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Pascal S
·There are brands whose products speak to us more than others. They generate emotions, desire, sometimes to the point of obsession. In my case, Omega is definitely one, and I was lucky to reacquire my birth year Speedmaster that hard times had forced me to sell 9 years previously. But in horology like in many other fields, love is rarely an exclusive affair. There are many interesting watches out there, and other brands have sparked feelings just as strong, and this post is devoted to one in particular: Tutima.
For many years, I was unaware even of its existence. I grew up in the 1970s and the 1980s, and at the time a pilot watch meant one brand that through astute marketing had pretty much cornered the market: Breiting. So when I started flying in the mid-80s, I dreamt of offering myself one of their Navitimer models. I eventually did, burning all my savings on it, and I was happy, safe in the knowledge that I had a true pilot watch at my wrist.
It is years later, when the watch bug bit me hard, that I finally started broadening my horizons. I had developed a passion for a specific watch movement and therefore started collecting Lemania 5100 chronographs. At one point I had 26 of them in my collection, and it is this way that I stumbled upon one of Tutima's most iconic models, their Military Chronograph. This watch had been selected in 1985 as the official issued watch for Luftwaffe pilots, so this was the real deal in my book. So I naturally procured myself one.
That thing was built like a tank, and this stainless steel version felt like it weighed almost as much as one too. But it was so great that I immediately considered it as my "stranded on a desert island" watch, something so solid and dependable that it could take the abuse. It also got me interested in the history of the brand. Their history with German military pilots actually dated back to WW2 when they supplied the Luftwaffe with their first chronographs, just ahead of competing brand Hanhart. I also learned that they had an actual range of variants of their Military Chronograph, with many available in titanium. On top of that, they had reissued their old Flieger chronograph, first as a manual wind watch aesthetically very similar to the original WW2 model, but also as an automatic available in two flavors: with a 7750 in the Flieger F2, and with a Lemania 5100 in the Flieger F3. I knew I had to eventually get myself one of the latter.
During this period, I actually was working on a project to open a watch shop in Northern France. My business model would have been to represent lesser known brands offering great products at competitive prices, unburdened by the marketing expenses that major names were investing for better brand recognition. So in 2005, I travelled to Basel for that year's BaselWorld fair. There, I had arranged a series of meetings with a number of companies whose products I liked and, you guessed it, Tutima was among them. And while I often just met sales representatives, two brands allowed me to meet their boss. The first one was a bit of a disaster, and I won't name it. But Tutima was pure joy. I spent half an hour chatting with Dieter Delecate, the man who had had succeeded founder Ernst Kurtz in the 1960s, the latter managing to keep the brand alive in West Germany after the Soviets took over the company's home in Glashütte. Mr. Delecate was the driving force behind the Military Chronograph so he was a bit of a hero of mine. He was even more so after our meeting, as he offered great words of support for my project. Sadly, it never came to fruition when market research indicated that, past a pretty low price threshold, French consumers wanted recognized brand names. While successful in others places like Italy, my chosen concept was not the correct one for my country of residence.
A few years later, I finally managed to find that elusive Flieger F3 at the right price, and just like its more modern sibling, that Tutima was a revelation. It had presence, and felt noticeably better built that most of my other Lemania 5100 chronographs. It looked equally good on a strap or on its superb bracelet. In a nutshell, I loved it!
But a storm was brewing on the horizon. A long period of unemployment had depleted my financial reserves, and now I was fighting to keep a roof over my head and food on the table. My watches had to go. So I sold them, hoping to keep my most treasured ones safe from the cull, but ultimately failing. That period gave me heartbreak after heartbreak. And of course, both of my Tutima Chronographs found new homes in that painful process. I genuinely thought that this had put me off watches forever.
About a decade later, things changed again. In the meantime, I had succeeded in reacquiring a good measure of financial stability, and a properly managed watch budget seemed conceivable. My first priority was to track down and buy back my aforementioned Speedy Pro, and luckily its buyer still had it and was willing to let me buy it back at a fair price. That I did. Then tracked down my Dad's watch, a Breitling Cosmonaute, and this time too I struck gold with an understanding owner willing to part with it. But with these two back home, what was going to be my next move. One brand name seemed lit up with blinking neon letters in my mind: Tutima.
The Flieger F3 was first to make its return. Not my original watch this time, but I didn't care. I nabbed one great example on Chrono24 last year, and I've been enjoying the hell out of it since. It's just an amazing watch, and photos simply can't do it justice.
But I still had a serious itch to scratch. Remember the Military Chronograph? Well, I wanted another one of these too, but this time a slightly different model. First, I wanted one made out of titanium. But that was not all. Tutima had also made a "mission timer" variant for the ZUZ, the German border guards commandos. Apart from being good at their job, these guys must be some serious horology freaks, because they had previously had another watch made for them. It was by Sinn, and it is the legendary EZM1. So that Tutima, known under the name "Commando II" actually replaced the Sinn EZM1 on these dudes' wrists. It turns out that the military version and its civilian variant have some differences. The former has a rotating bezel borrowed from the TL pilot chronograph version while the latter doesn't. What they share is a much simplified dial with both running seconds and 24 hour registers jettisoned, and a much more discreet date window. That dial has a very eye-pleasing symmetry in my opinion, and I remember being absolutely mesmerized when I first saw a picture of one. So that's the one I wanted now.
