Horological Meandering

Being exclusive will usually mean being expensive.

It takes decades as well as many psycho and social links to open a market for collectables.

I am always FOR the watch collecting hobby to become a mix of exclusive and inclusive..like the collecting of antiques, old books and art.

Cars will be too exclusive, and definitely will not be within my budget.

Here goes what it is to peek into my watch collecting:

The above is my new..nov 30th 2013 addition to my 8 watch LV boxes.

I was in Paris for my daughter's debutante Le Bal and thought I would build a small collection just for her..which is what you see above.

Not inexpensive...but fun and will remind her of Paris with her parents.

The MBF Panda will be in the box for my other girl. Or they can exchange.

I love the SEIKO Galante series for what it can do in circles of friends who will be much more comfortable with SEIKO.

SEIKO makes some extraordinary watches.

My age old 3919..now so small...

The girls need, and so do I, time off from serious tourbillons..and this Verbene was so darn cool, with acrylic case and a thermometer that is accurate.

See below:

See..not all tourbillons will cost millions.

This raw but totally functional one is a rarity.

Cased beautifully, and it pokes fun at ourselves.

Priced below a SWATCH tourbillon, maybe half of a SWATCH.

BUT..a real cage ala Breguet style!!!

AHHHH..the champagne of the era.

To my humble eyes..the best possible.

I had to buy the Invention Piece 1 as I took the WRONG risk as well as having not enough money to buy used second hand from a known collector in Singapore.

He was a GOOD chap. He is, I mean.

The highly recommended Invention piece was selling at over half a million dollars, no way I could come up with that money.

But years later, I did...but I had to pay MORE than the original price..rats.

The platinum 24 incline is my high recommendation...I thought it was not attractive at first, now, after a year..which I learnt lesson, buy GF new...like Patek.

This piece is accidentally stealth..it has a WG model dial...not a platinum model dial, unusual and is not in the GF catalogues.

See the difference?

The craziness of the tourbillons?

The Cabestan, number 1 to be precise.

Also a tourbillon, but the chains make it so darn whatchamacallit.

Finally..a blast from the past...the ORIGINAL pack of Fraanck Muller's watches...this one is a hand wound perpetual QP with a real tiny woman's movement..it was so darn cool.

Back then, he did not have the dial guilloche yet.

My second and favorite controversial piece, the MBF1 skeletal tourbillon.

My eta based split seconds..the first of the series back in the 1990s.

They were still about to make the Porsche Design Ocean.

As you can see...the watch is "up to date".

On the minute.

On the winder.

It was ugly back then.

But today..one of my favorites.

So there...from SEIKOS to IWC to MBF to VERBENES to Pateks to Greubel Forseys.

I can't get more eclectic than that...yet.

Wait till you see more of my crazy stuff.

But one thing in common...I feel the soul in them all.

For me.

It is right.

My kids will know me..for sure. And I am NOT looking after them, I am using them.

The real deal...

Now..I need more money.

I hope we all have fun, and will conquer our insecurities...I am still trying.

I hope that this breaks down more barriers that prevent people from joining in....watches will be the art for the future generations.

It has the soul.

Specially like the
"I hope we all have fun, and will conquer our insecurities" part
Watches aren't shabby either but far from cheap & ordinary

Cheers
D

More about that vabene tourbillon?

The tourbillon...it is probably Chinese...but if you wait...I will post more. the cage is a typical swiss tourb which the Chinese never did often....they used the carousel type.

This tourb is an unfinished, unpolished raw movement...that works very well...superb time.

Wear and tear? I don't know.

It depends on the type of ruby and oils.

More soon...

NT

I would have chosen the GF IP1, but instead, its the Cabestan that captures my imagination most.

best, Horo

I was owner  number 1 for the Cabestan, brand new.

Owner number 3 for the Greubel Forsey..and I was fated to own it.

I wanted 00 of 11...but no money.

Owners 1 made a KILLING...owner 2 owned for a short while, enough to make a second profit.

