The Jaquet Droz Grande Seconde Skelet-One Tourbillon is a more complicated version of the original Grande Seconde Skelet-One in which an inverted dial and streamlined skeleton architecture made for an impressive watch. This even more impressive version has also spawned a one-off piece for the 2021 Only Watch charity auction beautified by artistic plique-à-jour enamel.
One of the inconveniences associated with COVID-19 restrictions on gatherings was that GaryG’s local watch gang hadn’t been meeting in person so he wasn’t able to borrow interesting watches to shoot. However, just prior to the lockdown in California he did pick up an intriguing piece from a pal: the Anniversary by Vianney Halter.
In 2021, Patek Philippe is once again drawing attention to the decorative arts that help make its watches so exceptional, further staking claim in the preservation of many of the traditional skills and techniques that date to the manufacture’s roots. And now six new versions of familiar watch models have been presented to highlight Patek Philippe’s Rare Handcrafts.
Watch enthusiasts traveling into Switzerland, Germany, Japan, China, and the United States are targets of opportunity for border customs police. Here Chris Malburg shows how to avoid paying more in duties and taxes than necessary while avoiding the embarrassment of being suspected of smuggling legitimately purchased watches.
Big brands are now making beautiful, reliable, and relatively accurate “traditional” mechanical watches, but the handcrafted work many of us value is disappearing. Highly skilled watchmakers and artisans are rare and expensive: there just aren’t enough of them available to churn out the large quantity of nice watches now being sold. And why bother when nobody seems to have noticed?
Tim Mosso of YouTube and Watchbox fame recently hosted Elizabeth Doerr again on his podcast, “Talking Time With Tim” (episode 21). They discuss some of their favorite new watch releases so far in 2021, the democratization of independent watch brands and their products, and the brilliance of one their mutually favorite designers, Alain Silberstein. Give it a listen!
The Watches TV founder Marc André Deschoux shares his thoughts on celebrity watch brand ambassadors, starting with Tudor and David Beckham, which he personally felt was counterproductive: so much so that the announcement pushed him to not make a Tudor purchase he was leaning toward.
The new UR-100V P.02 brings together three parties: in addition to Urwerk and Collective, the project will benefit New York’s Intrepid Sea, Air, and Space Museum. And for GaryG it’s an example of combining concepts that at first glance seem contradictory: collaboration and exclusivity. In space.
The large date complication is always a favorite of Joshua Munchow’s, and with the variety of details on the dial of the Maurice Lacroix Aikon Master Grande Date, including exposed mechanics and varying textures, it seems clear that the brand has found its new flagship for this line.
You can like everything, but you can’t buy – or keep – everything! Inevitably, the choices involved lead at times to regrets; for GaryG, along with many of his pals, the sadness is much more often about pieces they sold too soon or failed to buy rather than pieces they were sorry about buying in the first place. Here’s a story of shoulda, woulda, coulda.