Was there a special reason for you for choosing the IWC brand? Were you young and innocent? or already an old and experienced collector?
I'll start off this - hopefully - interesting thread.
I was in my mid-twenties when a friend of mine pointed me in the direction of mechanical wrist watches of which I knew absolutely nothing. To me, a watch should look cool and keep time. The rest, I didn't care about.
My friend was at that time already in his second job, and made enough money so that he could buy his first high quality watch. I, on the contrary, was still a student and could only dream of an expensive watch.
I did, however, like my friend, lurk and read about wristwatches on the TZ forum, primarily the sales posts. That was great exposure to a variety of styles, brands, periods, watch complications and so on. I learned a lot about mechanical wrist watches through that resource.
One day, I came across a TZ article: "Tweaking the Mark XII", written by Walt Odets (it's still there, but I don't know if linking is appropriate).
I was very attracted to W.O.'s knowledge and style of writing. And I searched to find out more about this Mark XII. The more I found, the more I fascinated I became. The history of the brand, the strong historical links to aviation that was reflected in the Mark XII, and the watch itself, of course.
But I also studied other brands at the same time. So, my interest in the Mark XII and the IWC brand cooled off over the next few months.
However, still being a student, I couldn't afford any of the watches that I really wanted. So I developed an interest in vintage watches, especially Jaeger LeCoultre, and I decided to buy one when I found one that I could afford.
On a trip to Amsterdam, I accidentally passed a shop specializing in vintage watches. I went in, and asked for JLCs. The shopkeeper showed me all he had, but none of them was to my liking. Then, I spotted an old acquaintance in one of the displays: The Mark XII.
I asked if I could try it on, and BAM! - I instantly felt in love with it. I knew this was the one. It just felt so fantastic on my wrist. So I made a quick decision to buy it, even though I didn't have enough money. But the shopkeeper was kind and could see that I really wanted the watch, so we worked it out.
So, my first IWC was supposed to be a JLC. Never a second have I regretted that it became a Mark XII :)
PS, my friend still hasn't bought himself a quality watch :)
PPS, I tried to embed a picture from photobucket, but no luck. I'm a newbie to uploading pictures.
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