Independents

Gary G
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Weighing in

You have all been spared -- as I was finishing a very long response to this thread, my computer crashed!  A quick summary (I'm too old to start again...):

1. My guess is that the "brown face" watch had a crooked seconds hand at the time of the photo.  I'd also guess that it is long fixed by now.  We had a discussion about this when the photos were first posted quite a while ago...not sure why it's a fresh topic now

2. The seconds hand on my watch as shown in the picture posted by John/ei8htohms is straight -- trust me.  I remembered the brown watch photos, and was concerned about it ever since, so I'm very sensitive to the issue.  The hand was straight two months ago when it was photographed at the Vienna show, straight a month ago when I got the watch, and it's straight now.

3. My inspection of every photo on Kari's website, using a straightedge, tells me that all of those seconds hands are straight, too.  Same for the 4 Observatoires, the Kari Chronograph, and the Kari Decimal Repeater I have inspected in person.  Yes, I'm that anal.

4. Some other early movement photos of my Observatoire as it was displayed at the Vienna show caused me some concern.  I corresponded _privately_  with two PuristS and Kari on the topic, found that Kari still had some final finishing work to do, and upon receipt of the watch found that all areas of potential concern were, in fact, perfectly finished. 

5. Allen is a gentleman and also very modest about posting photos of his watches -- so if all we got out of this thread was a great set of pictures of the enamel-dialed Observatoire, hooray!  Hey, Allen, if I say that the movement finishing sucks, will you post some pictures of the back, too?

6. A review of the other PuristsPro posts made by the original poster of this thread shows a few polite exchanges, as well as what appears to have been a long string of complaints about a perceived grievance that has now been deleted and that led to a warning about a potential banning from the forum. 

7. By the way, a friend of mine, using a 10x loupe, has found a very small finishing error (I think -- it's quite minor and it might even be a reflection) on my Observatoire.  Try finding it in the picture that ei8htohms posted -- I can't see it there, and you won't either, I'm betting.  If I find that it's ever on my mind, I'll ask Kari to address it when I have the watch serviced in 7 years.

8. The best part to me about looking at my Observatoire is holding it in my bare hand and looking at it with my naked eye -- the overall effect is very hard to describe, and is the result of great skill and hard work on the part of its maker  Perhaps I will learn a lesson about being what photographers call a "pixel peeper" -- is life best seen through a 10x loupe?  Maybe, but maybe not, too...

9.  On my VC Malte Skeleton, the engraver had a bad day at the "S/5" factory -- all of the letter S and number 5 engravings on the back of the rotor appear somewhat mangled when seen under high magnification.  I'll ask VC to remedy it when it's time for service, but this is the first time I've revealed my observation, and I certainly didn't get on the VC forum here with a bold headline about how VC's supposed openworking skills are an elaborate fraud.

10. As a younger man, I was not only my own toughest critic (still am...) but often found myself enraged at the imperfections of others.  I had somehow formed the impression that I had a unique gift -- that flaws in people that were apparent to me were somehow invisible to others.  I finally learned that by and large others saw exactly the same things that I did, but that they had more highly developed ways of dealing with them -- or that the tiny flaws of others weren't actually that enraging to them in the first place.  Put another way: we've seen the brown faced watch before.  We've seen the seconds hand.  It was probably imperfect.  We got on with our lives.

Best,

Gary G