Why We Love It

You've heard our schtick on modern watches before. You know that we occasionally present contemporary timepieces that speak to us, even if they aren't speaking to our vintage-centric design sensibilities.

Well, this one is screaming at us.

Ebel enjoys a unique relationship with the timepiece industry. A part of the Movado Group, they are perhaps better known for their fashion-forward affordable quartz wristwatch collections than they are for high quality Swiss-made timepieces. But this wasn't always the case.

Relatively unknown, the Ebel 1911 chronograph presented here is powered by the Calibre 3019 automatic chronograph movement - the very same used by (and created for!) the legendary Zenith El Primero line. While its design does border on the over the top "all the things" language popular in the 1990s, let's take stock of what this piece offers:

- Solid 18k yellow gold case. Check.

- Crisp white dial with applied Roman indices. Check.

- El Primero Movement with center chronograph seconds, 30-minute, 12-hour, subsidiary seconds and date function. Check, check, check, check and check!

- Price under $3K? You see where we're going with this...

The resulting product is at once retro-fantastic and highly avant-garde. You'd have to look pretty far and wide to find a contemporary timepiece with high end casing materials and a movement this desirable for anywhere near this price point. And it probably wouldn't end up looking this cool!