Wanting is one thing, but finding is another. This is a pretty rare model, even in its civilian guise, and you don't find them every day. Ironically, I had been offered an excellent example here on this very forum two years previously, but at the time I was almost done saving for the return of my Speedmaster, having committed to this transaction. So I simply couldn't back out. This meant tracking down another one. After a few nights spent searching the internet, I had managed to spot 3 examples offered for sale. One was on eBay, but restricted to a North American transaction. It also was mounted on strap, so missing the original titanium bracelet, which I wanted. Another one was offered by a professional seller in... Vietnam! It had its titanium bracelet, but looked quite a bit worse for wear. And Vietnam is a bit too far from the beaten path for me. Thankfully, the third one seemed more attainable, being offered by a professional seller in Northern England. Apart from a small nick on the ultra-thin bezel surrounding the crystal and a minute hand showing discoloration, the watch seemed in excellent condition. After giving me a few months to save more money, I got in touch with the seller, negotiated the price a bit, and proceeded with payment.
While the watch was technically mine, I was unwilling to have it shipped to me. In this post-Brexit world, I would rather fetch things myself than rely upon any forwarder. So I decided to organize a little day-trip. First drive to Paris Charles de Gaulle airport where I would catch a flight to Manchester, then take a train to Bolton, and another one to Darwen and presto: I can meet the seller face-to-face, allowing him to hand-deliver my watch. That's exactly what I did this past Wednesday, and it was a very enjoyable experience. Not only did I finally get the watch I had been fancying for two decades, but I also had a nice 2 and a half hour chat with Ian, the Watches of Lancashire shop owner. He did show me a few of his other treasures, and we spent a nice moment sharing our common passion. On my way back to France, I couldn't help having this silly grin on my face each time I was looking at my new watch, and as you may imagine I did that a lot.
I know I still in full honeymoon mode, but I also know that this is not some short-lived infatuation. I've had this watch before, and loved it until the sad day events forced me to let it go. So now that I have it in what is in my opinion its very best configuration, I'm just over the Moon. Tutima may not be among the best known brands, or even among the best known German brands, but it definitely deserves more recognition than it gets. I've recently read that a new boss had been appointed by the Delecate family, and I sincerely hope he will successfully build upon that wonderful heritage. I sure will be watching. In the meantime, I'll be cherishing the two chronographs I am so fortunate to own.
For many years, I was unaware even of its existence. I grew up in the 1970s and the 1980s, and at the time a pilot watch meant one brand that through astute marketing had pretty much cornered the market: Breiting. So when I started flying in the mid-80s, I dreamt of offering myself one of their Navitimer models. I eventually did, burning all my savings on it, and I was happy, safe in the knowledge that I had a true pilot watch at my wrist.
It is years later, when the watch bug bit me hard, that I finally started broadening my horizons. I had developed a passion for a specific watch movement and therefore started collecting Lemania 5100 chronographs. At one point I had 26 of them in my collection, and it is this way that I stumbled upon one of Tutima's most iconic models, their Military Chronograph. This watch had been selected in 1985 as the official issued watch for Luftwaffe pilots, so this was the real deal in my book. So I naturally procured myself one.
That thing was built like a tank, and this stainless steel version felt like it weighed almost as much as one too. But it was so great that I immediately considered it as my "stranded on a desert island" watch, something so solid and dependable that it could take the abuse. It also got me interested in the history of the brand. Their history with German military pilots actually dated back to WW2 when they supplied the Luftwaffe with their first chronographs, just ahead of competing brand Hanhart. I also learned that they had an actual range of variants of their Military Chronograph, with many available in titanium. On top of that, they had reissued their old Flieger chronograph, first as a manual wind watch aesthetically very similar to the original WW2 model, but also as an automatic available in two flavors: with a 7750 in the Flieger F2, and with a Lemania 5100 in the Flieger F3. I knew I had to eventually get myself one of the latter.
During this period, I actually was working on a project to open a watch shop in Northern France. My business model would have been to represent lesser known brands offering great products at competitive prices, unburdened by the marketing expenses that major names were investing for better brand recognition. So in 2005, I travelled to Basel for that year's BaselWorld fair. There, I had arranged a series of meetings with a number of companies whose products I liked and, you guessed it, Tutima was among them. And while I often just met sales representatives, two brands allowed me to meet their boss. The first one was a bit of a disaster, and I won't name it. But Tutima was pure joy. I spent half an hour chatting with Dieter Delecate, the man who had had succeeded founder Ernst Kurtz in the 1960s, the latter managing to keep the brand alive in West Germany after the Soviets took over the company's home in Glashütte. Mr. Delecate was the driving force behind the Military Chronograph so he was a bit of a hero of mine. He was even more so after our meeting, as he offered great words of support for my project. Sadly, it never came to fruition when market research indicated that, past a pretty low price threshold, French consumers wanted recognized brand names. While successful in others places like Italy, my chosen concept was not the correct one for my country of residence.
