Ever since I spent a few brief moments with the Tissot Heritage Petite Seconde at Baselworld 2018, I’ve been looking forward to getting some real wrist time with it. I was immediately attracted to the brushed finish on the dial, the combination of the large, printed Arabic numerals and vintage Tissot logo, and the sharp, faceted lugs that contoured nicely on the wrist. The price at $995, falling right in line with the value that Tissot is known for, only served to sweeten the deal.

Those positives helped diminish one design feature that attracted a good deal of criticism by some enthusiasts watching the Basel proceedings from afar. Directly underneath the attractive Tissot branding was text reading “Antimagnetique,” calling back to the brand’s historic production of watches that featured special antimagnetic properties during the 1930s and 40s (see here). Tissot was one of the first brands to bring wristwatches featuring anti-magnetism to market, and the watches were generally known for their clean dial configuration, steel cases, thin hands, quality movement, and price accessibility. As my colleague Caleb Anderson remarked earlier this year, these specific models have gained some attention in recent years, but have remained less expensive compared to the brand?s historical chronographs. The issue with the Heritage Petite Seconde was that, despite the resemblance to those classic models, the movement Tissot used, a manually-winding ETA 6498-1, boa...