Not sure whether it deserves its own number or not, given that Munich was also city report number 1 but here it is anyway!

9 months after inaugurating the city reports in Munich, I was back there again. Just before Christmas is a great time to visit Munich (or any other German city really), as the markets tend to be in full swing and are full of the smells of roasting nuts and mulled wine. If the weather plays the game too (as it did this weekend) and you can add a little snow to the mix, then it adds up to a perfect distillation of the Christmas spirit (Kirsch added to some mulled wine, apparently).

From a watch point of view, it was quite interesting to see what had changed in that period of 9 months. In some case, that was not a lot – some places still had much the same stock as when I was there in March, as did some of the traders at the fair. I’m not really sure how quickly the dealers would like their stock to move, perhaps someone could give us an insight – but I do imagine where vintages watches are concerned this is probably not that unusual. Whereas it would be pretty disastrous for a butcher, say…

I remarked in my last Munich report on just how many Cal 15 Monacos were to be had. It was still the case now, though more seemed to be at dealers than at the fair this time. On one of the roads I picked out as good for watches last time (Prannerstrasse), there was one at Meertz and one at Eder. Eder quite often have Heuers, but they rarely seem to make it to the display windows, so Monacos still seem to be making waves. And every one I saw was blue dialled, whereas it was a probably about equal mix of blue and grey in March – maybe Abel has done such a good job espousing the virtues of the 1533 G that they have all been snapped up. Could be one of the “coming” watches for vintage Heuers.

Another one of the coming watches for 2010 is of course the Silverstone, with the re-edition coming out too. Meertz could be well-placed to join in there; amongst their always good selection of Heuers, they had a couple of nice Silverstones:

I quite like the little Movado travel clock with the calendar too – probably something of a lost art nowadays where lots of hotels have a clock built into the flat screen TV. But that does the same job with a lot of style. The sharp-eyed amongst you will spot one of the 125th anniversary watches there too, plus they had some other interesting Heuers, Autavias, the aforementioned 1533 and one of only two (!) first-generation Carreras I saw on the trip.

And onto the fair itself. The name of the hotel has changed (just a rebranding within the group, plus they no longer have two hotels of almost the same name across the road from each other, which must have been the cause of some confusion….) but inside was much the same. There were still some vintage BMWs on display in the foyer, including one from when men were real men, women were real women and Formula 1 drivers ramming each other in race-prepared BMW M1s before some of the races were real Formula 1 drivers ramming each other in race-prepared BMW M1s before some of the races:

This time around Jasper was at the show, and he was always likely to have the best selection of Heuers there, so we will come back to that later and take a walk around the rest of the show and see what was there. Arno was there too, so it was nice to actually meet a couple of people in person who I had only ever communicated with by forum and email before.

Some of the overriding impressions were the same as ever; lots of (to me) boring 3 hand Rolexes, Breitlings with half a dozen scales on the dial, the hubbub of lots of voices competing with each other in German, English, Russian, Italian and Japanese. But one thing that strikes me about the dealers from a Heuer perspective – if they have one Heuer, the chances are they will have more than one. Sure, there were a couple of stands with just the one Heuer on (a sole Sebring on the one next to Jasper and Iris, for instance) but the norm was to have more than one and several had five or more.

Plenty of the “economy” watches again, more than I see in a year in the UK, which makes me wonder whether some of those did more business in some countries than others. The guy who specialises in calendars and has a good Heuer selection there. He also had the second of the first generation Carreras I saw, a 2448. Literally just two. Quite surprising, there were a lot more in March, these might be getting harder to find. Particularly in steel, the gold plated 2448s and 3648s seem to crop up quite a bit on eBay of late, but maybe people are hanging onto steel ones more nowadays.

One dealer with a wide selection of Heuers, including lots of Easy Riders and a Carrera Twin in black. The same guy had a couple of my “watches of the show” back in March, a grey Verona and a Carrera Dato 12, but both had gone by now. I rarely see Montreals in the UK, but there were a few at the show. One was one of the gold-plated ones like David had – probably no blingier in style than my Carrera 110.515, but the sheer size means it takes a lot more chutzpah to wear! Someone liked it enough to buy it not long after I spotted it though. Quite a few dash timers again too.

But of course, the best selection was Jasper’s, displayed here in front of Iris and Arno:

I can’t believe I cropped out the Carreras in that photo, what was I thinking! Anyway, the sharp-eyed amongst you will see some of what’s there, but let’s have a little tour through it anyway:

A quartet of Monacos that attracted a lot of passing interest, a trio of Silverstones… hang on. We need some collective nouns for these watches. I propose a rascasse of Monacos (or, given how much Monacos go for nowadays, perhaps a casino of Monacos is more appropriate…) and a copse of Silverstones (as copse is already a collective). Other collective noun proposals gratefully accepted.

I said I cropped out some Carreras. By “some”, I actually mean a really great collection of 10 different second generation Carreras. I’ve thought for some time that the 1153 and its cousins were a little under-appreciated in the vintage Heuer scheme of things, so I’ve done my bit and collected quite a few and yet Jasper had still managed to gather models that I don’t yet have. I’m thinking I should look more to the first generation for a while now, but there were at least 3 watches there that seriously tempted me.

A couple of Bunds there too, which also seemed to be thinner on the ground than they had been in March. You’ll notice Arno’s book in the photo, which was doing a roaring trade in dedicated copies signed by the author.

Here’s Arno modelling the Argentinian Air Force Autavia from the book, with the book as a backdrop :

And finally, on to my watch of the show this time round. It’s one of Jaspers’s. If you look veryyy closely at the picture with Iris and Arno, at bottom right you’ll see a blue racing strap. Just to the left of that, you’ll see a 510.511 Carrera, with original band. It’s probably the best example of these I have ever seen (and I have seen plenty. As Arno and I discussed, there is just no substitute for seeing and handling lots of watches to get a feel for quality and what is correct), with the PVD on both watch and band unworn. There have been a few “want to buy” posts for these recently – I don’t think the watch is on Jasper’s Classic Heuer website yet, but for anyone wanting one, I highly recommend getting in touch with Jasper over this one. I have no interest in the sale, and Jasper didn’t ask me to advertise it, I just thought it was worth it!

So that concludes another city report. Once again, it’s a great city, well worth a visit and if you go to the watch fair, you might meet some OTD forum people and see some great watches too – what more could you want?!

Happy Christmas all!