When the 341-page coffee table book A Comprehensive Guide to Vintage Swiss Watches by Aashdin Billimoria lands on my desk one morning, I go through the Preface and Index-there are 19 chapters or categories of watches—and skip to, by force of habit, the Epilogue. Here the author writes, "With every beat, your vintage watches whisper tales of the past, inviting you to partake in the beauty of bygone moments....let the resonance of the ticking watches linger, for it is a reminder that time, much like these vintage treasures, is to be cherished, celebrated and savoured with every passing second." A few days later, when I asked the author about the way he rounded off the book, which belies its functional name, he says simply, "I am very emotional about watches, it's to another league.
“Watches are prime [for me], then comes everything else. And mostly vintage, because a vintage watch has a soul, which a new watch doesn't.” For Billimoria, it's a learning that has come from 40 years of watch collecting. Born into a family of collectors-his grandfather, father, and uncle were all watch lovers-the Mumbai-based author, historian, and archivist received his first watches when he was six; a Titoni Airmaster and a Favre Leuba Twin Power. "One of my earliest memories with watches is when my uncle and father put them on my wrists, at my [Parsi] initiation ceremony. Watches are given to you then, and usually it is a single watch, but I distinctly remember both of them making me wear a watch on my right and left hand. So, I have been double-wristing since then," he says with a laugh.
The love for watches grew at an early age for Billimoria, and he has been dedicated to learning and understanding this world since then. Growing up in a family of collectors had its perks-buying watches was serious business, and there were constant discussions on timepieces and information available via books and subscribed magazines and audio reviews; eventually the Internet opened up newer avenues of learning. Now, that knowledge gleaned over the past four decades, 20 of them as an archivist, has been distilled into a rather personal book-A Comprehensive Guide to Vintage Swiss Watches sheds light on a vast variety of vintage watches from Billimoria's collection.
"About 90 per cent of the watches in the book are mine. In fact, I had to buy quite a few only for the book, which I sourced from all over the world," says Billimoria. "I had decided long back that I wanted to put all the knowledge in my brain to paper; a book was like a feather in my cap.
Initially, I had thought about writing a small book but eventually I had to go deeper and deeper into the subject." The book features chapters like 'Wrist Alarms', 'Patina', 'Official Timekeepers of the Summer Olympic Games', 'Chronographs', 'Double-Signed Watches', 'Civil Aviation Watches, and lesser known, delightful ones on 'Presentation Watches', 'Commemorative Watches', 'Watches That Grow on You', 'Character Watches', and 'Country Specific Watches', whose content can perhaps not be found on the world wide web. The book features images of watches along with short writeups that present their historical context and what sets them apart.
The book is rife with horological history and rare models that would delight any vintage watch lover. Like the 18K solid-gold Gerald Genta-designed Universal Genève Polerouter Day Date with the Scandinavian Airlines Systems logo on the dial, made specially for the US market. These were gifted to the American top brass of the airline.
Powered by the micro rotor Calibre 72, this particular watch was gifted to a J Mc Closkey for his 20 years of service to the SAS. Then there is the Jaeger-LeCoultre Futurematic, the world's first watch without a winding crown-its hand-setting was done via a coin-shaped crown on the back of the case that had to be slid, not lifted. It also featured a revolutionary six-hour power reserve indicator sub-dial at 9-the movement stopped running when there were six hours of power left.
Two other watches that feature in the book are the Junghans Olympic 'Bullhead' and the Longines Conquest Monopusher Chronograph, both launched to commemorate the 1972 Munich Olympics. This was the only Olympics in history to have two timekeepers from different countries. The book also features historical images and advertisements, which Billimoria has sourced from his archives and scanned, and trivia like how Eastern Watch, Bombay, at Flora Fountain, was the authorised dealer of Lemania in colonial India. "I did not know that until I got this watch. So, I also put an Eastern Watch advertisement next to where my double-signed Lemania Eastern Watch Bombay is featured in the book." So, was it challenging to put together a book like this?
"Hardly," Billimoria says. "Putting it together couldn't be easier. You have that experience of 20 years, knowing the history of everything, being an archivist. The chapters kept increasing, that's all," he says. Four years in the making, the tome has been photographed, designed, and published by the author himself. This is not Billimoria's first book. In 2023, he released Nivada Grenchen Antarctic-The History of a Legend and earlier this year, Nivada Depthmaster, a comprehensive guide on the groundbreaking dive watch-both books, written and designed by Billimoria, were commissioned by the brand. "I had been featured on the Fratello website for my Omega Speedmaster, and Nivada's CEO Guillaume Laidet called me soon after, and asked if I could write a book on the Nivada Antarctic.
The next day we had a Zoom meeting where we worked out the nitty-gritty of the book and then I started on it." Both the books have been inducted into the library of the Horological Society of New York and the National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors USA, with the latest work on vintage watches soon to have this distinction as well.
