Longines' best retro watches – 5 heritage models

The Swatch Group brand Longines was one of the main figures behind the retro trend that took off on the watch market around 20 years ago. After the retro diver Legend Diver that came out in 2007 the brand has spat out a countless number of vintage-inspired watches. Eqotime picks out five favourites from today's heritage collection.   

Text: Filip Ericsson Image: Omega among others

Longines is one of the biggest among all the Swatch group's brands and is mainly focused on elegant wristwatches for ordinary people, in a price range of roughly 10 000 – 50 000 kronor. The brand was founded as early as 1832 and later became famous for its diving, pilot and military watches as well as for its pioneering spirit and appetite for innovation. It took out a number of patents through the decades whose constructions are today used diligently even by the most prestigious manufacturers.

With an almost endless archive to draw from, Longines appears to have been a natural player when it came to spinning off the market's thirst for watches with designs that reconnect to days of former glory. That Longines succeeded so well and remained the uncrowned king of the retro watch is also down to the fingertip feel with which it went to work. Creating a vintage-inspired watch can easily go wrong but Longines knew what it was doing and success was a given. Just look at the 2007 Legend Diver, what a star! In this article we are going to look at five classics from Longines.

Conquest Heritage  

The Longines Conquest was launched in 1954 at a time when sportier wristwatches started to frequent the market in parallel with the post-war era's urge to explore seas, mountains and continents, as well as the Western world's growing middle class's newborn appetite for recreational sports such as diving, skiing and so on. Other stars in the newborn segment were the Omega Seamaster (1948) and the Rolex Explorer (1953) to name a couple. Ever since then the Conquest has played the role of the elegant sports watch in the brand's catalogue. In 2014 the first retro variant on the Conquest theme came out in the form of a bunch of 35-millimetre watches intended to celebrate the model's 60th anniversary. It was sold in anniversary versions in gold in a limited edition as well as unlimited versions in steel at very attractive prices.

In early 2024 the Conquest Heritage Power Reserve was released, also a new version of a historic Conquest model. It paved the way for a whole new series of Conquest Heritage watches which came out later that year.

The movement

The Conquest Heritage is driven by the brand's fine Caliber L888, a modern automatic movement developed by ETA exclusively for Longines. Both Longines and ETA are of course part of the Swatch Group. The movement offers 72 hours of power reserve and a hairspring in fashionable silicon which gives good antimagnetic properties. Splendid for the price class. 

There is no date, which further strengthens the balance and the beauty of the slightly old-fashioned, graceful dials. Together with the well-turned case entirely in polished steel and a thickness of a mere 10.8mm, a particularly elegant package is created, and a wristwatch that is equally at home with jeans and a t-shirt during lazy weekends as it is at dressed-up events. 

Choices 

The range comprises cases of 38 or alternatively 40mm, a number of colours for the dial as well as a leather strap or a steel bracelet. 

The Conquest Heritage is water resistant to an everyday-capable 50 metres and the crystal is sapphire. The back is closed, with an utterly charming stylised fish in 18 carat gold colour against green enamel in the middle. A beautiful piece of detail work that befits the price.  

Prices

Because Longines has become noticeably more expensive in recent years and has in principle caught up with Omega, where they were not all that long ago. The Conquest Heritage costs 39 150 kronor with a leather strap and 40 600 kronor with a bracelet. The price is the same for the 38- and 40-millimetre watches. 

It is hard to take your eyes off today's Conquest Heritage, it seems like a successful reincarnation of, and tribute to, the legendary Conquest watches of the 50s – so beautiful, well balanced and ideally specified that you just want it.

Flagship Heritage Moonphase 

The Longines Flagship is another goodie in the company's extensive historic catalogue. It came out in 1957 as a more luxurious alternative to the Conquest while the modern retro successor turned up in 2014. It is still in the programme and in 2023 was joined by the Flagship Heritage Moonphase which lends the model further glamour and beauty. Plus a delicious complication of course. 

The Flagship Heritage gives a nice 50s feel, even more so than the Conquest above, while at the same time the specifications are completely up-to-date. The case measures 38.5mm in diameter, ideal dimensions for preserving the vintage feel without it becoming too small for a modern audience, one might think. Otherwise we find the narrow, Flagship-typical lugs and a dial and case shape that recalls the Jaeger-LeCoultre Master. A conservative but ultra-classic shape that never goes out of fashion.  

The movement

Like its Conquest sister there is a modern automatic movement developed by ETA here, in this case the Caliber L899. 25 200 beats per hour, a fine power reserve of 72 hours and a silicon hairspring here too. Nobody is likely to complain about either precision or reliability.   

The moon phase is integrated down at 6 o'clock as it should be and lends further artfulness to the dial. Around it is the date, which is shown by a small hand. The moon phase complication is perhaps not useful for a normal watch user today but it is good-looking! And the perfectly integrated date is of course indisputably practical without the shape being disturbed. 

