F.P. Journe

Hi All, I have a friend who is interested in purchasing an Optimum. We were wondering about reliability of the Optimum. As present or past owners of FPJ watches, we know that certain FPJ movements are much less reliable than others, so it's important to g... 

Owned it for a few years from new. Though I don't wear it everyday, I have never had problem with its time keeping or experience any stoppage. In fact it feels better made than my Resonance and Tourbillon DS.

I can’t comment from a personal perspective since I don’t own this watch. But I do know a couple of owners and they haven’t had any issues. I haven’t heard or read about it from any other source either. But I agree with your point, that as a collectors fo... 

First off let me stop you at, "we know that certain FPJ movements are much less reliable than others." These types of statements and issues have been discussed many times across multiple brands before and I will not repeat why, without data, they are unhe... 

Dear Velociphile I agree to the first part of your post. Generalizations not built on fact , like the one you point out, are of no help to the collectors community.I tried to make that point in my first response. We welcome personal experiences or data ba... 

You make an awful lot of conclusions in that post and I don't need to put up with it. When I was asking questions about another brand a while back, I was contacted by PM by another collector who interestingly had two different pieces from two different br... 

It's a bit odd that you're now passing on that FPJ has supposedly recognized and corrected escapement issues with the Optimum, after initially stating that you were only speculating about potential problems. Perhaps mentioning this originally would have a... 

Auribus teneo lupum

Your words: “Regarding the specific issues related to the Optimum, and I am speculating , there are particular issues in manufacturing variations of Breguet's Natural escapement.” In your next post: You have suddenly heard it from a collector, that this i... 

Sad to end 16 yrs this way. But I’m done here.

But feel free to PM me if you wish. I have a big day tomorrow, so if it is lengthy I can’t promise to reply to you right away, but I wil, eventually. Best Christian

I have had it for just under one year

After the AD's Optimum was fixed and returned, I asked what the problem was. I was told "balance obstruction." I don't know more than that but will try to find out.

Throughout my post, I used the word "we" to refer only to me and my collector/friend. I was not using "we" to refer to the general collector community, especially when I wrote, "We know that certain FPJ movements are much less reliable than others." I hop... 

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What a really great post! First - no hard feelings regarding your initial post but thank You for the clarification 👍 it clears up a few things. Thank you, for going in to detail about your experiences with your three watches. Explaining what the problems ... 

I have two Journes that have been nothing but reliable; and great timekeepers-the CB and an Octa Lune. I just took possession of my second Centigraphe Souverain. The chronograph hands on the first one would never reset to zero, and so I didn't keep it-it ...  

I agree- too good to let go! You have some incredible watches, I am discovering. Enjoy your weekend with this one Best Christian

... the Centigraphe's behavior stabilizes and doesn't worsen. Also, I really appreciate your sharing this because this is the sort of first-hand information about reliability/functionality that I'd like to know if I were considering purchasing a watch wit... 

I believe my threesome is a very nice sub-collection. I would be very hesitant to go for something more complicated than the Centigraphe at this point. The Calendrier was on my shortlist but your experience, coupled with mine, makes me stop.

In my long post above, I wrote, "...one fellow local collector (who is probably reading this now) offered to buy the Calendrier if I ever wanted to sell it, even though he knows about the problematic history and has had his own issues with a different (co... 

Wonderful idea, that has to be incredibly hard to pull off. Journe does not walk away from a challenge-the thing I admire, I guess. Think about the complications he has tackled over 20 years, as a one-man idea bank; the only thing missing is to couple a p... 

It is always great to read you. Best Christian

This brand produces some of the coolest watches and movements I’ve ever seen. OTOH, my simple time-only CS has broken twice since I bought it in 2010, and both times I ended up paying very significant repair fees, despite my attempts to get the brand to t... 

As long as they are not passed off as fact and the author states it as such. Specifically, saying “In my opinion...” I’m grateful for the personal experiences of enthusiasts on this forum. I have flirted with purchasing a Calendrier for years and haven’t ... 

Personal opinion and personal observations are very welcome here. The good as well as the bad. Members must have the possibility to share their experiences, problems, criticize ect - thats how we learn and get to understand about the watches we are drawn ... 

... quite a few others say their Calendriers have worked flawlessly for years. So I guess it's hit or miss. When I sent mine back to FPJ for about the 3rd/4th/5th time (I can't remember, at this point), I asked that the movement be swapped. I was told tha...