Horological Meandering

So five guys meet up for lunch...

 

...in this instance very mindful of our sixth "member" and good friend, who is abroad dealing with some serious family health issues and who has all of our warmest wishes going his way.

It is all about the people!  Those of us who were able to join spent 2+ hours of the usual raucous discussion, joking, and opinion swapping on matters horological and other.  As always, the time flew by and it was all too soon before we had to part, standing in the parking lot trying to figure out when we might meet again soon.

Theme for the day was "recent acquisitions and tourbillons."  I've posted photos of my most recent two additions here recently (Habring Doppel and JLC Reverso Grande GMT) so won't include those again.  For the lunch, I cheated a bit by bringing the VH Antiqua (recently returned from a full service and "like new") and ALS Double Split (with a new and, if I do say so myself, very nice dark brown Santoni/IWC strap -- the only "recently acquired" bit about this piece, I'm afraid). 

Others contributed some very nice items to the cause -- let's start with a lovely Blancpain transparent dial tourbillon -- I love how the tourbillon mechanism is so exposed in this construction, and this is (for me) one of the rare date indications on a clear-dialed watch that I can actually read:

To complete the Blancpain portion of the program, the beautiful Carrousel:

Two FPJ tourbs at this luncheon -- this one is one of the original 20 Subscription pieces, and the glow of that gold dial has to be seen to be believed

Another partial "cheat" -- the owner of this RG Simplicity recently had a service done, including the replacement of the original dark guilloche dial with the lacquer one, which does, I suppose, make it a recent acquisition!

Due to the wonderful conversation I did miss the opportunity to photograph many of the other watches individually, but I think you can pick them out below -- including a lovely Breguet tourb, a more recent FPJ tourb, and not one but two ALS PLM Tourbillons (!).  I'm hoping to corral both of the PLMs, along with a third example of the same watch in PT recently acquired by our missing member, for what promises to be (for me) a very enjoyable photo shoot.  In the meantime, here's the table shot:

And for those of you like myself with aging eyes, here are close-ups of the watches above, moving from left to right:

As always, splendid fun and warm exchanges with these very good friends.  Hope you enjoyed seeing some of the pieces -- I know I did!

Best,

Gary G