Bring a LoupeA Parmigiani Fleurier Toric Memory Time, A Cartier Trianon, And Two Picks From Goodwill

Recapping last week's edition of this very column, our classy Gübelin with a Cyma movement inside has been marked as sold; the asking price was $1,850 — congrats to whoever picked that one up, looks like an excellent watch. The "Breguet A Paris" fake pocket watch has been removed from sale on eBay, so that's a win in a way.

Let's get into this week's picks!

Early Parmigiani Fleurier watches are truly special. By founding his partially eponymous brand in 1996, Michel Parmigiani aimed to apply his expertise, gained through decades of restoration work, and also, more importantly, do his part to revive the Swiss town of Fleurier. "The village of flowers" was once, back in the late 1800s, a booming hub with 600 working watchmakers. Though by the late 1900s, the effects of the quartz crisis had hit Fleurier hard. Benoît Conrath, a watchmaker based in the village at this time, told the New York Times, "Back then, to be a watchmaker was to be unemployed. No one wanted mechanical watches. It was like using a horse and cart to travel."

By establishing PF and helping convince Chopard to establish its new manufacture in town, Michel Parmigiani is primarily credited with Fleurier's resurgence — now again a bustling hub. The Toric Memory Time was Michel Parmigiani's first creation under the PF umbrella, and it's one of the most elegant GMT-equipped watches ever produced. The elegant 36mm case is inspired by the Doric columns of ancient Greece and the spiral of the Golden Ratio. And the dial is finished in PF's hallmark barleycorn or "grain d'orge" hand guilloché. A jump hour display at 12 o'clock allows for the tracking of a second timezone, although it could easily be confused for a date function.

The caliber PF132 inside is based on a Lemania ébauche, though paired with an in-house mechanism to add the GMT function. Beyond the Parmigiani-designed GMT module, finishing, including Côtes de Genève and black-polished screws, assembly, and regulation, were all done inside the Parmigiani workshop. By the way, that workshop included other notable names like Stepan Sarpaneva and Kari Voutilainen before stepping out on their own.

The white gold Toric Memory Time is really the one to have. The subtle grey dial is gorgeous, and pairs perfectly with the case. But don't take it from me, Michel Parmigiani is known to regularly wear this exact reference quite often — his being the first example ever produced, because why not?

The seller, A Collected Man in London, is offering this Toric Memory Time for £28,000. Click here to check it out in full.

Cartier is a brand with a very consistent look throughout its catalog — this has been the case for decades. It really always comes back to an architectural case and the emblematic dial design: white with black printing, Roman Numeral indices and railroad minute track, or the chemin de fer. When operating at its best, Cartier is riffing on that formula with different shapes alongside the century-old and more staid designs like the Tank LC and Santos. The Trianon we see here dates to the 1980s and represents how Cartier's core design language can be tweaked just slightly to create something disproportionately interesting.

Cartier's "Modern" watch catalog was born in 1973 with the introduction of the Louis Cartier Collection — a set of 12 Swiss-made wristwatches produced in partnership with Ebel. This collection included classics like the Tank Normale and Santos-Dumont but also introduced new shapes like the Coussin, or "Bamboo," and the Ellipse. From there, in the ensuing decades, Cartier expanded its offerings to include ultra-thin versions of models from the L.C. Collection and other new shapes like this Trianon, which dates to the 1980s and gets its name from the Grand Trianon and Petit Trianon palaces on the grounds of the Palace of Versailles.

This model is somewhat of a mix between the Santos-Dumont and the Ellipse, with a "riveted" bezel motif and a semi-cushion-shaped case. By my count, it looks to have been offered in two sizes, this being the larger of the two, as well as in solid yellow gold or this "deux ors" combo of white and yellow gold. All are powered by a Cartier-signed Frédéric Piguet caliber 21 – the ébauche behind Cartier's ultra-thin variants at this time.

At 25mm in width, I find this to be a very nice size for a roughly square vintage wristwatch. It will wear slightly undersized but not overly so. It's a vintage Cartier that you likely won't ever run into someone else wearing or even posting on your Instagram feed – a great way to get in on the "trend" while not being a total sheep.

The seller, Plua Ultra in Switzerland, is offering this Cartier Trianon for CHF 6,600. Get all of the details and photos right here.

