Let me start with a simple statement: the Jacob & Co. Oil Pump watch is NOT the tackiest watch big money can buy. Richard Mille sells some hideously expensive (and plain hideous) day-glow and diamond encrusted timepieces.They make the Oil Pump seem like a two-hand Patek Philippe Calatrava. In fact, I’d place the Oil Pump into an entirely different category: kitsch. Wikipedia defines the term thus:
Kitsch (/kɪtʃ/ KITCH; loanword from German) is art or other objects that, generally speaking, appeal to popular rather than “high art” tastes. Such objects are sometimes appreciated in a knowingly ironic or humorous way.
According to Walter Benjamin, kitsch is, unlike art, a utilitarian object lacking all critical distance between object and observer; it “offers instantaneous emotional gratification without intellectual effort, without the requirement of distance, without sublimation”.
Setting aside the Jacob & Co. Oil Pump’s extreme craftsmanship, the watch is what it is. It’s literal to the max, perfectly imitating an oil pump pumping oil. It’s a mesmerizing process, both in the field and on a wrist. And it’s the defining technology of the industrial revolution. What’s not to love?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62by-ZCWtqA
I’d like the Oil Pump to operate continuously, to give the impression that its movement provides the watch’s mechanical motivation. Which it doesn’t; power limitations require push activation pumping. I’d also like to see this watch in a quartz version (shock! horror!), so that oil workers – rather than their tax-deducting overlords – could afford one.
Never mind. If I were an oil man, a very rich oil man, I’d have to have the $350k Jacob & Co. Oil Pumpon my wrist. As it is, it’s an amusement. A very expensive amusement. But sometimes those are the best kind.
Props to Jacob & Co. for pushing the envelope – in terms of watches that make no sense to anyone who doesn’t want to flaunt their wealth. Although the CALIGULA Tourbillon Baguette (above) needs a little more, um, explanation. “As is the tradition with Caligula timepieces, an erotic scene reveals itself as time passes.” C’mon guys! Since when have you been so shy and retiring?