Last year, in a follow-up to the wide and favorable attention garnered by its Heritage 1945 piece from 2017, Longines released the newest member of its neo-vintage Heritage collection, the Heritage Military Watch. (The brand had previously released a model under the same name, a 1918-inspired field watch with a black dial option and 6 o?clock seconds subdial.) The newer watch is based upon a World War II model commissioned by the British Royal Air Force and produced by both Longines and Omega ? with and without 60-minute outer bezels. Like other watches from this era, there are few remaining today, most of them severely beaten; those few that aren?t tend to be highly sought after among collectors.

The newest Heritage Military watch keeps much of the “bezel-less” style of the original, though in a clearly larger and modernized package. At 38.5 mm in diameter, the steel watch has a simple brushed case with a large prominent crown, solid caseback, and polished bezel. This straightforward case is secured via a double-stitch strap meant to channel a more utilitarian style of years past. The watch?s dial, which has been noted for its speckled, partially patinated look, has an outer railroad-track minute counter along its edges, vintage-look Arabic numerals to delineate the hours, and a historical Longines logo toward the 12 o?clock position. Indicating the hour and minute are two blued steel hands in a vintage-style spade configuration, with an additional, simple po...