Horological Meandering

POTM - January - Crown Comfort

 

Dear friends

After long waiting here’s first POTM interview aka Purist Of The Month interview.

As you know every first of month we will have one of our members in spotlight.

First in line is crown comfort aka CC.

Yes yes I know…GP gang…GP mafia…nepotism etc....

but I assure you that CC is first solely based on fact that he was first to respond to POTM request.

Also I can tell you that I prepared nice cocktail that I hope to be of your liking of both members old and new,

moderators or not, frequent and not so frequent posters but all PuristS you all know and love.

 

So without further ado let us hear what our friend CC has to say

Yours cordially

Damjan

      1. Please introduce yourself!

Crown Comfort (CC), joined PuristS in June 2012. At that time, I had a small collection of modern Girard-Perregaux watches, which was my main interest at that time.

I was born in 1970 somewhere in East Germany behind the iron curtain. I’d like to keep my full identity out of the public on the forum as I have a fairly unique name and could be easily located and identified. More about my PuristS name and avatar further below. I had a childhood of many interests and adventures that has probably formed me to quite some extent. In those days, as children we just seemed to have so much more time to play outside, do naughty things, do sport, read or discover other interests. Perhaps the absence of Internet and Smartphone played its part. I always enjoyed making and building things myself and I believe from that a fascination with mechanical things was inflicted.

In the 80ies I then discovered computers. Always had a thing for math so programming was kind of the next natural step. I remember the first computers we worked with had 8kbyte of memory. No surprise I ended up studying computer science/engineering in the then united Germany. During some student work, my life took a new direction and I ended up in the Telecoms industry. Today I’m a manager at a Telecoms software company. My professional life had brought me for a number of years overseas, living 8 years in Asia, in Seoul, Singapore and Hong Kong. And in Hong Kong you use the traditional red/silver roof taxies, Toyota Crown Comfort. A toy model is still in my study, which was given to me by friends as a leaving present. That’s now my avatar and user name.

The last 13 years I have been living back in Germany, only a stone-throw from where I was born. I have two teenage daughters.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

       2. How did you discover WatchProSite and what it means for you to be one of PuristS?

I think anyone interested in watches who looks for information on the web, will eventually land on WatchProSite. But not everyone will become a PuristS. If I recall correctly, I have been following WatchProSite for a while before I signed up, mostly the GP forum of course, which was moderated by AndrewD at that time. As a fact, there is no other place on the Web that provides such comprehensive information and coverage on GP as WatchProSite. A lot of historic work also goes back to PeterCDE who wrote some really amazing articles on GP.

What does PuristS mean to me? It is mostly the community; the way we respect each other. Having now met quite a few members, I can say that there is a strong bond and friendship within the community, which makes this place so special.

There is another thing that is special to PuristS. Everyone can contribute, we have a true discussion and we can freely voice our opinions, but in general, we respect everyone’s taste and choice. There is no right or wrong, only likes and dislikes. Finally, the structure with the brand forums and the way the timeline with photos is preserved is extremely good to browse through and read.

                                                                                                      

      3. What watch are you wearing today and how you choose watch “of the day”?

Today (the day I wrote this) I have my Laureato 8010 on my wrist. I tend to change watch almost every day, sometimes I stick to one for 2-3 days and other days I have 2-3 watches on my desk and I keep changing. I chose based on gut feeling, what I had not worn in a while and quite often through inspiration by the forum. If Blomman for example shows say an Olimpico, I think, hmm, I should bring out mine again.

    

4. What is your favorite watch/brand/complication?

Let’s start with the brand. That’s easy. Having an almost exclusive collection of Girard-Perregaux, it’s clear that it is my favorite brand, no arguments here. There are many reasons for that. My very first satisfactory watch purchase when venturing into horology was my second (real) watch ever, a GP Richeville and it left a lasting impression. Since then I had been following the brand although I first ventured into another direction. Today, GP means many things to me. There is the vast history and now that I discovered vintage, so many watches to hunt. GP today is a top brand that makes the most complicated movements and in the last few years had been placed at the very top end of the market. Thankfully, they are coming back with more affordable models recently. The era that has most influenced me horologically, is what I call the “Macaluso era”.

