We arrived half an hour before the 6pm launch of the new MoonSwatch with a pale gold colored chronograph hand.
The event, at London’s historic Royal Exchange (converted into a small shopping mall) in the shadow of the mighty and majestical Bank of England, seemed well chosen.
Security seemed paramount to avoid the sort of ugly scrums that marred the original MoonSwatch launch a year ago.
Unlike last year, everybody in London knew what was coming because the Moonshine Gold MoonSwatch launched in Japan first, at 9.30am GMT, and the public reaction had been muted.
Which might explain the calm nature of the queue to buy one, despite this being a one and done buying opportunity for watches likely to be flipping for 2-3 times their $300 retail price in the morning.
We stayed for half an hour to watch a well-marshaled line buy the watch from the back of a branded Fiat 500.
Frankly, the atmosphere was closer to a Sunday trunk sale than the hysterical scenes of a year ago, which should suit Swatch just fine.