I have
never really been a fan of Longines. I had had a dress watch in the past and
the only other model I had really cared for was their Legend Diver. The reason
why I never had owned one of those was that I back in 2012 participated in a passaround
which gave me the chance to try out the Legend Diver for a couple of days
and I found it to be a polished dress diver which wasn’t something that
appealed to me.
I’ve always
thought that the HydroConquest series have been a little too boring so they were never something I had ever considered buying. A good entry watch perhaps
for a non-watch nerd who wanted to buy their first real Swiss made watch but
was looking in a more affordable category than Rolex and Omega but wanted
something a little more exclusive than your regular Certina and Tissot watches.
What made me buy this chronograph back in October 2015 was mainly three things. 1) The
beautifully faded insert made it look really nice. 2) Being a quartz
chronograph meant it was going to be more or less maintenance free and I wasn’t
going to be surprised by a big service cost. 3) The reasonable price it
was being sold to meant I wasn’t going to make a huge loss when I later was
going to sell it. I was actually very happy and surprised by it and wore it
quite much. The only thing I didn’t like about it was its polished center
links. They had to go, so I handed it to a Longines AD who helped me out
brushing the whole bracelet which gave it a much more tool-watch look.
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| #264 - The Longines HydroConquest quartz chronograph, ref. L3.643.4.96.6 |
This watch
was later sold to a good friend of mine who’d started to become more and more
interested in watches and who wanted a decent first watch. A year later after he'd been wearing the HydroConquest he
bought himself a Rolex SD 16600 and I helped him to sell the Longines. So I
guess the Hydroconquest did its job well in dragging down another soul in the
watch swamp. The prices for a used Hydroconquest are usually very reasonable. I
think you get a lot of watch for what you spend and even though you perhaps
don’t get the most exciting watch it is still a very good all-round watch that
can be used for pretty much anything.
 |
| On a 22mm croc leather. If I'm not mistaken the lug width was 21mm on this watch because I have a slight memory of having to squeeze it in. |
© All pictures by a Watch Flipper's Diary unless noted.
