Longines Longines Master

Longines Master Collection

Sometimes it’s the simplest design that really work the best: A mixture of old school dial colours, watch hand styles from the 20s and 30s, and the brand logo smack in the middle. The result is a timekeeper, that’s perfectly in keeping with the tradition of Longines and very nostalgic of a highly successful period in this company’s history. A half of a century after the factory “Les Longines” was founded, it was the first to combine multiple manufacturing steps into one single process. Eventually, Longines labours began to bear fruit. It won one competition after another and was graced with the prestige of being the first official timekeeper of the modern day Olympics.

The Master Collection itself doesn’t show off with a ton of variety. There’s complete calendar versions and ones with chronograph functionality, also retro-style displays and GMT watches. While most are stainless steel models, there’s also some in gold. They’re pieces not just oversaturated with features for the sake of packing them in, but are rather exactly the ideal concept of what a timepiece really should be: Oeuvres that get right to the point without complication overkill and an exceptional understanding of watch shape and form.

Master Collection broken down into numbers – Top Facts

300: Three hundred degrees Celsius

One of the most important design elements of the Master Collection is the blued 20s and 30s styled watch hands. This blue glimmer is created by a special chemical process that develops as the temperature rises to 300 degrees Celsius. In turn, it oxidizes the steel’s surface and creates a blued tinge. Useful after-effect: A higher finish as well as protection from corrosion. Today, there’s still wristwatches from the first half of the 20th century, whose blue hands show no traces of their actual age.

3: A vintage collection with three protagonists

The Master Collection is responsible for a third of all of the watches Longines sells. It’s a collection that’s very vintage, albeit not the most popular. Together this collection, its flagship, and the Heritage series are out to make a statement about the spirit of past times. It’s a unison right out of the old school of Horlogérie.

2: Two wings make a sand hour glass fly

The Longines winged hour glass is the oldest and most famous brand emblem in the world of watches. It has made its way on to many Master Collection dials and represents this St. Imier brands very rich history.

8: Eight vibrations per second

Standard Longines procedure: the incorporation of dependable ETA movements into the Master Collection. Calibres are available, which are normally reserved for the more premium price bracket, are based on an ETA 2892 for just a bit over 770,- GBP. Manufacturers of significantly more expensive watches tend to use the simpler (but not necessarily worse) ETA 2824. Both calibres have their spot in our Top 10 list of the most important ETA movements, which you can read here. A lot of the watch calibres in this series oscillate with a frequency of 28,800 semi-oscillations per hour, which is 8 vibrations per second.