The watch industry thrives on emotion and one of the strongest is nostalgia, which is baked into the storytelling of any watch brand that’s been around long enough to have any sort of history at all. The question of longevity can be a very loaded one, as a natural question which occurs I think fairly early on to enthusiasts and collectors, is which brand has been around the longest and as history is full of ups and downs, the answer is not always entirely clear (for the record I think Vacheron has the strongest claim as it has been, with name changes and variations in governance, around and producing watches since 1755 when Jean-Marc Vacheron set up in Geneva. Obviously there has been watchmaking in Switzerland for longer than that but if you are looking for a company which has been continuously in business for the longest Vacheron has a claim which is very hard to beat (and which is supported by physical documentation as well).

A question which occurred to me only recently — and this is much to my surprise as it seems an obvious thing to wonder and I’d never really thought about it before — is which watch has had the longest continuous production; by “watch” I mean particular watch model. This gets sticky fast since you have to define what you mean by “continuous production”. I would say at a minimum, it means a single model which has been in the brand’s catalog every year since the model was launched, up to the present day. This obviously narrows the field considerably although as we shall see the necessary technical evolution of watches and watchmaking can introduce some uncertainty about whether or not the modern version of a legacy design is really the same watch as it was at launch, but let’s look at some examples.

Rolex Submariner

One immediately obvious candidate is the Rolex Submariner, which was launched in 1953 and has been in the Rolex catalog ever since. This seems a pretty open-and-shut case and the modern Submariner is instantly recognizable as a modern version of the original watch although a great deal has changed technically. Among the most obvious changes were the switch from an aluminum to a ceramic bezel, various updates and improvements to the movement with the introduction of new calibers, subtle (or not so subtle if you are a hardcore Rolex Sub fan) changes to case proportions and dimensions; changes in crown size, changes in dial verbiage … in fact, there is hardly an aspect of the watch that has not changed since the launch although I think a claim of continuous production for seven decades is more defensible than not.

Breitling Navitimer

Another obvious candidate is the Breitling Navitimer. The Navitimer is of the same generation as the Submariner, having been launched the year before in 1952 and it has been a flagship if not the flagship of Breitling ever since. The design has proven very stable over the years — as much as if not even more so than the Sub — and though like the Sub it has been through a number of technical updates, including to the movement, the general layout and slide rule bezel make it instantly identifiable as largely the same watch as it was in the early 1950s.

Omega Speedmaster Professional

Then we have another child of the ’50s: the Omega Speedmaster Professional. The watch was launched in 1957 but here we have a slightly greater variation in design language from the original, which was the 2915 and which had the now famous and time-sanctified broad arrow hands, as well as a polished steel bezel. The version we now all think of as the Moonwatch, which like the original housed the column wheel lateral clutch caliber 321 based on the Lemania CH 27, was introduced as the 2998 in 1959 and the design has seen I think, arguably fewer variations over the years than the Sub or Navitimer, with the stick hands in the subdials introduced in the very early 1960s.

Where I think there is a slight chink in the Speedmaster’s armor when it comes to continuous production, is in the introduction of a co-axial movement, caliber 3861, in 2019. The preceding movements, calibers 861 and 1861, were direct descendants of the 321 albeit simplified, with flat balance springs rather than overcoils, and with a cam-operated switching system rather than the column wheel in the 321. What the 321/861/1861 did all have in common, however, was that they were flight qualified for all crewed space missions by NASA, the Speedmaster having been recertified in 1972.

The modern Moonwatch caliber 3861 is not that far off from the 1861 but it has been updated with a co-axial escapement and silicon balance spring and is therefore Master Chronometer/METAS certified, although not, as far as I know, recertified by NASA. Is it still the same watch? You could argue either side of the question but it feels like a bit more of a break in continuity than the movement updates we have seen in the Navitimer or Submariner.

Still all in all, I think these are very solid candidates for length of time in continuous production. The watch industry over the last 20 years has thrived more on novelty than not and a buzzy new introduction is generally valued more highly than a year after year commitment to a classic but I have always felt and often written that classics being classics for a reason, brands are well served by providing their fans with a real tangible connection to the past. God knows it works for Rolex.

Cartier Tank Louis Cartier

The oldest watch in arguably continuous production is I think very likely to be either the Santos-Dumont or the Cartier Tank, although I feel on more solid ground with the Tank as I am not sure if the Santos ever went on hiatus. The Tank, however, and specifically the Tank Louis Cartier, seems to have been around in essentially the same form as when the LC was first launched commercially in 1921. The current version is basically identical to the original except in size, and the movement, which is from Jaeger-LeCoultre, is the caliber MC 8971, a rebranded Jaeger caliber 846/1 and therefore a bit of a shoutout to Edmond Jaeger, who supplied movements to Cartier beginning in 1907. If we assume that the Tank LC specifically has been in the catalog since 1921 we are talking about 103 years, which I think is a number hard to beat in terms of actual continuity.

These four watches would form an unimpeachable collection just taken in themselves but they are also an indication of the power of a brands’ respecting its own legacy. There are some other and slightly later classics of course, including the Patek Nautilus (although with the phasing out of the steel 5711 there is a loss of continuity in a direct link to the original, if not the design) the Patek Aquanaut (1997, and still available in steel, and, at $24,750 a relative bargain to boot) and of course, the Royal Oak Jumbo. With the latter once again there is a sense of interruption in continuity thanks to the discontinuation of the ultra-thin caliber 2121 and the introduction of the 7121, but if we don’t fault any of the other watches on our short list for movement updates, we can’t fault the Royal Oak either, at least not in fairness.

It is nice to know however that there are those watches out there which still constitute direct connections to their origins and to the deeper history of the brands that made them. To know when you look at (for instance) the Tank LC on your wrist and know that it is basically what Louis Cartier would have seen on his more than a century ago, is a feeling you cannot duplicate with a relaunch or reproduction.