Zenith Vintage 55 Watch

by Ariel Adams (RSS feed)
Dec 19th 2009 at 12:02PM

As predicted, here is yet another "vintage" watch model from a popular Swiss luxury watch brand (that is coincidentally French owned). Zenith underwent new direction recently and this may be one of the first models to stem from that change. There are high hopes for the brand that was for the last few years making interesting, but unbuyable watches that lacked soul or clear purpose.

This new model is certainly a change, but I don't think it is for the better. the Zenith Vintage 55 watch has all the right things in the right places but nevertheless feels uninspired. There are better options with a very similar design from brands such as Chopard, Union Glashutte, Patek Philippe, Vacheron Constantin, and others. The Vintage 55 simply lacks the character that people are looking for when buying a new watch meant to evoke feelings of some amorphous "retro past." At least it is somewhat trendy with a now "in" vintage look and brown dial.

The watch is in a 40mm wide 18k rose gold case with matching hands and hour markers. A tasteful subsidiary seconds dial and dauphine hands meld logically with the arrow hour markers that have one of the watch's only unique features - center "cuts" in the indexes. A single Arabic numeral is used for 12 o'clock to orient the dial. Likely the most enticing aspect of the Vintage 55 watch is the Zenith caliber 689 automatic (with 22k gold rotor) in-house made movement that is very thin at just 4mm thick and is COSC chronometer certified. Unless the price for the Zenith Vintage 55 watch is particularly inviting, I just don't see what makes the watch differ from the competition unless you are a "Zenith only" person. As one more possible incentive (or realization on Zenith's behalf), the watch will be as a limited edition of 100 pieces.

Ariel Adams publishes the luxury watch review site aBlogtoRead.com.

Tags: 55, brown, chronometer, limited edition, LimitedEdition, rose gold, RoseGold, Vintage, watch, Zenith