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Old 12 June 2021, 05:03 AM   #1
Pinchy
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Watch for mum (72)?

So I'm looking to buy a nice watch for my mum.

She probably hasn't worn a watch for a LONG time and probably never worn a mechanical.

I'm leaning towards something quartz and no date to reduce the amount of times she's manipulating the watch (leading to any accidents with respect to not screwing down crowns and exposing to water).

I'm thinking maybe the Cartier Panthere ? Or Maybe Tank Quartz?

Are these watches good for every day, they "waterproof"?

Is the Panthere a good line or should we really upgrade to the Tank? Should I really even be looking at quartz at all, would it just be better to get the automatics and take the risk because quartz is garbage?

Any other options I should consider? Tudor 1926 looks interesting and maybe even BB 36mm but my mum would have no clue about a tudor but I'm sure she may know that cartier is a luxury brand.
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Old 12 June 2021, 05:14 AM   #2
dannyp
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What about a nice no-date manual wind watch? Cartier has some nice ones if you think it’s a brand/style she’ll like. Otherwise a JLC reverse is a beautiful option.
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Old 12 June 2021, 06:58 AM   #3
Pinchy
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What about a nice no-date manual wind watch? Cartier has some nice ones if you think it’s a brand/style she’ll like. Otherwise a JLC reverse is a beautiful option.
I think manual wind would have her manipulating the crown exponentially more than an automatic. Something is bound to go wrong with my mum doing that on a daily.
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Old 12 June 2021, 07:05 AM   #4
kearez
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Chopard? They have some gorgeous watches. Quartz as well
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Old 12 June 2021, 01:07 PM   #5
dannyp
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I think manual wind would have her manipulating the crown exponentially more than an automatic. Something is bound to go wrong with my mum doing that on a daily.
True, though they are meant to be wound daily and withstand that use. Unless your mother has arthritis or some other issue that would make that difficult. But you know her and what she'd enjoy or be frustrated by.

Regardless, if she won't necessarily be wearing daily, if you get mechanical get a non-date.
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Old 12 June 2021, 10:23 PM   #6
Pw92676
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Quartz Tank is hard to beat here.
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Old 13 June 2021, 06:51 AM   #7
accountank2000
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As coincidence would have it, my mum is also 72 this month (also it was her golden wedding anniversary this year) and to mark the anniversary I got her a Cartier while getting my dad a Grand Seiko.

The watch snob in all of us on watch forums whispers in our ear that we should get some sort of automatic watch with a nice horological history, yadda yadda yada. Because if we, as watch collectors, were buying for ourselves, we would be interested in the movement etc and think that quartz just doesn't have the same soul.

That won't be the case for your old-age-pensioner mother, who doesn't even wear a watch all of the time.

I'm sure she will like whatever you get her, because it's the thought that counts and mothers always appreciate getting nice things from their children. But you may be living in cloud cuckoo land if you think that for the next couple of decades, out of nowhere she will suddenly want to embrace the 'hobby' of wearing a mechanical watch powered by old-school 'clockwork' thingamajig, which gains or loses 5s a day, and so after a couple of weeks even if worn every day will probably be wrong by a minute, and if un-worn for just a couple of days will need winding, the crown pulled out and the time reset to whatever the atomic clock says is the right time and date now...

What is interesting engineering to some is a chore for others (mechanical watch that goes a few seconds 'wrong' every day). Without wanting to infer anything negative about your mother today - I'm sure she still has full dexterity in her hands and full mental acuity - she may start to lose one or both of those over the next decade or two. So something that looks classy, but can be picked up whenever and the time be showing correctly (give or take a minute or so, even after several months), is a convenient thing that you get from quartz.

Quote:
Quartz Tank is hard to beat here
I went for the Ronde Solo, rose gold over steel - it's a quartz 29mm. She likes the size, and the adjustability of a nice leather strap rather than a bracelet, and although I first looked at the small quartz tank (as the tank has a long history with Cartier), the round one is nice and symmetrical and easy to read while still looking pretty. She loves it.

https://www.cartier.com/en-us/collec...ier-watch.html

The Ronde Solo is the more accessible version price-wise; if you get the Ronde Louis Cartier you can have a solid gold case and a real instead of synthetic sapphire in the crown, and more traditional hands. But it costs $8k rather than $5k.

https://www.cartier.com/en-us/collec...ier-watch.html

The BB36 is a nice automatic watch, and what it has going for it, for a 70+ year old, is good legibility. But is quite plain rather than elegant, not especially feminine, and if you don't know that she really wants an automatic watch instead of a more convenient quartz, I wouldn't see it as serious competition to a ladies Cartier quartz.
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Old 13 June 2021, 11:26 PM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by accountank2000 View Post

The watch snob in all of us on watch forums whispers in our ear that we should get some sort of automatic watch with a nice horological history, yadda yadda yada. Because if we, as watch collectors, were buying for ourselves, we would be interested in the movement etc and think that quartz just doesn't have the same soul.
You make an excellent point here! And, if being worry-free is a consideration, aren't there some quartz Cartier watches now that are supposed to go more than a decade in between battery changes?
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Old 14 June 2021, 05:01 AM   #9
accountank2000
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Originally Posted by dannyp View Post
You make an excellent point here! And, if being worry-free is a consideration, aren't there some quartz Cartier watches now that are supposed to go more than a decade in between battery changes?
They recently introduced a new model Tank Must, which gets a solar recharge through photovoltaic cells behind the black Roman numerals. They are eco-friendly (plant-based material used in the strap etc) and allegedly could go 16 years before the battery or cells die and need replacing.

While we can applaud the idea of new tech being good for the environment (albeit perhaps no more ecologically sound than a traditional mechanical watch), from a practical point of view it's hardly going to be a problem to get a battery change every few years - and going the non 'solar' route will give a greater choice of watch style, metal, bracelet/strap etc. I suspect the new models will be more popular with millennials than grandmothers.
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Old 14 June 2021, 05:49 AM   #10
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mbf horological machine would be pretty awesome
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Old 10 July 2021, 07:00 AM   #11
Pinchy
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Looking to line up the new Tank Must. It really does look great especially for the price!
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Old 10 July 2021, 08:27 AM   #12
szabo_martin
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Quartz Cartier 100% thought that before even reading your post. Its elegant, classy and easy with the quartz. Hermes makes some nice smaller watches too
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Old 10 July 2021, 08:46 AM   #13
RoscoPico
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Pinchy View Post
So I'm looking to buy a nice watch for my mum.

She probably hasn't worn a watch for a LONG time and probably never worn a mechanical.

I'm leaning towards something quartz and no date to reduce the amount of times she's manipulating the watch (leading to any accidents with respect to not screwing down crowns and exposing to water).

I'm thinking maybe the Cartier Panthere ? Or Maybe Tank Quartz?

Are these watches good for every day, they "waterproof"?

Is the Panthere a good line or should we really upgrade to the Tank? Should I really even be looking at quartz at all, would it just be better to get the automatics and take the risk because quartz is garbage?

Any other options I should consider? Tudor 1926 looks interesting and maybe even BB 36mm but my mum would have no clue about a tudor but I'm sure she may know that cartier is a luxury brand.
easy choice for me, vintage IWC. was taking up a space in the box, but fits well, runs well; just a bit of "training" involved since it's manual wind lol
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Old 14 July 2021, 04:45 PM   #14
K12123
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Apple Watch for the health features.
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