GaryG’s first rule when it comes to collecting is to avoid setting too many exclusionary rules. With watches, he believes that it’s the passion that separates collectors from investors and accumulators. Which brings him to another rule: deriving the full enjoyment from the things you own.
GaryG’s thoughts have turned to one major system that is always there, but generally hidden from sight: the movement. Here are a few of his favorites and why. And in the philosophy of putting my money where my mouth is, these movements have appeared in one or more watches that he has owned personally.
With it’s open dial and sweeping skeletonized bridges, Andreas Strehler’s Papillon d’or is both a horological and visual masterpiece.
Now with his new Faune et Flore collection, Strehler takes the Papillon d’or to an even high artistic level.
The rise of the internet, and the consequent evolution of the watch-watching community, has inevitably amplified the phenomenon whereby certain objects have come to exert an extraordinary hold over the collective imagination. Here, Colin Alexander Smith debunks three watch myths circulating widely and freely online and in print concerning former French president Nicolas Sarkozy’s Rolex and Patek Philippe, the Khanjar Rolex Sea-Dwellers, and what in fact Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay were wearing on their wrists as they summited Mount Everest.
Simon Brette unveils the “Rose Gold” edition of his GPHG-winning Chronomètre Artisans timepiece: it’s a sensational harmony of the warm rose/red gold case and intense-black ‘dragon scale’ dial.
In the real world, some complications are pretty useless. And that’s not saying they aren’t cool. Here Joshua Munchow runs through his top 5 most useless complications and why they are simultaneously cool.
Everyone loves a comeback. Except Lance Armstrong. And Mike Tyson. And probably Michael Schumacher, too. Ok… comebacks don’t always work out, but the 2023 Daniel Roth Tourbillon Souscription is a comeback candidate from a brand name with an illustrious past.
The Patek Philippe 5101 ten-day tourbillon isn’t perfect: it’s not notably shock tolerant, there’s no lume, and one could fault its 25-meter water resistance. But most important of all for Tim Mosso is that he can’t afford it! However, since its supernova 2003 debut, the 5101 has established a towering reputation that is, if anything, insufficient to convey the eye-watering beauty and milestone status of this sinuously shaped machine.
This is the story of GaryG’s pursuit, and eventual capture, of a classic vintage watch: a Type 20 “big eye” flyback chronograph manufactured by Mathey-Tissot.
With its white case, carved from a block of proprietary fiberglass-enhanced ceramic, the Urwerk UR-230 Polaris opens a new color horizon for the series, a polar perspective.