Fantastically well written Mark - as usual a strong report with a great blend of facts, entertainment and your own personal point's of view - i thoroughly enjoyed it.
Cheers - Darren

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: 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!