THE BLACK STAR RISES

There’s a delicious irony in military watches that’s often lost because the genre implies usage during armed conflict. Despite the needs created by wars for the development of watches suitable to the task, peacetime has also yielded military timepieces that have deservingly developed cults. Their desirability is a direct result of the sheer functionality that formed the design. Blancpain’s Fifty Fathoms, IWC’s Mk 11, the Leonidas CP-2, Zenith’s “A. Cairelli” — all were conceived for branches of the military during periods which were (comparatively) free of wars, but they are hero watches nonetheless.

Among the greatest with appeal to collectors, thanks to their youth relative to aged Second World War issue, are those of a genre one might dub “Cold War Classics”. This category commenced with the “Dirty Dozen”, born at the end of the