Do you remember the Concord C1 QuantumGravity? Of course you do! With a watch as bold and daring as this one, it is kinda hard to forget. Well, looks like the watch is finally making its way into the hands of customers. Concord recently produced this short video of the C1 QuantumGravity watch being assembled for final delivery to the customer. This particular watch happens to be the first watch that was delivered to the customer, and only 10 pieces of this watch will ever be produced. All 10 should be complete and delivered by the first half of 2010, Concord says, which is impressive and reflects highly on the brand, in my view, because this is such a complex watch and sometimes watches such as these can get delayed for years. Some more discussion on the intense reaction caused by the introduction of this watch, after the jump:
You may recall that the initial introduction of the C1 QuantumGravity was met with some very mixed reactions from the watch community. Not only is it a very complex and technically sophisticated watch, its design is very bold, and let’s face it – this watch is a beast on the wrist – absolutely huge! With such a watch, you know that some will love it, some will hate it, and the C1 QuantumGravity was no exception. Feelings towards this watch were intense across the spectrum!
As I discussed in a couple articles over at Fratello Watches blog, I was skeptical of this watch at first because “pre-launch” Concord really hyped the watch in its press materials – using a lot of marketing-speak mumbo jumbo, etc. But then I saw some live pics of the watch and some video, and I warmed up to it a bit. Still, there are some really strong opinions about this watch and most comments and discussions I had online were at the extremes of either loving or hating the watch. You can see lots of pics and several videos (including some from those who filmed the watch in person) of the watch on the Perpetuelle.com Baselworld 2009 thread for Concord, here.
The good thing is that this watch was very bold, it did inspire a lot of passion on both sides of the aisle, and it did generate a lot of publicity for Concord. Sure, sure it is a bit of a “concept watch” that is more of a conversation piece than anything, but as a brand it comes down to getting watch enthusiasts talking about your brand and your watches, and in this respect Concord succeeded in a big way.
So I guess that “love it” or “hate it”, the C1 QuantumGravity is officially here and will soon be “gracing” the wrists of a few lucky and deep-pocketed collectors around the world. Will be interesting to see if any of these watches get spotted “in the wild” in 2010, but most likely they will not go too far from the home of their respective owners.
Looking ahead for Concord, with Alex Grinberg now at the helm (after Vincent Perriard’s departure), I am quite interested to see what direction Concord goes in 2010 with its new watches.
