Bruised and Battered but Still Here
Like many things in life, your watches take a few knocks. That’s okay.
The Lorier Astra and the Neptune have something in common besides their manufacturer. They both have Hesalite crystals, which seems a bit anachronistic in this day and age, but that’s kind of the point. Lorier makes watches that are throwbacks to an older time, and I love them for it.
The crystals have this warm feel that enhances the nostalgic appeal of these watches. They warp and distort the view of the dial and hands at different angles and are domed beautifully. I love my Loriers enough to own at least four (Neptune, Gemini, and two Astras).
The downside? They scratch relatively easily, as my Astra and Neptune have proven to me a few times.
It’s not a hard fix. A tube of Polywatch and a cloth, and they can be restored to as good as new.
I just haven’t done it.
I have the Polywatch. I have the cloth. I just don’t have the need or desire.
Like my watches, I have my own set of scars and bruises, and I’m okay with that. As I’ve heard from more than one person, my own scars and bruises tell stories from my life. So it is with my watches. For the most part, I remember when I scuffed every crystal, scratched every case, and dented every clasp. There are very few marks I can’t account for, and at first they bothered me immensely.
They don’t anymore. I’ve had some conversations with people from the watch world who helped me see that pristine watches are objects waiting to have a life. Lorenzo Ortega, one half of the husband and wife team behind Lorier, even recounted a time when he took Polywatch to a Neptune he owned and then regretted it.
“I looked at it and was kinda sad,” he told me at a watch fair in Austin. “It’s pristine but it doesn’t tell a story anymore.”
Nicholas Bowman-Scargill, proprietor of Fears watches, had a similar approach. We both have the Fears Redcliff as a daily wear, and I was sad about a scratch I put on the bezel.
“Yes, but see, I have plenty of them too!” he said in his earnest British way. “It’s how you know the watch has been worn and loved. It tells your story.”
It didn’t escape me that both these folks said the same thing on the same day at the same watch show.
I stopped worrying about scratches and scuffs and bruises. My watches are like me. They are well worn, bruised, and battered, but still here.
I’ll refrain from making a joke about keeping on ticking…
Signing off…