On the front there is sapphire crystal and the back is in steel with a beautiful gold figure in the middle. Here it is a depicted ship from the 1500s against a deep blue background. Terribly beautiful and a feast for the eye every time you turn the watch over! 

So now to the only real drawback with the Flagship Heritage Moonphase: the thickness. With its presentability, classic shape and water resistance to 30 metres the model is a pronounced dress watch. And one of the main tasks of such a watch is that it should slip unhindered under the tight sleeves of dress shirts. At 12.4mm in height its ability to do that appears somewhat limited, at least where the tightest sleeves are concerned.

Prices & alternatives

The Flagship Heritage Moonphase is otherwise so successful that many can surely overlook this blunder, and for anyone who is sold on the model but wants a thinner watch there is actually the Flagship Heritage without the moon phase, and it measures only 10mm in height! Perhaps a slightly drier dish but those 2.4 millimetres can mean a lot to many. 

And the price is fundamentally lower at 23 200 kronor in the shop. A violently good watch buy if you can live without the moon phase.

The Moonphase for its part costs 39 850 kronor and is offered with dials in bone white as well as four colours with a sunray finish: blue, green, grey and beige. The watch is sold exclusively with a leather strap. 

Legend Diver 39mm 

Even though Longines had marketed retro watches earlier, the Legend Diver can be regarded as the wristwatch that began the company's big push into the retro watch. The Legend Diver is a replica of the brand's famous diving watch from 1959, the Longines Super Compressor Diver. It was a result of the company's participation in the submarine project Trieste which, with Longines instruments on board, broke the depth record in 1953 by diving down to 3150 metres. 

Longines wanted to honour the success and therefore developed a wristwatch for professional divers. The result was a one-off from several perspectives; a “compressor” case where the water resistance is secured by the gaskets being pressed together by the water pressure, an internally placed diving ring which was thereby protected from salt water and knocks, as well as a diameter that was enormous for the time at 42 mm. 

Legend Diver 2007 

The newly produced tribute to this powerfully elegant timekeeper from the brand's heyday, the Longines Legend Diver, was then shown at the Baselworld Fair in 2007. Visually it corresponded almost exactly to the original but had of course been blessed with modern technology such as sapphire crystal and a new automatic movement. I owned one myself for eight years and still cherish it in my heart. The sharply cut case, the distinctive dial which in a hard-to-beat way combines legibility and elegance, created a wristwatch with a magic that for me was unassailable in the price class (15 000 kronor in 2009). 

The first version had no date and for an inscrutable reason it was replaced by a date version a couple of years later. That was the one I bought, or was forced to buy. Because surely it is date-free that applies for the Legend Diver? That may be considered better-looking as well as more authentic. Since then the popular model has spawned many variants. The 42-millimetre was joined by a 36-millimetre in 2018 which apart from the traditional black dial could be had in purple, dark red, blue-green and white.   

In 2021 a delicious bronze variant of 42mm with a dark green dial joined, which also surprised by having no date. The year after, the 42-millimetre in steel got several new colours for the dial and the model series was then almost complete – apart from the fact that the step between 36 and 42 millimetres was of course very big!

39mm without date

Longines filled the gap in the autumn of 2023 and pleased many with a seemingly perfectly sized 39mm case. Even better was that it had no date, and the enthusiasts cheered. Even though the 60s Compressor Diver as well as the 2007 watch measured 42mm – a dimension that thus appears most puristic in this context – it can seem rather big since the lugs are so long. The 39 is therefore likely to suit many more who have fallen for the Legend Diver's beautiful shape.  

From being filled with standard mechanical movements from ETA, the ambition level at Longines has increased considerably in recent years, in step with the prices rising it should be added. As with many of the brand's mechanical watches the technically advanced L888 movement now also sits in the Legend Diver. Here it is moreover chronometer-certified and therefore very exact. The watch has as always two crowns where the upper one adjusts the diving ring inside the dial and the lower one handles the basic functions. As usual the Legend Diver 39 is also water resistant to 300 metres and is thus still a serious diving watch.  

The choices are wide. Black, green, blue, terracotta, grey and white are the colour choices for the dials while you can also choose between a steel bracelet, rubber and leather straps. Turn the watch over and the good-looking engraved diver is in place as always. 

Price level

The price is 39 700 kronor with a leather strap, 41 300 kronor with rubber and 43 800 kronor with a steel bracelet. Steep in comparison with older Legend Diver watches but not unreasonable considering what you get for the money. Because the Longines Legend Diver is not only terribly artful, it is also an extremely competent wristwatch. Chronometer movement, 300 metres of water resistance, excellent legibility, high quality, outstanding dimensions – presentable and sporty at the same time. 

