Longines Hydro Conquest L3.740.4.56.6

While £1,000 won’t get you the best watch—not by a long shot—it can still get you a good watch, and even a great one. Choose carefully, do the research, and you’ll find something worth hanging on to—or you can cheat and let us suggest something instead.

You’re one of two people. You either look at vintage watches as a challenge and an adventure, jumping in and reaping the many pleasures that are to be had by purchasing a watch that comes from an era when mechanical was current tech; or you’re someone who eyes them with caution, hesitant at the idea of owning a watch older than you are. If you’re the latter, it’s understandable—not everyone wants to take that particular leap—but it’s a shame to miss out. There is a third option however: cheat.

So, edging along the M25 in slow moving traffic isn’t exactly the same as soaring through the skies at the dawn of the aviation age—but with the Longines Avigation Chronograph Type A7 1935, you can at least get lost in the daydream every time you look at your wrist. The watch draws inspiration from a pilot’s chronograph made for the US Army Air Force in 1935, and is not only a smart-looking watch from a premium Swiss watchmaker, but it’s also very affordable.

The idea of a military watch tends to render something a false impression in the mind's eye. When we think of military equipment, we think of armour-plated battle monsters, brim full of weaponry and gadgetry to strike fear into the hearts of the enemy, but the reality is something quite different. Like anything designed to operate where the user is in serious danger of losing their life, the brief is simplicity, quite literally. Hardware should do its job in the least complicated way possible, no more no less, whether its purpose is to be a bristling mega-tank or a straightforward wristwatch. In the arena of war, failing equipment is not an option.