5 watches that raise funds for medical charities

Shinola Detrola Champ: Here’s a surefire way to take the guilt out of buying your next watch. The recent lockdown may have had you rethinking your wants and needs but if there’s an opportunity to do some good whilst you pick up another timepiece for your collection, then why not? The pandemic has made us all appreciate the hard yards that all our frontline healthcare workers put in every day. I am going to introduce you to five watch companies that are doing their bit to raise funds for medical professionals and research institutions working on finding a cure for the disease. Starting with the Detrola Champ, it was designed to commemorate the 2020 Summer Olympics but now the Detroit-based company is using this watch as a fund-raising tool for healthcare workers in the city.

Meant “to honour the real champions of the Summer of 2020” - frontline health workers every cent from the sale of the watch is being donated to the Community Foundation of Southeast Michigan – specifically, their Healthcare Worker Fund. The watch has a 43 mm wide case with a steel core and a glossy cream TR90 resin outer shell. It runs a Swiss quartz movement and is paired with a black silicone rubber strap. The watch is available for $395.

Nomos Glashuette Ahoi for Doctors Without Borders: Building on its longstanding relationship with Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières), Nomos has unveiled two steel models in the Ahoi range – a 36.3 mm Ahoi Neomatik and a 40.3 mm Ahoi Datum model to help raise funds for charity.

The association with MSF is marked by the red 12 numeral which stands out on the galvanised silver dial. The bottom of the dial also has the subtle print “Ärzte ohne Grenzen” which is German for Doctors without Borders. Limited to just 250 pieces, €250 from each sale goes to this Nobel Prize winning organisation. While the Ahoi Neomatik is priced at $4,350, the Ahoi Datum retails for $4,780.

Breitling Suprocean Heritage ’57 Limited Edition II: The Superocean Heritage ’57 Rainbow limited edition was the highlight of the vintage-inspired Superocean Heritage ’57 capsule collection unveiled in April this year. Buoyed by the model’s success, Breitling presented a second limited edition in May to benefit medical charities fighting the Covid-19 pandemic. Breitling has identified charities in France, Italy, England, Japan, Spain, and the United States as beneficiaries; it's no coincidence that these are also the brand’s most important markets. The brand is also donating an additional CHF1,000 to these charities for each of the first 100 Superocean Heritage ’57 Limited Edition II watches sold via their website. In total, the company will donate CHF500,000, which will be split equally among six charities. Price? $4520 on the leather strap and $5,025 on the steel mesh bracelet.

Ressence Type 1 Slim #WatchAgainstCovid: Indie brand Ressence had a unique approach to creating a one-off timepiece to raise funds to support Covid-10 research. The watch’s design was crowdsourced via a competition on social media. Ressence received 466 entries from around the globe in response to their #WatchAgainstCovid19 challenge. The winning design is a pastel blue watch signed by 58-year-old Raymond Ramsden, a father of two who lives in Yorkshire. Based on the brand’s popular Type 1 Slim model, the watch is now being produced at Ressence’s manufacture in Switzerland. Sotheby’s will auction this watch during their Hong Kong Important Watches sale on July 11. Proceeds from the sale will support the Covid-19 Research Programme run by KU Leuven University in Belgium.

Urwerk UR-100 “Fight C-19”: You can’t really buy this watch anymore because it’s already been spoken for. However, it receives an honorary mention because a good deal of money was raised for charity. Here is the backstory: Earlier this year, avant-garde Swiss brand Urwerk launched a Star Wars-inspired version of the radical Urwerk UR-100 timepiece.

It was a limited run of 25 pieces but the first watch in the series – with a commemorative plaque that said “Fight C-19” - was auctioned off for charity on May 8 for a whopping CHF96,500 (that’s about $99,590). An amount of CHF40,000 ($41,500) was allotted to a charity of the winning bidder’s choice, the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM) association.