Dr No
[Moderator Omega - Wristscan]
37672
I appreciate your honesty, John, and welcome your divergent . . .
. . . opinion. The Pano series of watches with the time offset relative to the secondary functions is perhaps counterintuitive, and certainly uncommon . . . concentricity is one of the hallmarks of classical aesthetic design, and I think you know me well enough to realize that I appreciate the elegant designs produced in the golden age of watchmaking, like your favored Rolexes and my Longines. The Pano series follows a seldom-trod path that has produced few contemporaries, but I think it has a special merit of it's own in that the lateral division of time-keeping from complimentary complications eases the burden of viewing either separately; when the time is needed, it's immediately obvious by a glance without the extraneous information conveyed by the calendar / moonphase / power reserve functions, and likewise, the eye need concentrate only on the date (or moonphase or power reserve) when that counter needs to be consulted. Absorbing the information conveyed by my perpetual calendars, by contrast, requires considerably more visual effort . . . I have to adjust depth of field as well as laterally to obtain a complete reading.
I'm sure you remember the special occasion we first met some three years ago at the introduction of the new generation V C Overseas, and that we enjoyed a quiet meal afterwards; believe it or not, the lasting memory of that evening was not having walked away with an Overseas, but the lesson Thomas taught me about the judgmental value of actually wearing a watch. Thomas had brought along an AP Milenary (the Maserati, I believe), and he noticed the disdain I had for it; the Milenary was a watch that I had previously considered aesthetically unappealing, but had only seen in pictures or behind a glass showcase. He slipped it off his wrist and asked me to try it on, whereupon it made a startling transformation . . . a watch that had appeared odd and unnatural in the abstract became instantly comprehensible and, if not attractive, at least unobjectionable. The Milenary is still not on my list of must-have watches, John, but my appreciation for the ingenuity of the design began the moment I tried it on. Similarly, I feel that in the event you haven't tried on a G O Panodate, you might find the experience informative and possibly even liberating . . . although I don't have one and don't contemplate owning one, either, I personally find them to be amongst the most inherently legible designs around, and when you include the spectacular movement they're endowed with (see Jocke's pictures a few posts below), one of the finest values available today. Most cordially, Art
