• April 3, 2014
  • Saanto
  • 0

So far, I’ve shunned Tissot finding them either too old-fashioned or excessively colorful. Not the vintage Tissot, though; but here I’ll be making a statement most watch-experts shall frown upon. My firmest belief – The SWATCH takeover gave Tissot at least a more contemporary look and attracted a whole new demographic. Earlier, Swiss meant either the finest in upper crust or something very much ultra-male – now, not all of us are like that. I might be a guy in funky clothing and still want to sport a tough, funky Swiss in a peppy color tone and definitely at a moderate price. I see nothing better than the Tissot T-Race Chronograph fitting in. 

It could be the grey spots craving colors – okay, if you doubt that, let’s see if Tissot is a trustable brand at all. I keep track (and copies) of watch-related news; I put it up from one of those:

Tissot, two-time winner of the International Timing Competition in the Classic – Enterprise category

The prizes of the International Timing Competition were awarded Thursday, October 24th [2013] at the Time Museum of Besançon, in the name of precision perfection and expertise in the watchmaking arena, specifically in the domain of contemporary mechanical timing. Tissot SA was already awarded first place in 2011 for the “Classic – Enterprise” category. This year, the brand proved itself again as an expert in its field by winning it once more, in addition to also receiving second place. [Read the full story here]

Now, Tissot certainly doesn’t dazzle with terms like co-axial, regulateur or double-tourbillon or whatsoever (let’s keep things short; we can discuss those technicalities some other time). T-Touch, on the other hand, sounds very soft – in fact, too soft even to make a moderately strong impression. But it controls all that are considered as tactile – compasses, barometers, altimeters, thermometers, speed and the likes. Or even Powermatic 80 automatic caliber; it doesn’t have the punch. Unless it sounds good, we are not interested.

However, those are more recent; among old examples, the 1950’s Visodate (this is how it looks now) and the 1970’s Tissot Astrolon (Caliber 2250) are good ones to look at. The Visodate integrated a date function to an automatic movement while the caliber 2250 was very much unconventional – the greater part of it was plastic. A great idea it was but timing was not right and poor marketing strategies made Tissot withdraw. But it’s still in use in the analog quartz clocks.

My personal choices among the new lot are the Tissot PRC 200 Quartz and the Tissot T-Sport V8 chronographs and given that I’m sort of a chronograph-freak, you may soon find me partying heartily on the occasion of a purchase.

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