When Luigi Macaluso took over GP in the 90ies and then transformed it to a top manufacturer again, releasing a number of iconic watches that went back to historic DNA, such as the Laureato, the Vintage 45 and the 1966 watches, which are still today the cornerstones of the collection. It is great to see that Stefano Macaluso continues to play a key role in the creation of the collection even though today GP belongs to Kering Group. There is honestly another element as well. I would not have been able to build the collection I have today with a brand like JLC, or Vacheron, not to mention Patek.

Especially, vintage GPs are still undervalued and that provides me the possibility to build an interesting collection on a limited budget.

My favorite complication? Probably the Chronograph. Not so much from the movement complication, but I really like Chronograph dials. Of course, a world-timer is a fantastic complication too and I also find a Power Reserve indicator most useful. I’m quite impressed as well with the GP Grand Date complication, the implementation with the two overlapping discs and the instantaneous switch are unmatched in my opinion. Other complications: well, Perpetual Calendars are less interesting for me, a pain to set and if you like to rotate different watches not very practical. A Tourbillon I find technically interesting but only a few Tourbillon designs are really well executed.

My favorite watch? If you have built a collection, it is almost impossible to name the one favorite watch. However, instead there are cornerstone pieces in your collection that crystallize over time. So let me share some of my favorite, cornerstone watches from my collection, split between vintage and modern:

 

Modern:

Vintage:

      


5. When and how you discovered horology?

Not really sure what was my start. I do remember that as a teenager, I was gifted a plastic Timex from my aunt in America. That was super-cool, especially in East Germany and I was proud like I could possibly be. I guess that ignited my interest for watches in general. When I started to earn my first own money, buying a watch was high on my wish list. At that time of course, I had no real clue about horology and was probably following a trend and thought that I really wanted a Breitling Old Navitimer.

In the 90ies that was kind of the fashion watch. Anyways, I got it at Türler at Zurich Airport in 1996 and it became my first real Swiss watch. I was already living in Asia at that time and travelled quite a bit to Hong Kong and Singapore where I did spend some spare time window shopping. The Breitling was a good looking watch, but overall quite uncomfortable, the movement noisy and the oscillating weight could challenge all your muscles in your left arm to stay put. Very soon a desire for a second watch arose. In 1997 I then bought a Girard-Perregaux Richeville 2750 in Hong Kong. While it only had an ETA-based movement, the difference was quite something. It ran very smooth, the overall quality feel was on a different level. After then moving to Singapore at the end of 1997, I started to really get interested more and more in watches. A gold dress watch followed (IWC Novecento) and eventually I fulfilled a dream by buying a Patek 5085/1A at the beginning of the new Millenium. Those 4 watches I kept for the next 10 years, mostly wearing the Patek as my daily beater and from time to time the GP and the IWC, but rarely ever the Breitling.

Eventually, I started to get more interested again and when I gave myself a push to part from the Patek, I started all over again. As it happened, a second GP came along (Vintage 45 Chronograph 2599) which re-enforced my strong feelings for the brand and then there was no stopping. I added quickly a few more modern GPs (Laureato, ww.tc, 1966) and was more and more drawn into the “Macaluso era” modern GPs. The rest is PuristS history and thanks to Blomman, I’m seriously into vintage GPs, which are now the main part of my collection.

     6. What element of the watch is for you make it or break it factor?

First and foremost, the dial design and in combination with the case design and proportions. I’m very old-school when it comes to watch design: I don’t care about the most complicated mechanical achievement, if I cannot read the time from the dial in an instant. Point missed otherwise. That explains a lot the attraction of simple three-hander time-only watches. They have a very pure design and serve the function of telling me what time it is perfectly. Eventually, it will come down to my personal judgment of aesthetics if I like a watch or not. And there is an element of craftsmanship that makes a well-executed dial design. Similar on the case, the proportions have to be right to my untrained eye. I don’t think there is a wrong or perfect size, it’s the combination of the size with the dial and the complication that needs to be right. The movement is a factor, but if the dial or case is not to my liking, I will pass.