A few years later, I finally managed to find that elusive Flieger F3 at the right price, and just like its more modern sibling, that Tutima was a revelation. It had presence, and felt noticeably better built that most of my other Lemania 5100 chronographs. It looked equally good on a strap or on its superb bracelet. In a nutshell, I loved it!
But a storm was brewing on the horizon. A long period of unemployment had depleted my financial reserves, and now I was fighting to keep a roof over my head and food on the table. My watches had to go. So I sold them, hoping to keep my most treasured ones safe from the cull, but ultimately failing. That period gave me heartbreak after heartbreak. And of course, both of my Tutima Chronographs found new homes in that painful process. I genuinely thought that this had put me off watches forever.
About a decade later, things changed again. In the meantime, I had succeeded in reacquiring a good measure of financial stability, and a properly managed watch budget seemed conceivable. My first priority was to track down and buy back my aforementioned Speedy Pro, and luckily its buyer still had it and was willing to let me buy it back at a fair price. That I did. Then tracked down my Dad's watch, a Breitling Cosmonaute, and this time too I struck gold with an understanding owner willing to part with it. But with these two back home, what was going to be my next move. One brand name seemed lit up with blinking neon letters in my mind: Tutima.
The Flieger F3 was first to make its return. Not my original watch this time, but I didn't care. I nabbed one great example on Chrono24 last year, and I've been enjoying the hell out of it since. It's just an amazing watch, and photos simply can't do it justice.
But I still had a serious itch to scratch. Remember the Military Chronograph? Well, I wanted another one of these too, but this time a slightly different model. First, I wanted one made out of titanium. But that was not all. Tutima had also made a "mission timer" variant for the ZUZ, the German border guards commandos. Apart from being good at their job, these guys must be some serious horology freaks, because they had previously had another watch made for them. It was by Sinn, and it is the legendary EZM1. So that Tutima, known under the name "Commando II" actually replaced the Sinn EZM1 on these dudes' wrists. It turns out that the military version and its civilian variant have some differences. The former has a rotating bezel borrowed from the TL pilot chronograph version while the latter doesn't. What they share is a much simplified dial with both running seconds and 24 hour registers jettisoned, and a much more discreet date window. That dial has a very eye-pleasing symmetry in my opinion, and I remember being absolutely mesmerized when I first saw a picture of one. So that's the one I wanted now.
Wanting is one thing, but finding is another. This is a pretty rare model, even in its civilian guise, and you don't find them every day. Ironically, I had been offered an excellent example here on this very forum two years previously, but at the time I was almost done saving for the return of my Speedmaster, having committed to this transaction. So I simply couldn't back out. This meant tracking down another one. After a few nights spent searching the internet, I had managed to spot 3 examples offered for sale. One was on eBay, but restricted to a North American transaction. It also was mounted on strap, so missing the original titanium bracelet, which I wanted. Another one was offered by a professional seller in... Vietnam! It had its titanium bracelet, but looked quite a bit worse for wear. And Vietnam is a bit too far from the beaten path for me. Thankfully, the third one seemed more attainable, being offered by a professional seller in Northern England. Apart from a small nick on the ultra-thin bezel surrounding the crystal and a minute hand showing discoloration, the watch seemed in excellent condition. After giving me a few months to save more money, I got in touch with the seller, negotiated the price a bit, and proceeded with payment.
While the watch was technically mine, I was unwilling to have it shipped to me. In this post-Brexit world, I would rather fetch things myself than rely upon any forwarder. So I decided to organize a little day-trip. First drive to Paris Charles de Gaulle airport where I would catch a flight to Manchester, then take a train to Bolton, and another one to Darwen and presto: I can meet the seller face-to-face, allowing him to hand-deliver my watch. That's exactly what I did this past Wednesday, and it was a very enjoyable experience. Not only did I finally get the watch I had been fancying for two decades, but I also had a nice 2 and a half hour chat with Ian, the Watches of Lancashire shop owner. He did show me a few of his other treasures, and we spent a nice moment sharing our common passion. On my way back to France, I couldn't help having this silly grin on my face each time I was looking at my new watch, and as you may imagine I did that a lot.
I know I still in full honeymoon mode, but I also know that this is not some short-lived infatuation. I've had this watch before, and loved it until the sad day events forced me to let it go. So now that I have it in what is in my opinion its very best configuration, I'm just over the Moon. Tutima may not be among the best known brands, or even among the best known German brands, but it definitely deserves more recognition than it gets. I've recently read that a new boss had been appointed by the Delecate family, and I sincerely hope he will successfully build upon that wonderful heritage. I sure will be watching. In the meantime, I'll be cherishing the two chronographs I am so fortunate to own.
Edited:
