Rethinking the Meaning of Grail Watches

If there is one term that gets used too often in the watch collection hobby it is the term "Grail". This term is typically used when talking about a collector's ultimate object of obsession and doesn't really factor in rarity, but more so relies on price as the barrier to acquiring this watch. After acquiring three of my own grail watches in recent years, I now have a different take on the meaning of a grail watch.

The term has been persistent in the watch world for as long as I can remember. When you first start collecting naturally your watch budget will probably be at its lowest for your time as a watch collector. This is due to wanting to just dip your toes into watch collecting instead of jumping in head first. Also typically as you age you tend to earn more and hopefully have more disposable income available for hobbies such as watch collecting.



Typically a grail watch is what a watch collector sees as the final watch to add to their collection that will complete their personal journey in watch collecting. Grails are normally far out of reach for a collector to acquire in the short term and pose a significant challenge to acquire. I do feel that the term grail is misused and I'll try to explain my thoughts on the matter as we proceed.

Now it has been a long time since I first started collecting watches and I can't remember if I had a grail watch in my mind. I think instead I always had a watch that I would like to move up to. This would mean having to sell my current watch first to be able to fund the purchase of the next step up timepiece.

For example I would have to sell my Seamaster 300 GMT to have the ability to purchase a Seamaster Planet Ocean. The Planet Ocean would then need to be sold to fund my IWC GST Chronograph Automatic. I guess back in my early collecting days I didn't have my head in the clouds and wasn't looking at watches that were past my disposable income.



I remember the first watches that I lusted over and were out of my price range were the IWC GST Aquatimer 2000 titanium and original release of the IWC Big Pilot 5002. These watches were two or three times more expensive than my GST Chronograph and that jump in price at the time was unfathomable. I guess back in the day those watches could have been considered my first grails based solely on their cost to acquire versus my income.

Before we get much more into what a grail watch is and how the terminology is used let's first take a look at what a "Grail" actually means outside of the watch world.

There are two real definitions of what a grail is, first is the literal grail being the Holy Grail. In Arthurian legend the Holy Grail was the cup used by Jesus Christ at the Last Supper. It is believed that the Grail was also used to collect the blood of Christ at the crucifixion and holds miraculous powers like healing and eternal youth.

The non-literal definition means a quest or seeking something highly sought after and achieving something that is extremely difficult to achieve. It is the ultimate prize after an extremely long and hard quest. Finally a grail is almost always unattainable.

For as long as history and stories have been recorded people have gone on quests to discover certain grails. The most well known is of course the search for the Holy Grail. Groups including the Knights Templar, royal families and most recently the Nazis during World War II have all searched for the Holy Grail and come up empty handed.



In the middle ages Alchemists sought out the Philosopher's Stone which was believed to turn base metals into gold and could also grant immortality. Just like the Holy Grail the Philosopher's Stone was never found and today is best remembered for being the title of a Harry Potter book.

Grails were not always tangible items but were also locations. Explorers have been searching for El Dorado (the city of gold), the Fountain of Youth and the Lost City of Atlantis for centuries. Finding any of these places would certainly be the culmination of a lifelong search and immortalize the finder in the annals of history.

Thinking about some of the most famous grails in history, both physical items and locations, points out one very obvious thing about grails. They either don't exist or they are all but impossible to find. So why did I bring up these well known grails when writing an article about watch collecting? The answer is rather simple, I feel the term "grail" is grossly overused in the watch world and I am just as guilty of using it as others.



Of course there are no watches as mythical and rare as the actual Holy Grail, but if you listen to collectors talk there seems to be endless grails that they revere just as much. Before I had the fortune to acquire my personal grail watches I referred to a few watches as such.

When I built a website for a watch reseller I suddenly found myself with access to a large inventory of pre-owned watches that I had access to wear at pretty much any time. Through being allowed to spend so much wrist time with such a large variety of watches I found that I really preferred Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore watches over any other watch. The watch just fit my wrist well and I loved all the limited edition pieces that were being released. At the time the Royal Oak Offshore Juan Pablo Montoya in titanium was my favorite of the bunch. The resale price of the Montoya was two to three times more than its retail price of around $20,000 so secondhand they were going for between $40,000 and $60,000.

You could say that the Montoya was my first grail watch. At the time of being in my early twenties there really wasn't any feasible way that I could afford a watch so deep in the five figures. My wife and I had just got married and had bought our second house which was much more expensive than our first house. The idea of the Montoya seemed so far off that I just classified it as a grail and moved on.



The story of the Montoya doesn't end there, but it does run into about a 14 year hiatus as I fell out of love with watches and never really thought about the Montoya again. When I found my love for watches again after the start of Covid I once again fell in love with the Montoya. The thought of owning one was still a pretty distant dream for me since we had now spent so much of our personal money on renovating a 100 year old house, as well as doing the same an even older commercial building and starting a brewpub.

Fast forward another few years and suddenly I was presented with an offer to acquire the Montoya after trading some previously programming work for it. A few days later the Montoya arrived and a nearly twenty year wish of owning the watch had come to an end. Now remember this was a watch I thought would be my "be all end all" watch for nearly two decades. So did the moment I unboxed the Montoya have the same effect on me as a group of explorers picking up the Holy Grail after searching a lifetime for it? Hardly…

Don't get me wrong, the watch was amazing and was everything I remembered it being, even better it was mine now and not something we just had in inventory that I was allowed to wear. So did having the Montoya in my collection and completing my grail quest end my want and desire for collecting more watches? No, it just made me think of what my next grail would be.



The next grail was the IWC Big Pilot Perpetual Calendar. I had always loved the Big Pilot and like the Offshores had worn many over the years. I even got to a point where I had two Big Pilots in my collection. Owning two very similar watches meant that I ended up preferring one over the other, with one not being worn often. Each of these Big Pilots was worth about half of what a Big Pilot Perpetual Calendar was worth, so I started looking around to see if there was a dealer that would trade my two Big Pilots on a Big Pilot Perpetual Calendar. After a few weeks I was able to find a dealer who agreed to do the trade.

The Big Pilot Perpetual Calendar had always been this unobtanium watch to me. The only time I had ever seen one in person was when I met with John Mayer to potentially purchase his titanium limited edition. Even with access to so many watches, a Big Pilot Perpetual Calendar had never come in and I had never worn one before. This was always a secondary grail to the Montoya and after the Montoya was in my collection it became my new grail and obsession.

As luck would have it, the Big Pilot Perpetual Calendar Top Gun entered my collection just a month after I acquired the Montoya. Once again this was not like the feeling explorers would get stumbling on to the Fountain of Youth. Don’t get me wrong, the watch is amazing and better than I thought it would be, but it was not a moment of ultimate accomplishment and achievement for me. It was at this point I started to get a feeling that acquiring a grail watch wasn't really the life changing moment I had thought it would be for such a long period of time.



The final time I deemed a watch a "grail" came a few months later when I started obsessing over the Blancpain Fifty Fathoms and in particular the 500 Fathoms limited edition. This was a newer grail that came up after starting Hourstriker and becoming more and more familiar with the history of the Fifty Fathoms and its importance in the watch world. The 500 Fathoms was just a more extreme version that fit my likes more than the standard issue Fifty Fathoms.

The 500 Fathoms was only my personal watch grail for a short period of time. I feel that less than six months passed from the first time I knew I had to have the watch until it became a part of my collection. During that time I spent every day looking at dealer listings waiting for the perfect model to pop up. As fate would have it, in time a great example of the 500 Fathoms popped out for an unbeatable price.

When the watch arrived it was even better in real life than it was in pictures and videos online. To me it was the perfect example of the legendary Fifty Fathoms collection. Yet again I did not have the same feeling a diver would have as they approached the Lost City of Atlantis after searching for it their entire life. Another stunning watch that was everything I hoped for, but it didn't seem to define a pivotal moment in my life.



These three examples of my personal grail watches illustrate that in the case of the Montoya and Big Pilot Perpetual that even wanting what seemed like unobtainable watches for two decades and then finally acquiring them didn't fulfill anything near finding one of history's long lost grails. The feeling I got from acquiring these watches made me really question why we brand watches grails and what that really means. It also made me wonder what watches should really be called grails.

The Montoya was limited to 1,000 pieces in titanium and the 500 Fathoms was limited to 500 pieces, while the Big Pilot Perpetual Calendar Top Gun was limited production. All three are long out of production and you can't just walk into a boutique and buy one. So you could say they were relatively scarce. There are currently 21 Montoyas, 9 Top Gun Perpetuals and 8 500 Fathoms for sale on Chrono24. This means they are somewhat tough to get, but if you have the funds available you could get a good example of each sent overnight to you.

Does that ease of availability really mean any of my "grail" watches were actually grails in the first place? I'd say that the ease of acquisition disqualifies them all from grail status. I'm sure if you told nations or empires that searched endlessly for the Holy Grail that if they spent a certain amount they could own it, that much if not all of its lore would be lost.



So what are these grail watches then? I would say that instead of grails, they are foundation pieces. Although these watches were lusted and obsessed over for decades, as soon as the means to obtain them became available they were in my collection in a matter of days if that. Also the luster they had when they were being dreamed of faded once they were in hand. I do love each of these pieces and plan on keeping all three forever, but something is lost when dream becomes reality.

I would say a foundation piece is a watch in your collection that serves as the keystone. It is the watch that will stay indefinitely in your collection and something that you build the rest of you collection around. While other pieces come and go, this piece stays a constant. The price of entry probably means that this watch will only be added down the line and you might end up selling off other similar pieces that previously filled the void of not owning this piece.

In my opinion these three watches serve as the best examples of land, air and sea watches. I don't see myself preferring a racing chronograph more than the Montoya, a pilot's watch more than the Big Pilot Perpetual Calendar or a diver more than the 500 Fathoms. I would say I could see preferring another diver in terms of everyday wearability and function to the 500 Fathoms, but not as an overall package heritage included.



In my collection these three watches really do act as foundation pieces that I continue to build my collection around. They are also centerpieces of the collection and really those that have the most meaning to me. I'm most proud to share the stories that come along with these watches and tend to show them the most. Also being such special pieces to me, they typically don't get worn as often as other watches in my collection. Each one is an awesome watch and for a period of time, each was a "grail" to me.

So then what do I consider a true grail watch? I feel to be considered a grail you shouldn't be able to just pull out your credit card and order the watch instantly. For example, I know a ton of collectors currently consider a stainless steel Rolex Daytona to be the ultimate grail watch. While there aren't concrete numbers on how many stainless steel Daytonas are produced each year, it's safe to say there are tens of thousands of these pieces produced each year and that's not even counting the hundreds of thousands already produced. It might take a few years to be able to get one from a boutique or authorized dealer at retail price, but you could have one tomorrow from a secondhand dealer if you didn't mind paying a markup that is growing smaller and smaller by the day. Not really grail worthy in my opinion.

Ok so what then would qualify as a grail? I really think a watch has to be beyond rare either being in condition or total number produced. Going back to the Daytona, while a modern stainless steel Daytona might not be grail worthy, something like the Paul Newman 6241 Daytona would be. With only around 2,300 made in stainless steel decades ago, this really isn't a watch you can source so easily. Of those 2,300 many have been lost, destroyed or just will never go up for sale. This makes the ability to acquire a good example relatively hard.



The example of the Paul Newman Daytona is definitely on the extreme end of the scale where you are talking about an extremely desirable watch, in the Daytona, that had very low production numbers as well. This naturally makes the watch very expensive, but not all true grails need to be six figure plus watches. The watch in my collection that probably fits my definition of a grail watch the best is something I kind of fell into and wasn't all that expensive.

I had always been obsessed with the IWC GST Aquatimer 2000 in titanium and a few years ago I started looking for one. By the time I started looking for a GST Aquatimer the watch had already appreciated nicely and most were a bit more than I wanted to spend. After a few months of looking one popped up for sale at a very low price. While in the pictures the watch looked pretty rough, it was a full set and even came with a full set of bracelet links. Most of the GST Aquatimers I saw for sale were from Japan and didn't even come with enough links to fit my 7.25" wrist. On top of that, none of the watches were complete sets.

I really do my homework before I purchase a watch and the GST Aquatimer 2000 was no exception. I spent a few days going back and forth with the dealer selling the watch and came to learn a few interesting things about the watch. First the seller used to be an authorized dealer for IWC and sold this exact watch new in 1999. Even more interesting is that original owner kept the watch the entire time and ended up selling it back to the same dealer a few weeks prior. Finally the watch had never been serviced or polished, which is a true rarity and it even had the original non-service crown intact. 1999 also happens to be my high school graduation year, while not as big of a deal as a birth year watch, it still an important year in my life.



Now if I said here is $10,000, which is way above market value for a GST Aquatimer 2000, would it be possible to go out and find a GST Aquatimer produced in 1999 that only had one owner and was also being sold by the same authorized dealer that sold it new? On top of that, it also had to have the box and warranty card as well as all of the links. How long would that take? Seeing there were probably less than 1,000 titanium models produced in 1999 and then adding all these other stipulations in as well makes this a watch that you could wait many years to source. There is an equal chance that finding one that meets all of these conditions might never come up for sale again as well.

I wasn't even looking for any of these things when I bought the GST Aquatimer 2000, really price was most important. After one deep clean the watch looked as possible for a 25 year old watch as well. Examining all of the weird boxes this watch ended up checking off makes the GST Aquatimer 2000 by far the most grail worthy piece in my collection when you facture in scarcity and replaceability.

So while I get the use of the term "Grail" when referring to a watch that is the highest on a collector's want list, I feel it is used too frequently and inaccurately. I wish more people would refer to these watches as foundation pieces instead. Most of the time price and the ability to get a piece at retail make these watches "grail" watches. In reality most of these watches are relatively available and can be purchased immediately when desired.



Like I said, I have labeled three watches as grail pieces in my personal watch collecting journey and when really reflecting on them after they had been acquired can see that they were incorrectly labeled. There was never really anything grail worthy about these three pieces, just I wasn't in a position to buy them for many years. Once the monetary aspect of acquiring them was removed, they were found in no time. Inversely, my most grail worthy piece was only found to be such by coincidence.

As I continue to grow as a collector hopefully I stop using grail as a term, especially when referring to my personal collection. There are other watches I would like to add to my collection as well as my wife's, but none of these watches are grail pieces. While some are extremely rare, they are completely obtainable. I look forward to the hunt of these pieces and maybe one might serve as the vintage foundation watch in my collection.

I think I have reached a point in my watch collection that I am no longer going out and seeking these collection defining pieces. I now find myself really spending more time understanding what I truly like watch wise with all the noise of my past experiences and likes as well as current trends being silenced. I hope those reading this article can come away from my personal experience in collection grail watches and gain some perspective of what a grail watch truly should be.