In the picturesque Swiss town of Thun, Beat Haldimann and his small team distinguish themselves by focusing on technical virtuosity of the highest order as typified by the Haldimann H1 Flying Central Tourbillon.
Cars and watches, watches and cars: they do seem to go together! Scratch almost any watch lover and you’re going to find a car lover just under the surface. GaryG talks with his pal “Enzo” in this interesting discussion about the similarities and dissimilarities of car and watch collecting.
Ah, Paris! City of Lights. For the watch collector, it’s a great place to visit with boutiques aplenty, some owned and operated by the major brands; high-end mega-stores like Bucherer; and smaller independent retailers like Chronopassion and Dubail. Gary took a quick weekend trip to Paris and while there he took the opportunity to pack in as much fun as possible. Come along and bienvenue!
Watch collecting should be fun! Yes, it’s important to show the proper respect for the designers and makers of the watches we all love, but at the same time I think it’s completely appropriate to go beyond somber and traditional daily watches and give a bit of free rein to one’s desire for more flamboyant timepieces.
This year, our small Northern Californian group had a bumper crop of meetings with independent watchmakers; we started during our time in Geneva with Akrivia, and then ventured out to the Bernese Oberland for a visit with Beat Haldimann before circling back to the De Bethune manufacture and finally a visit to that shrine of watchmaking: the atelier of Philippe Dufour.
It would be relatively easy, and pretty interesting, for GaryG to tell you the story of his two days this past summer with artist Alexa Meade and her team. And he’ll get to that, but there’s more: the flood of sensations and emotions that came from considering why time and space are so important to him and from inhabiting a work of art that melded GaryG’s vision of himself with the artist’s interpretation and self-expression. And what does any of this have to do with watches?
“I have no secrets as past watchmakers had. There are graveyards full of secrets and that’s enough,” said Philippe Dufour in 2014. Have you heard of him? Chances are if you have been collecting watches for any significant period of time, his name is well known to you. If not, let me enlighten you.
When collectors gather anywhere and talk about their collections, recent purchases, and executed or potential sales, there’s a term that comes up more often than not: “getting hurt.” Here I provide a master class in how not to get hurt in the world of watch collecting.
Autumn 2017 constituted the third consecutive year that I traveled to Geneva to partake of the excitement that is the November auction weekend, and this time around I had the good fortune to win the very first lot in that day’s auction: the Carpe Diem clock developed by Agenhor in collaboration with design school HEAD Genève. Here’s why I bought it.
GaryG bought a Vianney Halter Deep Space Tourbillon and hopes that you will find his commentary on a collector’s mindset and the motivations, delights, and possible misgivings interesting and helpful.