In 2006 GaryG spotted two objects of desire at a California dealer: Vianney Halter’s dramatic Antiqua and Contemporaine timepieces. They were out of his reach, but in 2007 he found a Contemporaine in white gold offered at a price that was about one-third its original retail value on eBay. What could possibly go wrong?
Dominique Renaud began working at Audemars Piguet in 1980. He received his watchmaker education in Besançon, though his family originally hailed from the Vallée de Joux. Renaud and Guilo Papi, both employed by Audemars Piguet at the time, struck out on their own, founding Renaud & Papi SA in 1986 to explore other avenues of high complication. They did that and so much more!
Here Gary, Elizabeth, and Ian compare and discuss six areas of the Kari Voutilainen Masterpiece 8 and A. Lange & Söhne Zeitwerk Minute Repeater, two rare and very technical timepieces. And there’s a video so you can see and hear both decimal repeaters to make your own comparison.
Wouldn’t it be splendid to have everything your heart desired? Well, it’s a nice fantasy but it’s not going to happen to any of us, including GaryG. And, beside, he is not so sure that the experience of “selling to buy” isn’t actually a significant part, albeit a bittersweet one, of the collecting experience.
Armin Strom is an independent Swiss manufacture celebrating ten years of its modern incarnation. The brand’s second life, if you will, came about thanks to two childhood friends, Serge Michel and Claude Greisler.
Fiona Krüger launches her new Chaos collection with Mechanical Entropy, a watch with the lofty aim of illuminating intangible ideas regarding time and its relation to the universe.
AHCI member Antoine Preziuso’s mind-blowing Tourbillon of Tourbillons embodies the ideas of fractal geometry and recursion by producing a ten-minute tourbillon driven by three sixty-second tourbillons. It is an amazing machine. And as the only indications are minutes and hours, the Tourbillon of Tourbillons is something that exists as much for its own sake as it does for telling the time.
Derek Pratt (1938 – 2009) was perhaps one of the most “complete” watchmakers of our time along with his friend George Daniels. The Swiss-based Englishman was firmly behind and part of many watches and projects that are today common knowledge, while his own name remains relatively hidden.
Martin Green is no Gérald Genta groupie charmed by everything the designer created, but he appreciates greatness. While some may favor the Genta Gefica or Grande Sonnerie as the master’s definitive design, Martin makes a case for the Retro. Find out why right here!
Three is a number full of symbolic power, and Fabergé’s Lady Libertine III is three times lucky in that a trio (or troika, if we wish to allude to Peter Carl Fabergé’s Russian origins) of exceptional women created it: Aurélie Picaud, Fiona Krüger, and Anita Porchet.
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