At above  $500,000 plus I had to throw in one of my most loved watches, please do not ask me which one...painful!!!!!!

I acquired Invention 1 in platinum.

No doubt, people will say they can get one.

BUT..this one although is old, it is 100% mint. I know what is mint.

It's as good as new.

Google or Bing and you will rarely find a genuine seller of a GOLD piece.

A platinum??? Never, almost never.

I am so CONFIDENT of Greubel Forsey, just as I was with Vianney Halter and Richard Mille and Panerai.

I have bought also the last of the platinum 30 Vision available...as investments for generations to come, and to wear and enjoy.

From the simple time only Patek, to the designs from childhood MB&F, The Captain Nemo VH and the Machine looking Cabestan. 

These are from my 1990 days. Good to see they are healthy.

Always love to see your timepieces.  Quite a range across your collection.

I hope that I do not come across wrong as boastful, and if so..forgive me.

I just wish to have the entire young and old world friends discover a wonderful and hopefully inexpensive way to enjoy life.

Thank you for sharing your wonderful collection. And thank you for educating me on Vabene, i had never heard of them before. I think I need to find one of their tourbillons for myself!

I am tempted to have the watch dismantled and the tourbillon alone polished.

No message body

...Only your crazyness ( forgive me for that word ) can dismantle the watch to have only the tourbillon polished !! Great Bernard....do it please...so we can admire the lovly polished than !!

Who will polish than ?? Let's guess !!!

 

Have a nice week end.....

 

Giancarlo

Bernard, that black LV it's smashing !!

I think in that box missing some pieces, like the OPUS and also some Horological Machines...without them the future generations cannot understand the level that we have reached !!

Best

 

Giancarlo

 

Then we would have for the purists...a good span.

Beanrd, 

BUT...

the big thing was I was and still am VERY sure that work as GOOD as what Greubel Forsey did, I was on the jury before 2011, in 2010 that awarded them...

would always be FULLY booked and bought and sold out when(1)  they make 100 a year, (2) they know and follow and study their customers, (3) their books are open and HONEST and simply...they are the BEST material object made by man, as a machine, money can buy.

However, I also believe in ART as well. That is VERY hard to survive.

That's why...for 2 reasons...one is that I have less money than others...and 2 is that I want to support artists FIRST.

Now..I think I had 5 years to save money...and on the month of May...I will reveal a Greubel Forsey which I bought used...and at again a higher price...proving that in SOME cases...watches are investments.

Fact...more of watches are investments than wine/art in proportion to numbers.

I may be wrong.

I will say flat out...do not buy to make money...buy for altruistic reasons.

But IF you intend to make money...platinum Greubels are tops.

I know Patek and Rolex may trump them...but not in the field where you include intellectual weight.

My flawed view of the world....now..I am busy looking for a plane in my back yard.

 

...belive me I know very well that you were sitting next to them at 2011 GPHG....(I also saw some pic of you next to Setephen at the jury table).. and exactely for that reasons I was wondering ever more how you can recognize their superlative job only now !! If the watch is a good watch you see it since the beggining, whether you have the money or not !!
Though I understand yuor way to help first the indipendet artists, which they really need help !!

Thank you have a nice day....

Best

Giancarlo

why would she want men's watches (apart from the resale value)?

Remove the genderization of a commercial product, and the audience expands, and discussions go deep into emotional territory. Women can bring that in. Watches have colored my marriage, bonded my family, as it is an object easy to love, sentimental, lasts forever, and can travel beyond my days on earth.

A watch is a foot print of my stay.

Once, just back in 1958, in Singapore, and Malaysia, my family, being Chinese, but educated in English were not allowed to enter most of the British facilities or watch collecting (if there were), clubs...golf and polo are good examples.

Now. Just going back in time...as I am a doctor, it is a part of history which remains a stain on us.

 

Dogs and women not allowed. The sign on the store...

British suffragettes,which were mostly women from upper and middle-class backgrounds, frustrated by their social and economic situation in 1918 to 1933 and on...the women were TORTURED, abused, forced to suffer inside "institutions".

