Comments:
Twins, the same but not
Stopped by Christies to check out the Signature 1 up for auction (#2) and was surprised to find the dial differed from mine (#5).
The pic is terrible but you can just see that the earlier watch has a very very subtle circular graining to the center of the dial which isn't on the later watch which is super matte and the outer ring sunburst finish is slightly lighter in color and depth on the earlier watch.
Super nerdy and esoteric I know but it's a fun reminder that even the "same" watch isn't the same and with age every watch gets more unique over time.
The pic is terrible but you can just see that the earlier watch has a very very subtle circular graining to the center of the dial which isn't on the later watch which is super matte and the outer ring sunburst finish is slightly lighter in color and depth on the earlier watch.
Super nerdy and esoteric I know but it's a fun reminder that even the "same" watch isn't the same and with age every watch gets more unique over time.
When we did the P10 Gerber watch for this community we learned that it's very hard to control small batches
When they were produced, the dials were supposed to sparkle around the engraving, but some were more matte finish and there there was an issue matching the date rings. In the end, Paul sent the watches with the best dials installed, and an extra dial and date ring along with the watch, just in case something went wrong with them.
Sparkle in the watch
Matte in the box
Matte in the box
Bleeding a bit around the black lume, after 12 years.
I think a manufacturer might go through far more "test" dials refining the finish than your one of eleven watch.
Wow, cool photos and thanks for sharing the story! These variations are a reminder that this work is hard and still very manual.
Two beautiful watches. The small differences is one of the things that makes the watches made in smaller series usually more interesting than the results of mass production.
Absolutely agreed! What a fun thing to have a group of people with almost but not quite the same watch. One of the auction reps seemed to think the slight difference rationalized my owning both 😂
Super cool! Thanks for sharing, really awesome to see variations and custom requests within the series
I have been wanting to try to catalog all the variants since I did see piece unique sapphire cased, arabic dialed and an all blue plated Signature 1 variants as well.