Longines Conquest 41 mm L3.830.4.52.6

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The storyWhy this reference matters

The Conquest was the first Longines family with a registered name: in 1954 the brand entered the word in the Swiss intellectual property register, at a time when most houses were still selling references nobody had bothered to christen. That first Conquest sold itself on water resistance and resistance to magnetism, two thoroughly unglamorous virtues very much of their moment. From the name came the HydroConquest and half a dozen offshoots that ended up eclipsing the original.

For years the plain Conquest was the watch nobody looked at: competent, solid, with slightly coarse rectangular markers and the presence of an airport clock. In 2023 Longines rebuilt it from scratch. An angled steel bezel, curved crown guards, sharp tapering markers, new hands and a band of circular graining around the outer edge of the dial that breaks up the old flatness. The result stopped looking like the least favoured brother in the family.

The technical update was just as serious. The calibre L888.5 carries a monocrystalline silicon balance spring — a material immune to magnetism that until recently was reserved for watches in another category — and keeps its seventy-two hours of reserve. The back is screwed sapphire, so the movement and its Côtes de Genève are on show: unusual on a 100-metre sports watch, and rarer still at this point in the catalogue.

SpecificationsThe numbers, in one table

IdentificationHow to tell it apart

This reference is the 41 mm Conquest with a black sunray dial and a steel bracelet. The details of the 2023 redesign are what to look for: a polished bezel angled towards the crystal, curved crown guards, slim applied markers that taper towards the centre, and a snailed minute ring. Earlier Conquests have thicker rectangular markers and a flat bezel.

Check the back: it should be sapphire and screwed down, with the rotor and the Côtes de Genève visible. A Conquest with a solid back is from another generation or another range. The crown screws down and water resistance is 10 bar. The three-link bracelet closes with a triple-safety folding clasp released by pushers.

Do not confuse it with its neighbours. The 38 mm is the small case of the same redesign, the 42 mm chronograph adds counters and a different calibre, and the HydroConquest, shared surname notwithstanding, is a 300-metre diver with a rotating ceramic bezel. The coloured-dial versions may come on a rubber strap with steel end links; the silver and champagne dials are offered on the bracelet only.

CollectingWhat collectors check

The sapphire back is a gift and a liability. It scratches on any belt buckle and on the back of a chair, and since it is on the side nobody photographs, that is where the surprises are when you turn the case over. Ask for pictures of the reverse before buying used, and bear in mind that the rear crystal is a replaceable part, but not a free one.

The silicon hairspring changes the rules in the workshop. It is antimagnetic by nature, so the old trick of demagnetising a watch that runs fast does not apply here, and a silicon spring cannot be manipulated or regulated like a metal alloy one: if it suffers, it gets replaced. In exchange, the L888.5 shares its architecture with the rest of the Longines range, so a routine service holds no mystery and does not depend on some rare specialist.

Being a 2023 model, the used market still has examples with live warranties at prices well below the Swiss sports competition. Look at the stamped warranty card, the engraved reference number and the fit of the bracelet: the three-fold clasp is comfortable but has no micro-adjustment, so the watch sits well or indifferently depending on where the spare link falls.

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Close relativesThe ones it gets confused with