A few years back, during the days of vintage watch drops in the Hodinkee Shop, we sold a stainless steel example of this exact watch, also signed by Tiffany & Co. It is one that, as a true Movado lover and sucker for Tiffany-stamped dials, I have never forgotten, always on the hunt for another. Well, here it is. This is a late 1960s or very early 1970s Movado Kingmatic HS360 with my favorite Tiffany stamp ever on the dial, but this time, in 14k yellow gold.

I say my favorite Tiffany stamp because there is a range; the American retailer was constantly changing fonts and styles. A guide to which stamps were used when is a real need in the vintage watch community, as information is so hard to come by. I know for a fact that Tiffany used this one, with a font I lovingly call "western style," in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It may be shocking still to some that Movado was once sold alongside Patek and Rolex within the hallowed showcases of Tiffany. The partnership ran for quite a while, likely from the 1940s through the 1970s. The most famous watch to result from their partnership was a 1944 triple calendar in gold that Franklin Delano Roosevelt wore during his presidency. Beyond FDR's triple date, Tiffany-signed Movados are highlighted by 1950s M90 and M95 chronographs as well as Ermeto "purse watches" that wound by opening and closing the outer case to reveal a hidden dial.

The Kingmatic HS 360 we have here today dates to the late 1960s to early 1970s, around the time of the brand's merger with Zenith, and represents this era of Movado so well. The cushion-shaped case and overall dial design are emblematic of the brand's transition from more dress-focused offerings to quality, hard-wearing, everyday watches. A decade earlier, Movado was creating watches styled more similarly to Patek, but here we see something more in line with Zenith (for obvious reasons).

The case is 35.5mm wide by 39mm high and 11mm thick, fitting nicely and filling the top of most wrists. On the caseback, there is an engraving pointing to the original owner, a man named Arthur T. Smith, who was presumably gifted the watch by the Gerry Family for his retirement after 45 years of service. I wasn't able to find any information about Mr. Smith, but the engraving in is the style of others we see on Tiffany-retailed watches of this time and could be interesting to dig into.

An eBay seller in Naples, FL, has put this Movado up for a buy-it-now price of $5,200. Check it out right here.

That large Longines chronograph result had me searching over on ShopGoodwill.com this week, and it turned out to be quite fruitful. Catching my eye as a great dial design, this Wittnauer has a few tricks up its sleeve. First off, it's powered by the caliber 10WA, which is a modular alarm movement built on top of the Longines caliber 10, one of the brand's workhorse time-only calibers of the period. If you know your vintage watch history even a little bit, you likely know Wittnauer was first a distributor of Longines watches in the US market, and was acquired by the Swiss brand in the 1950s. This alarm watch dates to that decade and is the result of Longines and Wittnauer working together to produce watches specifically for the US.

At this time, alarm complications were all the rage in the States — Vulcain Crickets were selling like hot cakes. This is Wittnauer's answer. The listing doesn't state the size, but based on other examples, the stainless steel case measures somewhere between 35 and 36mm, quite large for the 1950s. The waffle dial texture, stylized numeral indices, and squiggly alarm hand are great, yes. But the real quirk here is the bezel. You may notice the slightly knurled edge in the photos, which is functional! That's right, the alarm is wound and set via rotating the bezel.

Judging by the few old forum posts I can find about this watch, it seems to be considered quite rare, but I have to note that the alarm function is reportedly very finicky. Many are broken from overzealous rotating of the bezel. You never know with a watch on ShopGoodwill, but if you have a good watchmaker who is willing to take on a project, this is one worth saving.

Listed on ShopGoodwill.com, this Wittnauer Alarm is up for auction, ending Sunday, August 17th, at 11:55 PM ET. When this article was posted, the bidding had reached $200. View the full listing right here.

Ending on a fun, yet not vintage pick, this G-Shock x DHL collab really made me smile when I scrolled past. As it turns out, the watch was produced in celebration of the 50th anniversary of DHL's operations in Singapore — the more you know. As a fun, weird G-Shock, it has some interesting details like, of course, the DHL logo on the dial, the bright, on-brand colors, and the "ON TIME, EVERYTIME" slogan emblazoned on the strap. But wait, there's more. Activate the backlight, and you'll be greeted by yet another DHL logo right in the middle of the digital display. I love it.

Listed on ShopGoodwill.com, this DHL G-Shock is up for auction, ending Saturday, August 16th, at 10:30 PM ET. When this article was posted, the bidding had reached $247. Check it out right here.