The Watch Appreciation Thread - Page 1418

a - who did the engraving, and do you mind to say what the charge was? PM me if you want to keep it private. i want to do mine on the back plate.

Awesomeness


I've been to both Cut and Tao - to be honest I was little disappointed with the Cut, but it may have been just that day. Still a great time there though and the restaurant is beautiful

TAO was fantastic..

Cool. One of my brothers recently came for a visit to Norway, and he brought this baby...



...so there's another expired-dictator watch in the thread!

He'd been holding onto it since 2008 when he picked it up as a joke gift in Beijing. He was there to cheer for another brother at the Olympics. I had just taken a new job shortly before... bad timing on that. Anyway, what I like about this one is that Mao is attached to the pallet fork, so he briskly and tirelessly waves at 18000 bph. I've actually worn it a few times and I can't help but crack a smile when I see the arm flapping. It's a fun watch.

 

Don't do that.  We ALL want to know!

 

 

That's brilliant!  Is it actually from the Mao era?

 

I have spent some time in Iraq (2005-7), but got mine a long time before that: the father of a school friend of mine was Iraqi, and a regional governor in Iraq in the 80s.  He gave it to me in about '89, along with a bunch of cigars he'd been given with a picture of Tariq Aziz on the band.  T.A. had apparently been given a pile of them during a visit to Cuba, and as they don't last forever and nobody's humidor is that big, passed them around.  Some snotty English teenager - who would later work for the British Government, including in post-Saddam Iraq - was probably as far from the intended recipient as imaginable!

The idea of Mao waving at 18000 BPH would make me laugh! Must be every entertaining.

I've seen a watch with Bill Clinton's image, and as the seconds pass his nose grows like Pinocchio.

that wasn't his nose.

FWIW, the tattoos on the back of the girl actually say "happy endings".

Yes it is mine, and yes it was just engraved by JC Randell, who was an absolute pleasure to work with. See below for more details regarding this.

Why the hate stitches??? Hehehehehe.

Thanks guys, your kind words are really much appreciated.

To put things in perspective, the entire engraving is barely the size of a quarter. And FWIW every one of the 70-80 leaves on the tree has a unique leaf "vein" pattern engraved in. These veins are so fine that my crappy point & shoot camera actually cannot resolve them successfully. The entire engraving feels like a freshly minted bill when you run your finger across the surface. Amazing.

I personally find this all very amazing, and I wish I could share this with you all in person.

Engraver - JC Randell. I was going to PM you this, but think it might be better if this were made public.

The process is not dissimilar to getting a bespoke pair of shoes or a bespoke suit made - you approach him with an idea, he tells you if it is feasible or not, you discuss prices, he goes ahead with it if everything is agreed on. 50% deposit, remainder on completion. You have to allow him a bit of a free rein in the design process, which is possibly a bit unnerving given the permanence of what he is doing. But he is a consummate professional and clearly a skilled artist with an eye for good proportions. I believe he is self taught.

To improve your chances of getting what you want, go to him after you've thought everything out - rough style of fonts preferred, size, shape, positions, actual main decorative design. He is not like an interior designer in the sense that he does not work with you to crystallise vague opinions you may have into reality, beyond making general suggestions and outlining practical boundaries.

Unlike how like Le Sentier does for more complicated/expensive engraving requests, JC does not do paper drafts for your review/approval prior. He accepts digital sketches/mockups - I went down this route. The JLC website has images of the empty casebacks for most of the current lineup models - you can superimpose an image onto it to get a rough idea how the end product might look, like I did.

He is not cheap - and I guarantee some of you will baulk at the price - but in the grand scheme of things IMO opportunities are few and far between where you can get something which is (once again IMO) truly "world best" for that sort of price. At least that's how I justify all this madness.

I think for instances like this its best to contact him for exact quotes as it varies from engraving to engraving with the complexity. I am wary of creating a situation where people ask for X expecting Y price, and then saying "but you only charged apropos Y price for this, why the price difference now".

Also, it's not as if he's inaccessible or difficult to get a hold of - my original email was responded to within 24 hours. I hope you guys understand.

One or 2 more photos of Red for good luck...



And with her new shoes from ABP in charcoal peccary(!)...


Edited by apropos - Yesterday at 6:04 pm

Yea...I'm pretty sure that's what most people said when they first saw the Clinton watch. 

First, thanks for translating the poster for Tao...that's very funny!  I remembered seeing that image when I was in Vegas, but had no idea what the tattoo said. 

 

Second, thanks for describing the process you went through to personalize your Reverso.  Sounds like Mr. Randell met or exceeded your expectations, which helps make the cost of such work worthwhile and I sure it creates a comfort level among other SFs that might use his services but may be a bit concerned about turning over a special and rare item to be personalized.    I could not have told exactly how much detail the leaves have until you described them, but upon going back and looking carefully at the tree's details it becomes apparent that a great deal of thought and skill went into producing that image. Congrats again and thanks for sharing the details with your SF buddies. 

Noodling around with my camera as I was wearing this beauty today.  It's hard to convey via a 2D picture just why Nautilus (and generally, Genta design) owners yammer so often about "quality of workmanship" and such.  So in this pic I'm trying to capture dimensions of the bezel and how it slopes in a distinctly oval fashion.  Not quite a perfect circle (by definition) but its very "imperfection" as a circle renders the porthole shape, in my eyes, even more eye-catching.  Of course there's that much-hyped blue/green dial, which I never tire of seeing.

 

LOL'ed.



Roger P: I love that wrist shot of your Hour Vision.



apropos: that's stunning. You've got to be thrilled with it.



frilly: never gets old with the Nautilus. Given all the Vegas talk lately, maybe I should just jet out there, "put it all on black", and try to get back to Texas with one of those beauties.

isnt there a waiting list for the nautilus? or is it only for ones with complications?