apropos
Distinguished Member
- Joined
- Dec 2, 2008
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It's not as simple as self appointed purists decrying any and all redialing no matter the circumstances.
The problem is that most redial jobs are horrible, and definitely do not fall under the umbrella of "restoration". That Breguet was restored (not "refurbished") by a specialist who was likely partly/wholly museum trained. Not the same as your usual redialer. And the price it achieved reflects that in part.
For your usual redial however... Original materials/methods are not used. Printing is blurry, or off centre. Gloss vs matte finishes. Smudged text. Lines are not fine. Lume plots are messy. etc etc etc
To make it worse the people who actually do the redials don't usually even have a point of reference. How many "reference dials" do you think a redialer has? How will he/she know whether a Ranchero dial is matte/glossy? The exact shade of white, or silver? The idiosyncrasies of 60s IWC dial fonts? "T < 25" and/or "Swiss Made"? Or even the size of a lume plot?
When you actually know what a dial should look like (like I guess most purists do, or think they do), the vast majority of redials are essentially - to use a technical-ish term - homages. Inspired by, mimicking the original, basically identical to the untrained eye, but not the same - sometimes not even close.
And so the value correspondingly falls. Unfortunately there is a negative halo effect, and even the good redials get caught up.
I see no problem with that, makes perfect sense to me.
The problem is that most redial jobs are horrible, and definitely do not fall under the umbrella of "restoration". That Breguet was restored (not "refurbished") by a specialist who was likely partly/wholly museum trained. Not the same as your usual redialer. And the price it achieved reflects that in part.
For your usual redial however... Original materials/methods are not used. Printing is blurry, or off centre. Gloss vs matte finishes. Smudged text. Lines are not fine. Lume plots are messy. etc etc etc
To make it worse the people who actually do the redials don't usually even have a point of reference. How many "reference dials" do you think a redialer has? How will he/she know whether a Ranchero dial is matte/glossy? The exact shade of white, or silver? The idiosyncrasies of 60s IWC dial fonts? "T < 25" and/or "Swiss Made"? Or even the size of a lume plot?
When you actually know what a dial should look like (like I guess most purists do, or think they do), the vast majority of redials are essentially - to use a technical-ish term - homages. Inspired by, mimicking the original, basically identical to the untrained eye, but not the same - sometimes not even close.
And so the value correspondingly falls. Unfortunately there is a negative halo effect, and even the good redials get caught up.
I see no problem with that, makes perfect sense to me.
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