Glashütte Original

Most perspicuous of you, pplater . . .

 

. . . although I didn't fail to notice that you omitted the qualifier "might" from the quotation ;-) . . . still, it was admittedly out of character, as I'm normally conscious of overreaching statements and refrain from making them. Perhaps this is one of those occasions where a picture is worth a thousand words - this photo was taken earlier this morning to greet Koji to our forum (forgive the blurriness of the two gold perpetuals - the better the camera, the more difficult it is to take a macro shot that's perfectly focused with regards to depth):

. . . you'll notice that the perpetuals haven't been worn lately . . . in fact, the perpetual that was last on my wrist was the gold Senator, which I wore for three days last week; prior to that, it had been three months since I'd strapped that one on. There are, indeed, two divergent strains of thought in my collecting experience (and, btw, I dislike that word, as I don't consider myself a true collector); when I first started indulging in my passion for horology some seven years ago, I was of the opinion that the watches that were worth spending marginal dollars on were the magical perpetuals, which transcend mere mechanics with their ability to track the calendar like an analog computer. My preference for the aesthetics of handsome Teutonic deck watches combined with the inarguable value offered by Glashütte Original was the driving force behind my acquisition of four G O perpetuals in as many years. It's one thing, however, to have a single perpetual that is worn with regularity and maintained on a winder compared to four; the wear and tear on the unworn perpetuals is needless, and leads to premature servicing - kindly refer to this thread from last year:

glashutte.watchprosite.com . the cause of which, undoubtedly, was having been in continuous operation for over three years. Now, of course, I knew this all along, but it took a stern lecture from ei8htohms at our gathering last November to drive the point home: long-term operation=problems. Within a few weeks, I had dismounted all of them off their respective winders, but now they were merely speculative, and not actual, perpetuals. Therein lies the rub: when at rest, perpetuals are capable of performing acts of horological magic, but it's rather like having a ticket to a magic show rather than being at the show. It is at this point that my other predilection - for German deck watches - has come into play . . . after acquiring four perpetuals, I no longer have the desire for another. Just last weekend I discovered a silver dial steel Karree perpetual that's been long discontinued in a local store, and that I would have jumped on last year . . . I thought about it for a few hours, but then came to the conclusion that acquiring it would be an act of superfluity, and dropped the matter entirely. To make a long and tedious story short, I've come to the conclusion that for myself, further exploration down the Road of Perpetuals is simply an exercise in snugness - comfortable, to be sure, but not a worthwhile end in itself. This is why I've decided to concentrate from here on out with watches that I would want to own on aesthetic and horological grounds, namely, simple German three-handed deck watches. That, pplater, is a matter of personal aesthetic judgment, and I'm remiss in having stated it so boldly . . . perhaps I should issue a disclaimer that I have an irrational preference for exquisitely constructed watches that don't breach the undefinable line between the craft of watchmaking and the art of watchmaking, hence, Glashütte Original and Dornblüth being two of my three favorite manufacturers (Omega being the third). Most cordially, Art