Longines – The ExhaustNotes Blog

In line with our editorial policy featuring luxury goods with outlandish prices, a few weeks ago we posted a blog on the Longines perpetual moon phase automatic watch. That’s an item with what is euphemistically referred to as “prestige” pricing, which most folks would simply call overpricing (you know, like most motorcycle dealers’ freight and setup fees). The Longines is a lofty $3550, although our blog post pointed out you could find them for less if you poked around on the Internet. I did, and my best price so far was a scant $2250, which is still way too rich for my blood. Hell, you could buy a used Sportster for that kind of money.

Now, don’t get me wrong…if you want to buy the Longines watch, by all means we think you should. In fact, we think you should buy it through this Amazon Longines link, because then Gresh and I would get a cut. I have no idea how much (we’ve never helped to sell anything that pricey through our Amazon affiliates program), but it would be cool to find out.

But that’s not the point of this blog. If you read that earlier Longines blog and the comments that you, or esteemed readership, posted to it, you will see that none other than our good buddy Terry commented that he might consider the watch if it also showed the tides.

The tides.

Hmmm. That tickled a long-dormant neuron buried among the other neurons between my ears. They’re mostly focused on Weatherbys, Royal Enfields, SIGs, RCBS reloading gear, Baja, Michelle Pfeiffer, and God only knows what else is swimming around in there. The tides. I vaguely remembered seeing something about a watch that does, indeed, show the tides, so I went on Amazon, looked, and what do you know: The Casio moon phase and tides digital watch you see at the top of this blog appeared. Wowee!

What got my attention immediately was the price: $22.50. Could it be? A Casio watch that actually does way more than the Longines watch, but sells for a scant $22.50? That’s exactly one percent of the lowest discounted price I could find for the Longines watch! $22.50!

Hey, I couldn’t resist. I’m wearing my new Casio moon phase and tides watch as I type this blog. $22.50, and because I’m an Amazon Prime member, I didn’t even have to pay for shipping! Go Bezos!

There are just so many things that are cool about this Casio watch I almost don’t know where to begin. Yep, it shows you the tides. That waveform in the lower left quadrant of the watch face has a darkened section that shows you were the tide is at that instant. It goes through a complete cycle every 24 hours, just like the real tides do. And there’s the moon phase. That’s the little circle in the lower right quadrant (it darkens in arcs to show you what the moon is doing that day). All this for $22.50. And the Casio has a dual time feature…you can set a different time zone and switch to it instantly, although this feature is kind of weird…the “other” time is whatever you want it to be, not some exact number of hours different from where you are. It kind of reminded of a Chinese hotel we stayed in once where they had a bunch of clocks on the back wall showing different times at other locations in the world, but nobody had maintained them and they were comically different.

Ah, but I digress…back to the Casio. It has a stopwatch and a countdown feature. I can set it to military time or a normal 12-hour time. It has an alarm clock. And a backlight, so I can use it to find my way to the bathroom at night without waking up my wife or tripping on the way there. And (get this) it has a 10-year battery! Did I mention it goes for only $22.50?

More good news: As you have already seen in the photo a few paragraphs up, you can get the same Casio watch in blue, and the blue Casio goes for only $20.48. I’m tempted to buy one, but hey, I’m not made out of money.

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I know. You’re probably wondering: What’s with the watches? We want motorcycle stuff! Or gun stuff. Maybe even reviews of 50-year-old air compressors. But watches?

Hey, I like watches. Give us a day or two. We’ll post another motorcycle blog. I promise.

So, about that watch you see above.

Overall, it’s hard to imagine a more useless feature on a watch than a phase of the moon indicator, and a watch without luminescent hands or a backlight would ordinarily make a timepiece a nonstarter for me. Throw in a $3550 list price, and it would all but kill the deal. This Longines checks all those deal-killing boxes, but wow, it’s stunning and I want one.

The store where I saw the watch was fittingly in the high rent district (the Stanford Shopping Center, in the shadow of Silicon Valley and the big bucks that reside in that region). The price was pegged at MSRP, but the dealer came down quickly and without my asking. Not all the way to Internet levels (where these Longines watches can be had for around $2400), but an impressive drop nonetheless. It’s still not low enough for me (even the Internet prices are too rich for my blood).

The Longines perpetual moon phase watch can be had in either a 40mm or 42mm version with either a stainless steel or leather band. I like the look of both and I think the leather looks better, but I’d probably go for the steel bracelet. They just hold up better. But that’s if I was going to buy one, and I am not.

In the watch moon phase indicator business, there’s basically two types. One essentially just shows daytime and nightime (the moon dial shows the moon at night and the sun during the day, like on my Orient, a very classy and much less expensive mechanical watch). The other shows the actual phase of the moon, as is the case on this Longines. It takes a full month to progress through the moon’s phases, just like the real moon does. I mean, you never know. There might come a time when I need to know how much of the moon is showing and I wouldn’t want to actually look out the window or check my iPhone. This watch is designed for just that situation.

The Longines watch is complex, but I like it. The date is told by what looks to be the second hand (the days of the month are arranged around the watch’s periphery), the big second hand is part of the stopwatch feature, and the perpetual thing means you don’t need to adjust the day or date for months with 30 versus 31 days. The watch just mechanically figures it all out by itself. The watch doesn’t compensate for leap years and you have to reset the thing every year at the end of every February, so I guess Longines‘ definition of perpetual is one year. It’s still pretty cool, though, and for a completely mechanical thing it’s very advanced. If you really want to pour cold water on any feelings you might have for this watch, you can watch Longines’ YouTube video on how to set it. It makes doing Ducati desmo valve adjustments look easy (I have no plans to buy a Ducati, either).

You really don’t buy a watch like this for telling time, though. And you don’t buy it because you just can’t exist without knowing what the moon is doing. You buy it for the same reason people buy CVO Harleys, GS BMWs, and Ducatis. It’s bling. There’s no way I’m going to shell out something north of $2K for a wristwatch, although I am tempted.

At its heart the Longines is really a dress watch, and I no longer travel in circles where a dress watch is necessary. If I was a yuppie again I might go for it, but my yuppying days are a distant dot in the rear view mirror. Still, the Longines watch is beautiful. And it would be nice to know what the moon is doing. You know, without actually having to step outside and look at it.

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