If GaryG wants to buy a watch of any significance it requires that he sells one or more other pieces. The bad news is that all of the watches he doesn’t really love were sold off a long time ago! As a result, the discipline of asking, “What watch in his current collection do I love less than this potential new purchase? has become tougher and tougher. Here he shares three watches that he feels are long term-keepers and why.
If you’re at all a Lange enthusiast like GaryG, you’ll likely understand the most compelling reason for buying the Odysseus is that it’s an A. Lange & Söhne watch you can wear every day.
After years of consideration, Bhanu Chopra took the plunge and bought both a Rolex Oyster Perpetual 39 mm and a Submariner Reference 114060. And less than 24 hours after finally taking ownership of them, Rolex discontinued both watches! Here he shares the story of how it all went down. Spoiler alert: he couldn’t be happier!
Sometimes perpetual calendars are too complicated but a simple calendar just doesn’t cut it anymore because nearly half the months have less than 31 days, making it five adjustments a year too many for some. But don’t fret, there is a middle ground between the most basic calendar watches and complex perpetual calendars: the annual calendar automatically adjusts for each month with 30 or 31 days, meaning just one adjustment per year for the owner in February. Here’s a brief history of the complication.
Given GaryG’s musings on these pages about the relative roles of rarity and complication in driving the value of a watch, he thinks it appropriate to dedicate this “Behind the Lens” entry to a piece that is both complicated and limited in production: Patek Philippe’s Reference 5950A. What’s so special about this watch? Well, first of all it’s a split-seconds chronograph. What else?
Out of all the “traditional” styles of hairsprings, the helical hairspring is Joshua Munchow’s favorite because it adds three-dimensionality to the watch. These oscillators are so rarely seen that if you are only aware of five watches with helical hairsprings you already know a significant portion of the modern watches using them. Here are Joshua’s favorite five.
While GaryG thinks it’s all the more impressive that designers continue to delight us with new looks, many watches are often very similar. And trying to describe the slippery slope from vague resemblance to outright theft is not a simple task. So he begins down at the lower end of the grade with so-called homage watches and moves up the GaryG Styling Statute of Limitations from there.
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 GaryG provides a masterclass in how not to get hurt in the world of watch collecting.
Those of you who share the collecting bug see where GaryG is going: the start of a journey of learning about Native American arts and the artists behind them while amassing a set of treasured items that now stretches well beyond what he would have predicted. And he ups the fun by matching up rings, buckles, cufflinks, and bolos with watches.
It’s still all about the people! Nothing makes GaryG happier than getting together and talking watches. At the F.P. Journe New York Boutique anniversary dinner late 2019, he had the pleasure of chatting with entrepreneur, television personality, and enthusiast watch collector Kevin O’Leary. In this post, he comes back to him with specific questions . . . and gets the answers!