Silver Arrow 

The Longines Silver Arrow was shown in 2021, a formally constituted watch with typical, well-turned 50s design. It was a remake of a watch with the same name that came out in 1956, an elegant men's watch with forward-looking design and sporty undertones. The name derives from a competition within the company where the staff got the chance to name the new watch.
The winner, Silver Arrow, was a nod to the 30s racing cars from Mercedes which with their naked aluminium bodies went under the same nickname. The racing cars were distinguished by speed, elegance and technical advancement, which was to mirror the new wristwatch from Longines.
The indicators on the dial had a corrugated shape and something of the space age about them. The theme also appeared on the back where a supersonic aircraft was suggested flying around a star.

The first tribute to the Silver Arrow came out in 2009 but has to be seen as a half-hearted attempt that was also quickly forgotten since it lacked the most Silver Arrow-typical attributes. In 2021 a new replica of the 1956 Silver Arrow was shown and it was a considerably more ambitious attempt that resulted in a really delicious wristwatch – it was second time lucky for Longines.

Dimensions & shape
The new Silver Arrow measures 38.5mm in diameter and a mere 9.9mm in thickness, balanced dimensions that suit its elegant figure quite excellently. The original measured only 35mm as the men's watches of the time tended to do but for a modern gentleman slightly larger diameters are probably generally preferred.
The case and dial are like a carbon copy of the original watch and that means seductive harmony and balance in the lines. The case is fully polished and the steel back is adorned by a good-looking engraved jet plane flying among stars.
The dial is unadulteratedly beautiful with its smooth, bone white surface, silver-coloured retro hands and of course the corrugated indicators. That the Longines logo itself with its stylised wings is among the better-looking on the market does not hurt either.

The movement
The Caliber L888 here too and you will probably have to look a long time for a better movement for the money. Otherwise it is sapphire crystal and water resistance to 30 metres. Nothing to bathe with, then, but no problem for normal wear.

Range
The Silver Arrow is allowed on this list on sufferance since it seems it has now been discontinued from the programme. There are however new watches for sale online, several of them richly discounted. The list price is in any case given as 29 100 kronor and the watch is delivered exclusively with a leather strap.

Ultra-Chron Classic 

The latest in the line of vintage-inspired wristwatches from Longines is the Ultra-Chron which was shown last autumn. It is a pure tribute to the brand's high-frequency movements as well as to the watch that came out in 1967 to celebrate the factory's hundredth anniversary. Now the company was of course actually founded in 1832 but the factory in Saint-Imier was inaugurated in 1867, where the current head office is also located. It was also in this year that the company got the name ”Longines” as well as the logo with the good-looking wings with the hourglass in the middle. The so-called high-frequency escapements began to be manufactured by Longines in 1914 and meant 36 000 vibrations per hour, an exceptionally high frequency at a time when 18 000 was normal. These movements were put into stopwatches that were used among other things at the Olympic Games during the 1930s. Longines' first movement with this high-frequency mechanism intended for wristwatches came out in 1959, but it would take until 1967 before it found its way into a mass-produced watch.

New high-frequency movement
In 2022 the Ultra-Chron Diver was released, a remake of a diving watch from the 60s. It received a new movement in the form of the Caliber L836.6, the company's first high-frequency movement in modern times. It was developed by ETA, had the classic 36 000 vibrations per hour and Longines' new so-called Ultra-Chronometer standard. The Ultra-Chronometer differs from the COSC specification in that the whole watch is tested with the movement in place inside the case instead of the ”naked” movement separately, as is customary. That way the result becomes more authentic. The tests are carried out by the Geneva institute TimeLab and take 15 days where the watches are exposed to temperatures of 8, 23 and 38 degrees Celsius. The precision requirements are the same as for COSC-certified watches: a maximum deviation of +6/-4 seconds per day. Otherwise the automatic movement contains a silicon hairspring to the benefit of the antimagnetic properties. It achieves 52 hours of power reserve and has a date function.

Dimensions & shape
Just like the original, the Ultra-Chron Classic is a very discreet men's watch with slightly angular lines in typical 60s fashion, something that is mainly accentuated by the design of the lugs and the dial.
Where the original watch measured a period-typical 35mm in diameter, the new Ultra-Chron is sold in two sizes, 37 or 40mm. The thickness is relatively modest at 10.95mm. The Ultra-Chron is water resistant to 50 metres, is offered with a steel bracelet or leather strap but so far only comes with a silver-coloured dial, just like the original watch.

Prices
The prices are relatively steep but hardly unreasonable considering what you get for the money: 45 550 kronor with a leather strap and 47 000 kronor with a bracelet. The 37- and 40mm versions cost the same. The Ultra-Chron certainly charms with its unpretentiousness; it can feel liberating with a wristwatch that lacks a sports theme, that is neither a diving, pilot nor luxury sports watch, but which at the same time is hard-wearing and reliable. The Ultra-Chron is extremely discreet, elegant in a toned-down way, but at the same time sharply cut and full of character in a way that makes the urge to own it come flooding. A tricky balance that Longines has undeniably pulled off.