The Breguet Marine-
The breguet marine in my opinion is the ultimate watch. Firstly it's waterproof (screwdown crown and tested to 100m), which is important for my as I frequently swim or fall into swimming pools drunk.
Secondly it is jn that Classic Breguet dress style. Breguet hands, only a big date complication and at a nice 39mm. It's a watch you can wear whilst kite surfing off your yacht in the med and then attend the Prince of Monaco's annual ball. It's a truly an all rounder watch. Close competitors are the aquaterra, datejust and the plain oyster perpetual.
Thirdly you are paying haute horology level money for a steel watch. This means you want the thing to be a work of art and not a mass produced piece of shit like a Rolex. The hands are heat treated to make them blue, which is a work of art in itself. The guilloche dial is solid gold and hand engraved, which again is a work of art. The combination of the blue steel hands and gold dial means the watch face is impenetrable to aging and won't rust or decay like other dials. The case is also hand decorated. The movement is obviously hand assembled and decorated with a solid gold rotor. Not even Patek Phillipe use decent dials anymore (the Nautilus's one is laquer on steel).
The drawbacks to the watch is that the movement is not "In house", is old and can't hack. Secondly Breguet is part of the search group, which on an emotional level takes something away from that feeling of a family or private owned watch company producing master pieces in a small Swiss workhouse somewhere. But at the end of the day a hell of a lot of hand made art goes into it and it is a lovely piece.
