New England PuristS Boston Meetup Report

Mkt33 chronicles a gathering of New England PuristS, highlighting Boston's rich but often overlooked horological history as a former center of American watchmaking. The post details a meetup at Albert Ganjei's store, showcasing a diverse array of watches from vintage pocket watches to modern independent pieces. This report captures the essence of community and shared passion among watch enthusiasts in a region with deep horological roots.

Boston is a city probably best known for its professional sport teams: the Celtics, Red Sox, Bruins, and the Patriots.  Gastronomically it is famous for baked beans hence Boston's nickname "Bean town" !

Historically Boston was the center of the watchmaking in the United States.  Home to Waltham and Boston Watch Co.  these two companies industrialized the entire watch manufacturing process.  They became the first "vertically integrated" companies in the world by developing the American System of watch manufacturing, principles of which dramatically altered the European approach to watchmaking.  click here  for a detailed history of Early American watchmaking in Boston. 

Sadly, this aspect of Boston is only horological history.  Despite being the second largest city on the Eastern seaboard (after NYC), home to Harvard University and multiple Fortune 500 companies, there are very few gathering places for watch enthusiasts.  The region's largest authorized dealer for fine Swiss timepieces just closed their doors!

Undaunted, the new Boston area PuristS group recently got together to share our mutual watch appreciating passion.  Our host was Mr. Albert Ganjei who kindly closed his store early.  Besides being a business owner, Albert is "one of us"...a complete watch enthusiast!

The first toy on display was a pocketwatch using the classic Florentine Ariosto Jones layout: 3/4 plate, but bimetallic balance, and precision adjustment mechanism with a elongated index tail

Albert is a well known collector of stainless steel Pateks.  Here is an example for his personal collection

What Albert (left) wore this evening

A B&R Ti chrono, large and light.  A tad to big for my wrist but perfect for everyone else!

A fellow Purist had a very hard time passing this one up.  Don't worry he settled for something a little nicer!

A very nice vintage Vacheron extra plate with a center second hand

One of two that caught my eye.  This vintage "reissue" is very simple and attractive.  I remember seeing the original version of this watch on Frank Sinatra's wrists.  Old blue eyes definately had taste! It is difficult to see from the photo but the sapphire crystal is extremely curved.  The seconds hand is bent to minimize parallux distortion.  It is only 33mm in diameter but because the case is square it actually wears large.  One thing is for sure, Zenith made some classic modern watches. Too bad they didn't sell and now we're stuck with "new" Zenith designs.

The other watch that caught my eye I bought the very next day for my father (a story for a different post) !

We left Albert's store and headed over to Abe and Louie's, an upscale steak house, where our guest watchmaker Curtis Thomson showed off some goodies!  Curtis drove two hours in the rain to join us and I personally want to thank him for his appearance (BTW Curtis, if you ever want to start your own "independent" project and bring some pride back to the slogan " Made in the USA", I'll be one of the first to stand in line )

My dinner for the evening,

The movement is an ETA 2824A2 modified for the moonphase by Stepan.  The custom rotor offers the owner a very interesting "psychedelic" visual display when it spins underneath the cut out plate.

At 37mm the Loiste is "small" for current trends but on the wrist the Loiste had a similar feel as a Vianney Halter Classic (i.e it was proportionned well for my 7 1/2" wrist).  If I had a chance I think this Loiste model would have made a nice addition to my collection.

I really, really wanted to like the K1.  In fact I was ready to buy it during our gathering.  I thought the case was well finished and the dial work interesting.  But my taste are now trending towards watches less than 40mm in diameter.

Despite being large, the K-1 was remarkably thin and comfortable.  Another reason why I didn't walk away with it... The contrast between the dial and hands was not optimal.

 Here are two of the first Geficas to arrive in the United States, both owned by the same Purist!

 White dial.

I personally liked the black dial better. Alas too big and wears much lighter than it looks (but still I may be tempted )

The crown is killer.  The domed sapphire crystal an easily overlooked detail.  Look! no green patina yet.

The same Purist brought with him this! 

One aspect of the Power that never gets mentionned is the case construction.  Take a look at the "sandwich" construction.  The tolerances for the different case components must be perfect!

When will you ever see this combination again?

Curtis had with him a Rose Gold Roger Smith 2 on loan from another fellow Purist.  I was an email click away from pullling the trigger on one 2 years ago.  I hesitated and filed the email away.  Probably one of the dumbest moves that I ever made.

Ever since Peter Speak Marin raved about the McGonigle finish I wanted to check one out under a loupe.  Here was a platinum model.

Indeed I now understand the hype but the unique aesthetics were not suited for me.  Obviously, Craig (who graciously played wrist model all night) thought otherwise!

Last but not least, a Romain Gauthier.  I had the honor of meeting Romain last year with another small group of PuristS. We celebrated the opening of his small workshop and his new watch in La Vallee de Joux with a bottle of Champagne.  Since then I am glad to see Romain succeeding in his dreams.  The finish on the movement has improved dramatically.  Due to the dark dial and suboptimal lighting the fantastic hand guilloche work on the dial is lost.

A final table shot! 

To all the Boston area PuristS (Craig, Bill, David, Zack, Aaron, George):  We'll make Boston the horological capital of the US again! Again thank you for a wonderful evening away from the wife and kids.  Truly everyone's collection was outstanding. I look forward to our next meeting and I've got a few more surprises in store.

A special thanks to Albert and Curtis for sharing their wonderful treasures with us.

Enjoy, Mike