HOMAGE WATCHES
By Logan Hannen
In DEFENSE
of Homage
Watches
I
n the horological community, there seems to be a cuss word that I bought my Steinhart Ocean One GMT with the Red/Blue (or “Pepsi”)
is so repugnant and disrespectful that people tremble to even say bezel, I thought that I would never feel the need to own the Rolex
it. That word is “homage.” Before I go any further, allow me to equivalent. At 42mm, it fits beautifully on my wrist for a sports watch,
define what I consider to be the difference between a “homage watch” and the heft of the thing when I picked it up for the first time blew my
and a watch that pays homage to something else. A homage watch, mind. It was my first ETA powered piece, and the thing runs like a
to me, is a watch that rather shamelessly copies the design of a more champ. In my head, the roughly $500 I paid for it not only justified the
well-known (and usually more expensive) timepiece in almost exact quality of the piece, but seemed far more reasonable than the $8,000
one-to-one ratio, or at least close enough that until you see a different asking price of the steel model, and the nearly $25,000 for the new
name on the dial, you wouldn’t know it wasn’t the more well-known white gold variant of the Rolex equivalent. As a certain British YouTuber
piece. Plenty of watches, however, pay homage to watches that have might suggest, I was “chuffed to bits” with it.
come before but are no longer around. In my experience, this tends
But the strangest thing happened; after about two months of
to happen within the brands that are being paid homage to, borrowing wearing the watch nearly every day, I began to lust after the Blue/
styling cues from old models that are long since discontinued. Some- Black (or so-called “Batman”) bezel version of the GMT Master II. I knew
times you’ll find other brands dipping their toes into these waters, but Steinhart didn’t make one, and wasn’t content with the idea of a simple
people tend not to throw too much of a fit over borrowing one or two bezel insert swap since the GMT hand would be the wrong color and
little stylistic details from a more well-established piece. it would bother my OCD a bit too much, and started to realistically
With that much settled, the next logical question is this: what
consider the idea that I would one day need to own that bloody watch.
is the big deal? As long as no copywriting or patent laws have been After the shock wore off, I began to think about this in depth, and could
broken through these “homage” watches, then what’s the harm? To only derive a few reasons this would be the case.
many people, the harm is obvious: if someone can get their hands
I knew, realistically, that Steinhart was a sincere jump in quality
on a watch that is almost exactly modeled after a Rolex Submariner, from, say, Parnis, which was an option I had considered when I first
but with say, Steinhart’s name on the dial instead, for a fraction of thought about the Batman GMT. I could justify the Steinhart homage
the price, then that must be taking business away from Rolex. (Now, because it was plenty of watch in its own right, but I couldn’t derive
I sincerely doubt Rolex is strapped for cash, but I’ve got no evidence anything else that might measure up to that level for the money in
to support that rather cynical viewpoint). I can understand the thinking terms of Batman GMT homages. It took me a little bit longer to recon-
behind this, and I hate the idea of knockoff anything since it just seems cile the idea that I loved the Rolex for a different reason than just the
so slimy and parasitic to me. aesthetics, and I completely blame John Mayer.
There is, however, one fatal flaw with this line of thinking. When
38 | AboutTime Magazine
His episode of Hodinkee’s ‘Talking Watches’ is one of my favorite