Welcome back to an original aBlogtoWatch feature, “My First Grail Watch.” In this series, we ask prominent people in the watch industry about the first timepiece that they lusted after.
aBlogtoWatch (ABTW): Who are you and what is your relationship to the watch industry?
Hartmut Kraft (HK): I am the German-American Watch Collector turned Industry Executive that everybody simply refers to as the “H,” President of Maurice Lacroix North America.
ABTW: What was your first grail watch?
HK: A Patek Calatrava Ref. 3919. I saw a black and white ad in a German newspaper when I was 14 years old and it made me fall in love with watches as beautifully valuable objects.
ABTW: Was there ever a time in your life when you could afford it?
HK: Yes, in my prior career as a corporate attorney of a global US law firm.
ABTW: What did you like so much about the watch?
HK: The understated simplicity, the hobnail bezel, the proportions of the small seconds hand, the expression of value that this timepiece embodied.
ABTW: Did you ever get it?
HK: No. By the time I could afford it, I had moved on. I ended up getting married to many other watches, but never this one, the first watch love of my life.