John Ireland
496
The shock of the new...vs the old.
Well the new GP arrived today...actually I should say NOS...but as if new, with the elegant box and the books all in their own sub-box and then the other sub box with the watch...all very elegant. As soon as I picked it up it came to life...I gave it a full wind, set it, admired the dial which is a dozen times better than the pictures. And then I took off the old (vintage) GP and put on the new one. And it felt...too big. Worse...it felt clunky and awardward. I took it off and put on the old GP. It felt elegant and natural and I went to my favorite full length mirror (in my wife's bathroom) and I stood there and rolled up the sleeves on my sweater and put my hands in the pockets of my levis and I twisted a little to the right and looked at my left wrist and I instantly knew and could feel and could see why it hadn't been off my wrist since the day it got it. I went back in the other room, put on the new watch...went back into the bathroom...looked in the mirror... and for the life of me I can't understand why they made the watch so big. If it was a WW2 German Air Force chronograph I could understand. If it was a dive watch for Cousteau I could understand. I took out my Day Date and my Datejust and put it next to it...they looked like little bubblebacks from the thirties. The new GP...this particular one...is a watch that would have been a killer if it were only smaller. And this is not a big watch by today's standards. I wearing the new watch as I write this...and looking at the old GP lying on the desk next to the computer...now I've put them side by side...and its obvious which one will get a lot of wrist time and which one won't...which means its obvious which one has to go. And its obvious that for me, the current fashion in watches leaves me in the vintage market.
The new...
the old....
John