Horological Meandering

Please help me pick my first horological watch.  I have alot of mechanical watches but mostly in the mass market genre like Tudor, IWC, panerai.  The most horological pieces in the collection are a rolex Cellini 5240 and Vacheron 12100 Toledo.  Either the Breguet tradition 37 or JLC ultra thin skeletonized would be a capstone watch for me.  I’m not an expert on hand finishing and I can’t tell an interior angle from an obtuse angle so please enlighten me.

Get the Breguet.
With a Breguet La Tradition you are right at the place you want to be as a collector.

And: the La Tradition is not a skeletonised watch! ☝️

Are there potential issues with skeletonized watches? Durability or reliability?

Ultra thin AND skeletonized is really pushing the limits. Watchmakers are not really comfortable playing with ultrathin since parts are trimmed down at the maximum making bridges and parts in general very soft. Skeletonized make this even more critical.
But well, as long as you have it serviced by JLC, they know their products...

You right at some point dear Count.
I do also not prefer every skeleton out there.

The skeleton Wowbattle2 post, the JLC is what i see from the picture a disaster.
Even my own skeleton is softly said, a horrible watch.

When i see some GP’s three bridges, than i do not feel it is a bad thing.

The Cartier Santos skeletons? A disaster in my opinion.
Corum golden bridge? Fascinating.

For me also a mass market peace.

Horological?
Than Romain Gauthier and Ferdinand Berthoud comes up.
F.P. Journe aswell.

The JLC is surely a work of art, craft and finishing, but its wearability seems very limited. The JLC is quite a dressy piece, possibly only apropos worn under a cuff and with more formal attire. The Breguet can do double-duty...dressy enough to wear in most situations while also being industrial enough to wear more casually.

I didn’t see the jlc ultra thin skeletonized design as feminine before your post but I can see it now, it does look a bit dainty/delicate. The case is rated to 50m like all the master control series, which is pretty crazy for such a dainty looking watch.

in the first picture there's a photo of a Philippe Dufour Simplicity movement. I circled in red all of the interior angles on the briges. Notice how sharp the crease created by the anglage is.

Thank you for the comparison photos, i can see the difference because you circled the areas of interest but otherwise I would not be able to find the difference myself. Patek’s movement doesn’t seem to fare well under scrutiny. Is the patek movement more industrial than artisanal? Suppose you had  a dufour, a patek, and a rolex; ranking from most artisanal to most industrial I imagine the order would be as above but is patek right in the middle or is it closer to a  rolex movement as these photos suggest ?

Patek uses a combination of machine and hand finishing. Not all of their watches are decorated to the same standard. You'll find some grand complications from the brand that are exquisite in their execution of the finishing, but that same attention isn't unfortunately given to most of their pieces. PP is definetely closer to Dufour, but there's still a big gap in quality as you can clearly see.

Researching more about what interests you on horology is even more enlightening and rewarding than asking for enlightenment! The French language can be a little confusing; all watches are "horological" as the word "horological" simply means anything related to time measurement. If you meant "haute hologerie" which means "high-end luxury" I'd argue you already have one, as just about any Vacheron Constantin made in the past 70 years would definitely qualify as a high-end timepiece! So this might be your second high-end timepiece!

Sincere thanks for the personal note. If haute holigerie means artisanal handicraft in watchmaking with a watchmaker at a workbench using tiny tools to do stuff to tiny parts, that’s the term I’m looking for. For this capstone watch I’m looking for something that is made by hand rather than just assembled by hand. For my vacheron 12100, I bought it on impulse because i liked how it looked on my wrist. I had actually been planning to get a Cartier Louis cartier tank but I liked this tiny Vacheron more. It’s about the size of the newly released cartier tank normale, 30 x 25 mm which is tiny but so is my wrist. No display case back to see the movement.  I tried to do internet research on the movement and the most detail I found was from this this photo of the same movement inside a 1st generation Vacheron overseas ladies watch. I can’t tell from the photo if it’s a high horology movement. The rotor is marked pt950 which is a clue that the movement wasn’t designed by accountants but that is as far as I can deduce from the photo.  Thanks again for your kind message.

Looking forward to reading more of your horological posts!