The Collector
The watches featured in the book are only a part of Billimoria's personal collection consisting of a few hundred watches. Studying watches since he was 14, Billimoria also started collecting early-one of his first watches was a Hegde and Golay Pink Panther watch that his uncle bought for him at the Asiatic departmental store in Mumbai. In class three, he was gifted a West End Watch Sowar Prima, which he wore throughout his school days. His uncle also got him Alba during the Quartz Crisis, his first quartz watch. Over the years, Billimoria added to his collection, first hunting watches at flea markets in the country, and then hard-hunting on the Internet on watch forums and e-commerce sites, and getting them to India through friends and family. "As a collector, I, very simply, buy watches that bring a smile to my face. If I really like something, I will hunt for it for months or even a few years, and make sure | get that watch," he says. He recollects how he acquired the Munich Olympics Longines around 15 years ago. "I wanted that watch desperately because its caseback has the logo of the Munich Olympics. I finally found it on Chrono24, which had just started. So, I contacted the seller directly, who was in Oslo." He also recalls how he picked up a full-gold Rolex 'Wide Boy' Day Date with an exotic day wheel in Italian from a seller in Tirana, Albania.
"People don't really buy from places like this," he says. "A Wide Boy, called so because of its thick indexes, is very tough to get." Another favourite hunt story is that of how he acquired his 6138 Seiko Yachtman 'UFO. "I wanted a watch from my month and year of birth-Aug 1973—and the only brand that gives the exact month and year of their watches is Seiko. To my luck, I came across the 6138 Seiko Yachtman 'UFO' on eBay. It was located in Argentina. From a friend's account which I operate, I bid on the watch and won." He also fondly recalls how he picked up vintage Raketa Big Zeros with box and papers. "I found it on eBay, around two years ago. The watches were in Ukraine. Imagine finding a Soviet watch in Ukraine! I bought one, but then the seller sent me a WhatsApp later, asking if I wanted another one at a cheaper rate. She asked me to visit her Etsy shop, and said she would waive off the platform fee. On her Etsy site were some fantastic new old stock Soviet watches with box and papers and they are still available. And I sent a picture of that watch to David Henderson-Stewart, the CEO of Raketa."
Billimoria makes it a point to buy watches from whichever country he visits. In April this year, when he travelled to Switzerland for Watches and Wonders, he picked up a Vulcain Nautical. He carried on to Prague, from where he picked up a vintage Prim Diplomat, a model that he had been looking for. A four-hour trip to Bratislava from Prague allowed Billimoria to get his hands on a rare Excelsior Park powered by an EP40 movement from the 1940s. "It's a chronograph from the Golden Age of chronographs," he says. "It is virtually NOS [new old stock] condition, unused, and has torched indices, and a column wheel movement." Breitling is Billimoria's favourite brand, and he owns vintage, neo-vintage, and contemporary pieces from it.
Fred Mandelbaum, a Breitling historian and consultant with the brand, is his dear friend and the two often spend time discussing watches. In fact, the last Breitling that Billimoria acquired, the ice blue Navitimer with the AOPA logo, was on Mandelbaum's recommendation.
"My father was on his deathbed, and knew about Fred and my love for the new AOPA. He asked me to take Fred's advice and buy one," shares Billimoria. "When I asked Fred why he was suggesting the ice blue version—I had never seen a similar dial—he showed me a 1972 Breitling Top Time 'Long Playing' Ref. 815 with an identical dial. So, there was a legacy, and I ended up buying the watch."
Not one for trends, Billimoria happily eschews brands like Rolex for watches that have a story to tell. So, while he does own 10 Rolexes, they are in his collection for different reasons, like the GMT-Master II that has Luminova and the words 'Swiss' on the dial. Or his Submariner 'Bluesy' from 1983, whose dial now has a purple patina. Favourites from his collection include the Jardur Bezelmeter with a Valjoux 72 movement; a Heuer Calculator he picked up from Singapore about a decade ago; and the Omega Flightmaster. "It is the only pilot's watch ever made by Omega, and one with an EPSA Super Compressor case. It is made of Swedish steel, which is vacuum-compressed to a level that it becomes tough to penetrate." And even though it has been such a long journey of collecting, he feels that his preferences haven't changed. "I buy what I like." So which timepiece is he looking for next? "The Vacheron Constantin 222 is definitely a grail watch. But what I am busy with at the moment is my fourth book. Perhaps it is not surprising that it is on quirky watches."
A Comprehensive Guide to Vintage Swiss Watches by Aashdin K. Billimoria is priced at '9,700. To purchase a copy of the book, the author can be contacted via his Instagram handle @aashdin.billimoria.
Images: Courtesy Aashidin Billimoria
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