Horological Meandering

Gary G
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The search for authenticity

Greetings to all!  Thanks to everyone for the many inputs to my recent thread on paring, then expanding, my collection.  The thing that perhaps surprised me the most was that several folks commented on the level of introspective musing in my post -- when in my view, it was really intended to a fairly dispassionate accounting of comings and goings.

This, of course, got me thinking!  Was there really a lot of overt pondering and emotional content in that post, or was I unintentionally tapping into others' internal dialogues?  And, what's really behind my collecting and the choices that I make?

Larry Seiden posted a great remark that focused on the idea of variety.  At the end of the day, for collectors, is it really about (serial or concurrent) variety in our holdings, with all that is left trying to figure out how many and how frequently is enough?  Could be...

That said, for me I think there is something else going on here -- a search for coherence and authenticity.  A good friend of mine recently showed me a segmentation of luxury goods buyers.  To state the obvious, people who buy expensive things do so for a variety of reasons -- from wanting to fit in to wanting to show off, but varying along other axes as well.  At one end of this particular segmentation scheme are the avant-garde folks who see themselves as being on the bleeding edge, pushing the envelope, changing the nature of the category (OK, visualize a forum member or members here...).  Just inside of that group is a segment of Authenticity Seekers, who may buy from major brands or independents, and can serve as the patrons of new crafts, but who are motivated by a search for internal consistency rather than a lust for the new. 

In the dictionary, you can just put my photo next to that one -- I am apparently a big-time Authenticity Seeker.  PPlater was kind enough to characterize me recently as an "alpha collector" (I'm still blushing about that one -- I'm still a rookie relative to very many here), but my reading of that is that he and I both have the Authenticity gene and he sees some of his internal mental models reflected in my choices.  I found out this past week that he and I both wear the same brand of eyeglasses, for Pete's sake (IC Berlin, if you're interested -- perhaps slightly on the avant-garde end of things, but cool in the sense that they figured out how to make a folding eyeglass frame without hinges).  When I first posted my "Big 6" watches earlier this year, DTL responded that he had owned four of the same six watches!  That's pretty wild, given that one of the six is a unique piece.  Coincidence?  I think not..

I had the privilege of attending a VC dinner hosted by Alex recently, and during the pre-dinner discussion I kept coming back to the concepts of integrity and coherence.  Is the Tour de L'ile a great watch?  Well, it is certainly a complicated watch (to put it mildly) but does it have an inherent theme, or is it just showing off?  I recall an interview with Vianney in which he said that he could have put a tourbillon in the Antiqua, but what would be the point?  His 19th Century time traveler didn't have a need for a tourbillon, but certainly would need a perpetual calendar!  I brought up the example of the AP Equation of Time (one of my Big 6) as a complicated watch that has a coherent logic -- it is about the movement of the Earth around the Sun, and reminds us of our place in the universe.  They could have put a repeater in there, but why? 

I frequently return to this idea of internal integrity.  A perhaps related concept is that I admire things that reflect the essence of their makers -- perhaps it is related to my career as a business strategist, but I admire things that draw on elements of core identity.  In business, we use the much-abused term Core Competence (invented by my friend and colleague Gary Hamel) to characterize this idea.  I like to think that my Big 6 (Plus, at this point) reflect the concepts of integrity and core essence:

1.  The AP EOT -- see above.  Also there's the use of the AP 2210 base movement, which stands pretty high on the list of most purely conceived automatic movements, in the view of folks who would know

2. The VC Malte Squelette -- to me VC means openworking, making this one a natural.  Also, it is based on the VC 1120 automatic movement (see AP 2120, above -- it's from the same original JLC development)

3.  Lange Datograph -- from the busy dial to the stacked movement to the instantaneous minute change, the epitome of Saxon watchmaking

4. Voutilainen Observatoire -- the watch that made Kari famous (yes, I know all about the decimal repeaters and would kill to own one).  The idea of basing a "wearing" watch on an observatory movement was brilliant, and this watch represents (not just to me) what Kari is all about

5. JLC Reverso Repetition Minutes -- It's a Reverso, it has an innovative Eric Coudray movement (take a look at the shape of those gongs, retained in JLC repeaters to this day), and my guess (although I could be wrong) is that Janek did the cosmetics.  If those things don't say JLC, what does?

6. Speake-Marin Fighting Time -- The very first "art" watch that Peter ever did.  Absolutely reflects his core concept of robust construction, has a dial done by the best of the best, Kees Engelbarts (who also engraved the case), and the materials (Platinum and diamonds) are consistent with the story of the watch -- the attempt of the mighty and eternal dragons to turn back the passage of time, only to fail.  A meaningful watch for my stage of life (as with the EOT, there is a big element of emotional content here as well as that authenticity thing, pondering where and how, if at all, I fit into the endless sweep of space and time -- geez, that sounds pretentious but is nonetheless what these pieces put me in mind of)

7.  Lange Double Split -- see Datograph, above.  Not seen as "iconic" by some (absence of date, size, what?), but it fits my wrist and I don't think anyone other than Lange could do this watch.  "State of the Art Tradition" is the motto -- hard to argue that on this one, Lange hit the mark -- maybe even more than with the Dato (heresy, I know)

8.  Vianney Halter Antiqua -- As Max Busser said, the "missing link between traditional and contemporary horology."  This is the VH watch that will be famous 50 years from now.  To meet Vianney is to know that the Antiqua is what he is all about

9.  Vyscocil VA -- If you don't think this one is going to reflect the essence of its maker, you haven't been following it.  Even if it is never made (perish the thought!) the single-minded (obsessive?) quest that it represents is authentic in its own right.  And, overlooked in the stories about the lengthy wait for delivery are the truly clever small complications (separate hour/minute/seconds setting, fixed duration power reserve, hard linkage of seconds and minutes hands etc.) that make this piece inventive

Do all pieces that I own need to reflect this mental model?  Well, that might get a little boring, to be honest.  So, I suspect that there will always be other pieces that migrate into, and over time out of, my collection.

I know that I've been going on a while about all of this (probably meaningless) stuff, but as a capper, if you look at some of the other stuff that I buy or own, I think that the theme plays out:

Car: Ferrari 12-cylinder (not 8-cylinder -- Enzo famously said "A Ferrari is a car with a 12-cylinder engine")

Wine: Among others, Sean Thackrey -- a guy who lives in the Marin woods and uses techniques out of ancient texts (including open vats under the trees) to make mind-blowing products

Shirts: Charvet -- the ones where you go into the store on the Place Vendome and take the little elevator upstairs to where the nice lady who pretends to speak only French measures you up and you sort through the big stacks of bolts of cloth that will eventualy become your shirts

Sweaters: Loro Piana.  If the Almighty wears a sweater, I'm convinced that it is a Loro Piana Vicuna -- it's like spun gold

All right -- basta!  I would love to provoke a discussion here about the internal mental and emotional models that you see in your own collecting behavior, as I am sure that it would teach me a lot!  And if at the end of the day all of this is, as Larry suggested, just a way to rationalize the need for variety, I'm OK with that too

All the best,

Gary G