Bring a Loupe An Omega Ranchero, A Cartier Santos Ghost, An Audemars Piguet Perpetual Calendar, And A ZRC Grands Fonds

Next week is October. October. Even for someone who literally has an ongoing documentation of each week through this column, that is mind-blowing. Scorekeeping last week's picks: the Omega Suverän sold for 9,600 DKK, the Universal Genève Cabriolet for 2,400 CHF, the Vacheron Constantin Overseas remains available, and the Zenith chrono for €3,000.

Hermès' watches hardly go unnoticed, but I love that some of its models still fly a good bit under the radar. The Cape Cod, for instance, is fantastic—interesting and elegant without being too weird. This one, the Grandes Heures, features an hour wheel that lets the hour hand travel differently depending on its dial position, covering more distance from 9-10 than from 10-11; while that's not any foundation-shaking complication or horological advancement, it is, inarguably, very cool. 

While the breadth of variations makes it hard to argue for any Datejust being superior, I'd argue the 'boiler gauge' models deserve consideration in the top tier, and this one looks fantastic. I somehow went from never having seen the Omega Seamaster ref. 196.0054 to spending an embarrassing amount of time looking into it, which is my very public plea for help and for someone else (anyone) to buy this so I may again get some rest. Finally, I highlighted a fantastic Alpina Gruen Techni Quadron a while back, and if you (like me) have been haunted by it, here's your chance.

The Omega Ranchero—around for an eyeblink at the end of the 1950s—is a strange watch to try to access simply because it is, from my view, so self-evidently excellent that it's hard to believe it wasn't ever universally lauded. It's a 36mm steel-cased watch with a dial bearing more than a little similarity to its catalogue brethren, the Railmaster and Seamaster, and hands that look lifted from the Speedmaster. In many ways, the Ranchero was an all-of-the-above entry-level watch for those who wanted an alternative to the Master lines.

Yet that's not quite fair, either, because the watch really is less. Manual-wound rather than automatic, with 30m of water resistance versus more for the rest of the Masters, and lacking an external bezel, the Ranchero, too, was supposedly a victim of its own name (Ranchero means "ranch hand" in Spanish, and served as a preview of the danger for corporations insufficiently considerate about how their names would register in foreign markets).

The overwhelming majority of Rancheros were black-dialed (some sources claim only 20% of the models had white dials), but even if the white dial on this example was common, this one's worth a close look. Zoom in on that first picture. Sure, the crystal's scuffed, but you can clearly see the Omega symbol above the dial's centre, meaning this thing either got, at some point in the past, a correct Omega replacement crystal, or (more likely, considering the condition of the rest of the watch) that's the original crystal.

Most other aspects of this example make it clear the watch is fairly untouched. The watch is certainly well-worn, but doesn't seem polished. There's more than a little wrist cheese on the caseback, and I'm fairly confident that the crown's original. Admittedly, the dial could have been redone at some point, but if so, an absolute artist did it. I'd put money on this being what it appears to be: an unmessed-with example of a watch so unpopular that a bunch of them got "transformed" by Swedish watchmakers, launching a sort of early modded watch, the Seachero. This Ranchero goes to auction on October 1st in France, with an estimate of €2,000-3,000.

I'll leave it to someone else to trace the etymology of using "ghost" to describe watches. In my case, I noted it maybe a decade ago, used infrequently, to describe black bezels that had faded so the white/silver/gray print lost contrast. Around the same time, certain Datejusts got called "ghost" for their grey dials and white paint. In both cases, the name's logic comes from the fact that, in the right light and at the right angle, the text is almost apparitional, spookily disappearing at certain angles.

You likely already know the story: Louis Cartier created a watch for his aviator pal Alberto Santos-Dumont, which established a template for a model line that'd become iconic over the coming century. While there's plenty to recommend in the earlier models, Cartier's 1978 refresh of the line set how we think of the model today, especially with the screws on the bezel and bracelet.

The Santos line seems inexhaustibly daunting, so let's leave any more historical work for another time. The references 2960 (stainless steel or gold) and 2961 (two-tone) were introduced in 1980 and powered by mechanical (rather than quartz) movements. There were plenty of dial options, including the standard Roman-numeral white dial you're already picturing, along with a burgundy one. And then there's also a lovely, vertically brushed grey dial, like the one on this Cartier Santos Ghost.

This particular example is as good as it gets. Sure, the stainless steel 2960 is equally lovely, but there's something thrilling about the gold bezel and bracelet screws. Yes, the watch shows evidence of wear, as you'd expect for something 43 years old (including personalisation on the back of the bracelet itself), and we've all got different appetites for wear, but goodness, the thing looks wonderful. The original brushing is there. The dial and hands are flawless. Even the bit of oxidation on the gold bezel looks great. It's not huge, but at 29mm, it's plenty. The fact that it comes with its original paperwork is gravy.

This Cartier—with an estimate of €3,600-5,000—is part of a live auction that runs from the 1st to the 3rd of October in the Netherlands, and please, avail yourself of the catalogue, featuring 300 watches, many of them just extraordinarily cool (Another ghost Cartier Santos, this one round! A quartz Speedy! AP Star Wheel! 1133B Monaco!)

Negatives about this Audemars Piguet first. It's not quite a true perpetual calendar, since there's no way to track the leap year. There's a mark on the dial on the 0 in the hour marker at 10. The watch shows wear picked up over the last quarter century, and doesn't come with its original box and papers (though it does include its 18k AP buckle). If you're looking for reasons to dismiss this watch, there are a few legitimate reasons.

However, if you can clear those modest hurdles, this thing is pretty fantastic. The Edward Piguet collection featured rectangular cases and, until they were (along with the Jules Audemars collection) phased out in the 2000s, represented the "Classical Contemporary" models offered by the Maison. The line offered repeaters and tourbillons and was where you'd find yourself should you, in the 1990s, have found yourself in the market for a thin, complicated watch from one of the big three.

This example, reference 25682BA, is in generally excellent condition aside from the notes above. The dial with Breguet numerals looks excellent aside from the mark at 10, and while the watch has wear, the 18k case certainly doesn't look polished. Plus, this watch offers the benefit of being not only fairly uncommon, but generally under-discovered.

Maybe there's some corner of the watch internet full of people frothing at the mouth for neo-vintage complicated AP offerings from the 1990s and 2000s, but this model (or the actual QP, ref 25799) remains direly under-known. Being auctioned in Florida on the 30th, with an estimate of US$8,000-10,000, this has already been bid up to US$5,500 at time of writing.

This is one of those watches about which it seems not the least bit consequential that it was developed for a specific use for a specific group. The ZRC Grands Fonds was issued to French clearance divers from 1960 till 1995, and if you're anxious to scratch that cosplaying itch, feel free. But that aspect of the watch is, at least to me, totally immaterial when you just look at the watch.

This ZRC Grands Fonds is just cool. It has aspects that situate it in a diver lineage, of course, but there's enough weirdo stuff going on that it feels like an entirely left-field offering. Start with the almost minimalist bezel, which you need about ten seconds to look at and consider before understanding. There is, of course, the huge knurled crown at 6, and while I'm sure that, for a fantastically small subset of humans, the placement of the crown is a legitimately critical issue, for the rest of us desk-sitting land-dwellers, such matters have effectively zero functional value. Excitingly, this example comes with its original bracelet, itself uncommon enough to note.

And then there's the dial, which has faded to a fetching brown. Pair that with the gigantic hands and lollipop seconds hand, and you've got as appealing a vintage dive watch as you could hope for. This watch sells at an auction on the 28th of September in Paris, with an estimate of €2,000-3,000.