The argument was that women should not get the vote because they were too emotional and could not think as logically as men; their violent and aggressive actions were used as evidence in support of this argument.

^{Well, unlike the internet age, information and points of view were male dominated.}

In the early twentieth century until WW 1, approximately one thousand suffragettes were imprisoned in Britain.Most early incarcerations were for public order offenses and failures to pay outstanding fines.

Suffragettes became a liability because if they were to die in the prison’s custody the prison would be responsible for their death, and as a result, prisons began the practice of force feeding the suffragettes through a tube, most commonly a nostril or stomach tube or a stomach pump.

The use of force feeding had previously been practiced in Britain; however, its use had been exclusively for patients in hospitals who were too unwell to eat or swallow food properly, and despite the fact that this practice had been deemed safe by medical practitioners for sick patients, it posed issues for the healthy suffragettes.

The process of tube feeding was strenuous; without the consent of the hunger strikers, they were typically strapped down and forced to eat via stomach or nostril tube, often with a considerable amount of force.

 

Many women found the process painful, and after the practice was observed and studied by several physicians, it was deemed to have both short-term damage to the circulatory system, digestive system and nervous system and long term damage to the physical and mental health of the suffragettes.

 

Suffragettes who were force fed were also known to develop pneumonia as a result of a misplaced tube.

 

Watches? I am all for removing the perception of what is male, for men only, etc. Hence, often a diamond laced bracelet or pink strap for a diving watch is enough.

Greubel Forseys are exceptional. Lange One Tourbillon Perpetual Celendar "Handwerskunst" is the first of the BEST ladies welcome to watch collecting!

 

They have their selling point and power within the aesthetic of the finish, the use of needful practice of aesthetics, to enhance life of the product. VERY few products sell for MORE then when bought new.

 

Greubel Forsey? Well if you look carefully at the sold out IP 1,2 and 3 in platinum...yes..I had to pay much more for my second hand one.

 

It's like buying a new Monet?!?

I did not have the cash to buy new..so I had to save, put aside each month...till both stars aligned and I had money and a seller.

Hardly any platinum GF come back into the market..the good rare and desired ones.

I am speaking now of the VISION 30.

 

The IPs? If I had money..I would have bought, and used, wear them as often as I can...and never sell in my lifetime.

 

My daughters and my wife have already had the chance to wear them..red strap at the balls and dinners...with full length gowns. These look good there, and attract attention of men who are not looking for status symbols, as Greubel Forseys do not play at status from their superlative positioning, and understated look from afar.

 

The prices also put them far away from status...too expensive.

I would say that they do NOT attract women to women. Jewelry does. Shoes and handbags do.

A lady wearing a Cabestan...that's my wife.

Also an MBF1.

My girls are NOT watch people, but they do know more than a normal chap...and about high end audio as well.

Which is why I brought up the topic of the women before WW1.

With the commencement of the First World War, the women's focus on war work turned public opinion in favor of their eventual partial enfranchisement in 1918.

http://ovidiayu.wordpress.com/2009/04/16/statement-from-new-chickens-in-aware-coup/

 

is a link to my first comments in public during a political issue involving women. Not watches, but rights.

To move to the higher stage of authenticity, and emotional boost..watches must engage women on the emotional front, which is art's Achilles heel. The same goes for photography in the early pre 35mm years.

Cars and planes too had their women versus men days.

Take away the men's product only..by not focusing on women's watches...build the beautiful tourbillon for a woman, but advertise it for men.

 Thanks Forvesta for these pics in your post

 

Remove the tag: DRESS watch. I wish to say...special watches for extreme conditions and activity. All the rest...are made as good as it gets.

 

Greubels to me, are and have been always there...I never write about watches I don't own. I think it is OK. I don't think that my way of EXTREME critic or praise can be applied to watches UNLESS I own them.

That's just me.

This message has been edited by bernard cheong on 2014-03-18 01:56:02

chill out.... 

I mean all in good faith.

More to try to get as much of my wife to accept more watches.

And to bring a hobby for sharing between the married guys.