 

     7. If you could design your own watch what would it be and what it would look like?

I deny any talent of designing my own watch, but if I had a wish towards GP, then I would love to see a manual wind Chronograph in steel, no date, 40-42mm case, two subdials, applied numerals with a black or dark blue dial.

Alternatively, I could also come up with this:

     8. What is the watch that will last leave your collection and why?

That is a very tough question. I hope I will never come in the situation where I will be forced to sell off my collection. Of course, any collection evolves over time and from time to time, I also sell a watch, either to fund new targets or because I have moved on in style/taste. In general, I’m not selling any watch from my vintage collection, unless it was a duplicate or I found a better one or it is not worth a repair/restoration. I have quite a few vintage GPs in my collection that probably don’t have any significant monetary value (at least not today), so I don’t really see a reason to have them leave my collection. Another approach would be to say keep the most expensive of my watches. That’s likely not going to happen: if I need to part from my collection, the most expensive watches will likely go first to keep more of the other watches.

If we however, hypothetically look at that question, then the last watch to stay needs to fulfill a number of criteria:

·       It needs to be a GP

·       It should be a characteristic, iconic GP model

·       It should be versatile, i.e. suitable for casual and formal occasions, in other words suitable as daily watch

·       It should be a Chronograph, because I like Chronographs

So, decision time. I would say today (probably my answer changes again if asked later the same question), I would keep the ww.tc as my last watch. It is an iconic GP, besides the Chronograph, it also has a World Timer. The steel case is versatile, modern and both casual and formal. Together with the Vintage 45, the ww.tc is probably “the” GP that is easily recognized on the wrist as a Girard-Perregaux.

     9. What do you love and hate about watch industry today?

Let’s start with the dislikes. “Hate” is the wrong word, but there are certain things that are annoying and I think counter-productive. I don’t like the trend to brand-exclusive boutiques and what comes with it as “boutique-editions”. I think the watch industry is much better placed to have strong distribution partnerships and be present through renown retailers. I also think it is more cost-effective and customer-friendly. Similar is true for the service. Investing in well-educated and certified local service partners is better than a centralized service at the manufacturer in Switzerland. This could shorten the turn-around times and build a stronger relationship with the local retailer. The argument about service quality in my view is moot, as there are equal examples of poor service at the manufacturers. If Quality Control, Training and Certification are in place, then local services could be a positive thing.

What I love: first and foremost, that there still is a watch industry that keeps making traditional mechanical watches. Yes, it is a luxury item today and not for the mass market anymore, but that’s probably good. Given the niche market of luxury, it is still amazing how many different brands with a relatively large collection exist. The willingness to still innovate is also great to see. A prime example is the GP Constant Escapement.

     10. What was the evolution of your collection and how do you see it in next decade?

As I had already explained my way into horology, no need to repeat the beginnings. I can see a couple of major milestones in the evolution of my collection:

Less than a dozen modern GPs with a variety of complications, cases and styles (I think this really is the start of the collection, prior to this it was just having a couple of watches)

Next: discovering vintage GPs: initially focused on basic 60ies Gyromatics or manual wind, non-complicated watches

Then adding some vintage complications and more high-value watches, such as Deep Diver, Olimpico Chronographs

In parallel, I have consolidated my modern collection a bit, while also adding new pieces.

Over the years, I started to buy basically everything that came along and was good condition and/or good price. I would say I have become choosier now, more and more passing on some watches. I don’t need to own every dial or case version of a model. It is important to have a good depth in certain important vintage models, such as the Chronometer HF, the Deep Divers, the Olimpicos and adding here and there some interesting pieces, like the Railtimer or the funky dial watches.

