a Vertex? I told Cochrane I’d have a hard time putting together a daunting list like that.
“It’s really people I like and there’s a couple other people I know who have been influential as well,” he told me. “The real kind of driving icon of who is on the list is I wanted someone that if you sat down next to them at dinner, at the end of dinner you’d be like, ‘That was amazing.’ Those people. I think you could base something around that sort of person who loves telling stories and being part of a story. It gives a really great foundation for the brand.”
Cochrane went on to tell me that he made up the list of 60 by pulling from various walks of life, fields of interest, and professions. He limited himself to five or six from any particular field, and he’s got quite a range, none of whom he named specifically. But there is a champion freediver, a few entrepreneurs, even a Victoria’s Secret model on the list. Who those people will then choose for their five inviations is anyone’s guess. But Cochrane hopes it will result in a select network of very interesting people wearing his watch.
“I’m sure some people won’t introduce anybody, and then some people are quite keen to introduce five people straight away. It’ll be interesting to see how it works,” he says.
Cochrane anticipates a mixed reaction to the relaunch of Vertex, with both praise and plenty of criticisms but he goes back to his exclusivity-of-price argument. “It’s really weird that [people will think how I’m selling watches is] bad whereas selling a watch for $ 250,000 is okay.”
“In the end, I just wanted to make something good that I like. It’s made of beautiful things, it’s waterproof to 100 meters, and it’s manual. It’s got all the SuperLuminova that glows like a bugger in the dark, which I love. It’s just good. What can you do in the end? You’re never going to make everyone happy.”
The Vertex M100 will launch at the end of March, with delivery of the first 60 watches sometime in May. More information about the M100 and the history of Vertex can be found here.
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