Independents

Greetings to all!  First of all, thanks to all of you here who make the PuristS community so great -- it has been a tremendous pleasure to read your posts, interact online, and meet many of the members of this forum over the past several years.

Thanks also for sharing my excitement at the impending arrival of my Dufour Simplicity -- it certainly puts the cherry on top of the set of watches I have had the great good fortune to collect, and at least as far as I am concerned is one of the great classics.  A close friend of mine has told me that he considers the Simplicity and the VH Antiqua to be the two most important independent watches -- I'll leave it to others to debate that, but it feels good to have both of those pieces, as well as my beloved Observatoire, to treasure.

In true NorCal style, a group of friends gathered for lunch to celebrate the arrival of the Simplicity.  One member of the group was unable to attend, but the rest were on hand.  So -- five guys went into a dining room...

 No messing around!  Without delay, the first order of business was to get the Simplicity out of its travel case.  Great to be able to do this in the presence of good friends:

I'm guessing you haven't noticed this over the years, but I am a "no" when it comes to taking (and posting) pictures of food.  That said, I could not resist in this case, as two of our hardy band went for the Kobe beef burger topped with a hangar steak.  The burger is hidden under the steak in this view, but believe me, it's there...

In between bites, there was enough time for a quick initial wrist shot.  At 37mm, this watch looks great on the wrist -- I'm guessing that part of this is the fairly straight lugs that take the strap out to the sides

Oh, did I mention that the other attendees brought their Dufour watches as well?  To get started, here are the three lacquer dial watches, in PT, RG, and WG respectively (with apologies for the restaurant lighting glare and non-synchronized times)

And, a little later on, the full set -- with the WG Duality and two WG Simplicities on the left, followed by the RG and PT watches and finally the WG with anthracite guilloche dial.  In this mix, we had all 3 dial types in WG cases, and all case types with the lacquer dial -- not to mention that tasty piece on the left end.   All of the Simplicities at 37mm, with the Duality at 34mm.

More on all of those pieces shortly, but my first happy duty upon arriving home was to take some shots of my Simplicity in the light tent:

I'm really getting to like the elegance of the lacquer dial.  Of course, the grass is always greener so at some point I may want to add the silver guilloche with baton hands as a back-up, but for now this will do just fine.  In any case (no pun intended...), most of my gazing time will likely be spent looking at that fantastically finished movement:

For a limited production watch, the Simplicity has been the subject of a relatively large number of really outstanding photo-essays -- so I don't think I've added much (if anything) here to the inventory of Simplicity movement shots.  The good news is that I can keep trying!

Enough about me -- let's go back to my buddies' pieces.  First, the lovely PT piece -- to my eye the printing on this dial is a little more fine than on the RG and WG pieces:

WG with anthracite guilloche dial.  Looks great in indirect light -- but is a bugger to photgraph

The RG watch, freshly serviced by Philippe and with a new lacquer dial (replacing the anthracite one).  Dufour's RG is a fairly delicate hue that really complements the subtle design of the watch -- I have to say that I like this version the best:

WG with silver guilloche dial -- as noted above, a look that I really like (love that wavy gravy guilloche!) and may have to go for at some point

Finally, the Duality -- real royalty, also in WG with a silvered dial.  Very difficult to capture the correct color of this dial in photos -- it's actually more silver than it appears here

I didn't take photos of all of the Simplicity movements, but had to take some of the Duality!  Here's one -- I'll post more separately:

And, last but not least a couple of group shots.  You can imagine the pleasure it brought me to see all of these pieces in one place and to have the chance to photograph them -- complete sensory overload

Two things to note in this final shot: my watch (top center) had started running, so the time doesn't match -- more importantly, despite the reflection you will be able to see a better rendering of the Duality dial color in this shot

That's it!  I hope that you enjoyed, and will look forward to many more happy interactions with all of my PuristS friends.

All the best,

Gary G

I had to stop working when I saw your post go up.  Not only have you taken gorgeous photos, but you all must be very proud of these fantastic pieces of art and mechanics.

Many thanks and ENJOY!!,

Best,

Joe

I'm pleased that you took a quick break from work to take a look!  Thanks for your post.

Best,

Gary

The movements, the dials, it moved me emotionally, thank you Gary for sharing these amazing watches with us and a Big Hearty Congrats to You on your Simplicity.

These watches do have the power to move us emotionally!  Beautiful, and reflective of deep passion and dedication on the part of their creator...

Best,

Gary

Thanks for your beautiful photos of this exceptionnal watch!  Also it look like common on your post
 
cheers

Francois

...to meet up with these guys, and also to "meet" you here, Francois -- thanks for your note!

Best,

Gary

Order a burger

As you are a man of indisputably excellent tastes, your burger praise hit the spot

Thanks for your note -- as always, great to hear from you.

Best,

Gary G

And... as I anticipated, your pictures, are TERRIFIC!

Thanks for taking the time to post these wonderful images!! I'm glad you finally have the beast on your wrist and look forward
to enjoying these images!


S

I'm pleased that the result lived up to the anticipation!  Now I can go back to this piece from time to time and take more photos

Best,

Gary

reading your post and knowing that the watch has gone to a great home and will give you great cheer.

I look forward to sharing this piece with you in person when next we meet!  Great guys like you are the best thing about this passion, and it has been my pleasure to get to know you over the past few years.

I'll have to get back to work on that caviar...

Best,

Gary

Congrats to the 2K post and to your stunning watch!

Not sure what I like the most - the clean classic dial or the beautiful crafted movement!

Stunning!

 

All the best

Blomman

Well, I do like the dial, but for me it's the movement that makes this watch!  Thanks very much for your post.

Best,

Gary

I don't think it ever happened at this scale anywhere before haha!

There is one member of the Gang of 6 who is still PD-less (one member owns both a Simplicity and Duality -- not too shabby!), but otherwise you are correct -- our involvement with Philippe is another strong tie among the members of our group. 

The largest Dufour group photo I saw previously was a 4-watch shot back in 2002 when four Singapore collectors received their Simplicities.  So, 5 Simplicities and 6 Dufours overall may well be the record for "in the wild" sightings (but who's counting )

I will definitely do some group shots at some point with the other indies -- for now, I need to stop doing watch photography for a bit and get back to work!

Best,

Gary

NT

Then again, it was delicious!

Best,

Gary

Nt

nt

.... in the restaurant, it is normal to drool, right?
I wish to be there!

Ken

We'll hope to see you some time soon.

Best,

Gary

And you have surpassed my expectations with your 2000th.

It has been a real pleasure corresponding with you and reading your posts, and I hope that we can meet at some point soon.

Best,

Gary

I love so many great independent watchmakers these days. 

He really "made" modern independent watchmaking, and exhibited great bravery to do so. 

And, as you say, his finishing is unmistakable.  His striping technique is unique as far as I know, both in terms of the width of the stripes and relative shallowness of the swirls -- even if the movement did not have the other Dufour hallmarks, it would be easy to tell that the master worked on it!

Best,

Gary

Oh yea, and some of the most amazing timepieces of the past century.  Not a weak link amongst that group - must have been fun to bring them all together.

Thanks for the scans, and enjoy your masterpiece.

Darren

In fairness, some members of the group stuck to salads and fish.  At least the steak/burger was not served on a deep fried donut!

There were also some other watches at the lunch -- when time permits I'll post a few photos of those as well...

Best,

Gary

I did not know ther were that many Dufours in existence, and you got all of these at one table!  Seriously, that is one amazing GTG, and more importantly, that is one beautiful watch you now have n your wrist.  Thank you for sharing the arrival with us.  And congratulations!