Independents

Gary G
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Great comments, Amery

I understand your point on the "cargo hold" date display -- perhaps it's my aging eyes.  The conundrum is that I would not want to increase the size of the date porthole, so there you have it.

I was quite disappointed not to get the winding box, but will continue my quest -- in the meantime, I will follow your advice to wear the watch!

Winding feel is fantastic, as you say.  My guess is that as with other high-end automatics, this one really isn't meant to be wound by hand that much -- but the tactile sensation is marvelous.  I certainly don't feel that a larger crown is needed for functional reasons.

The setting instructions are great!  Find midnight, then advance to 3:55 am (not 4:00!), then set the date to the 1st of the month, then set the time, then adjust the months, and so on...on the good advice of tahoeblue I read these instructions very carefully and followed them to the letter when updating the calendar mechanism, and it worked a treat -- from now on I will just try to keep it wound.

As far as the limelight goes, my sense is that Vianney is misunderstood.  Or, perhaps, that the nature of his operation (in particular, the near-bespoke nature of each piece as compared with repeatable production techniques) requires that the owner sacrifice some attributes (absolute reliability and inexpensive servicing) to receive the other benefits on offer.  That said, I think that there must be many hundreds of owners of VH watches who have never had as much as a single mechanical issue with their watches.  The other thing is that the market cries out for novelties.  Yes, the Antiqua is marvelous, but even for an independent there is some expectation that new pieces will be forthcoming.  In my view VH is certainly a deserving member of the upper range of independent watchmakers -- and I think that his membership in Time Aeon, for instance, suggests that other leaders in the field feel the same.

Thanks very much for your remarks, and for your ongoing enthusiasm for Vianney and his work.

Best,

Gary