Going forward, I do expect to add here and there some watches from other brands, but my main focus will remain with GP. I don’t think I will go for any modern non-GP at this stage, but on the vintage side, there are a few brands that interest me, like Zenith (already own a Defy Diver), Breitling (the vintage Unitime 1260 is a target) or JLC (will report on this in due time).  There is one brand I always was allergic to: Rolex. Too common, too showy, but PuristS GTGs are a dangerous thing and the more I see some of the vintage Rolex’s, the more I grow a desire. A classic 1675 GMT Master, the Explorer and even some Submariners are sublime when they age. For the moment, they will remain not a target as prices have gone crazy, but who knows in the more distant future, they may become interesting to me.

For GP, I have some desires/targets and also of course some (likely never fulfilled) dreams. In the latter category fall the Triple Bridge Tourbillon or a Minute Repeater. Actual targets for me are a Full Calendar 1966 and a Laureato Evo3 Moon Phase.

On the vintage side, I’m in deep pain missing some early Olimpicos and maybe one or two Chronographs. And of course, a Mimo Centric!!!

     11. What other hobbies do you have?

Let me start with music. While I do not play any instrument and certainly have no talent singing, music has been part of my life from very early on. It started with taping music from the radio onto a cassette recorder and later DJ’ing in school, going to build a formidable record collection and getting dragged deep down the HiFi / High-End scene. As a child I already built loudspeakers (easy) and then amplifiers (not so easy). During my years in Asia, I spend most of my spare cash on HiFi and records. Over the years the scene became more and more esoteric (it makes you wonder if at HiFi exhibitions, they only have always one and the same record but spend thousand on cable burn-in devices and some magic bowls spread around the room), so eventually, I downsized and just enjoyed the music. My record collection has been passed on to a friend as my music taste evolved. As a child I was listening to the usual Top40 Rock/Pop but with the rise of electronic music, I eventually fell for it. Initially, I was not thrilled by Techno/Acid, but when electronic music merged with traditional soul music in the mid 90ies, mainly the Bristol Trip-Hop scene, I was hooked.

Now I discover lots of underground soulful/deep house music but more and more also go back to the roots of soul and funk. For a good decade, I’m now a faithful listener to a London independent radio station (thanks to the internet streaming) Point Blank FM, and I have music running pretty much all the time, at work, in the car or at home.

Literature and Books: I do still read a lot of books, mostly novels, some non-fiction. I detest reading business books, never really gave me anything. I have been through most of the classic Russian literature now, Gogol, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Bulgakov, Gazdanov, a literature I deeply admire. Twice a year I head to the book fair and stock up with new novels.

Sports: as a child, I started at the age of 7 with wrestling (proper Olympic freestyle wresting, not that show stuff). For a good 10 years, I trained intensely and was among the top 3 nationally in my weight class.

With the start of student life and moving cities to attend university, I stopped and for many years did not do much sport other than some cycling. Thankfully, I stayed somewhat in shape over the years and 2 years ago, I gave myself a push and joined a local sports club again. I always struggle to put in simple words what we do, but in essence it is about strength and movement flexibility. It’s a mix of bodyweight exercises, elements from gymnastics, calisthenics, acrobatics and yoga/pilates. Quite a young crowd but I’m doing alright and having fun. I’m quite diligent to go twice a week.

Other general interests include cars (one day I will own a vintage car…one day), politics and current affairs, football and modern art.

     12. Your life motto and life philosophy is…

First of all, I don’t carry a motto or one-line philosophy at my forehead to go through life. I think often those are made up to give someone an intellectual image. There are things that are important to me. Certain character traits, like honesty, integrity and reliability come to mind. If I’m doing something, then I want to do it right if not perfect. Over the years, I found that the things in life that reach to your soul, like love, friendship, literature, arts and music are what brings happiness to me. Career, money or possessions (except watches of course) are less important.