The purist argument is not about affordability or restraint for its own sake. It is about watches designed as time-only objects, where the dial has nothing to prove. No date window interrupting the symmetry, no subsidiary dials crowding the space. Just hours and minutes, sometimes seconds, executed at the highest possible level.
The Patek 5196 is the canonical argument for this position. Everything else on this list either echoes that logic at a different price point or makes its own case for why fewer complications means more watch.
35mmLongines Cal. L888.2 -- ETA 2801-2 base, manual-wind, 21,600bph, 42h PR, 17j; used in Présence 35mm; pure dress movement with no complications, optimized for thinness2014–present
37mmA. Lange & Sohne Cal. L093.1 -- manual-wind, in-house, 21,600bph, 72h PR; used in Saxonia Thin; one of the thinnest manually-wound calibers Lange makes2016–present
