Hi Francesco, great to meet you last night.

Some great comments, i suspect PVDs (which had been pushing £12-15k for the best will now be £20k+ mark, i think £40k was a one off, however it would only take several wealthy gents to hear about the mythical Dark Lord to see higher values.

I agree, Mr Gavin put in a huge amount of effort, big thanks again to Paul and anyone else who put their time and effort in to make our gathering an incredile experience.

Laurent, i will be buffing my collection with your kind gathering gift tomorrow, Abel great to finally meet you and share chat and mucho red vino and crazy Ron, paypal amount to be forwarded for the now famous shirts when i have your addy.

Cheers to all, lets do it again, next year!

Rich

: These are some of my consideration, some already reported:

: - The vast majority of the estimates were pretty accurate and the
: final price was often close to the higher end of the range.
: - The Carrera Chornomatic seemed a bargain.
: - The Fume Silverstone did surprisingly better than blue and red.
: - Some Autavia seemed also a bargain (definitively before the
: commission hits the price)
: - Tranny Monaco (with checkered box) half the price of the 1133B
: - Some Sifferts stayed closer to the lower estimate.

: ...and finally, few words about the big guys: Monaco PVD, Siffert
: Chronomatic and Carrera 1158 gold. Paul Gavin and I were sitting
: a couple of row behind the two gentlemen that held a true war of
: bids. We had no idea about their identity and ignored if they
: are regulars on any of these Heuer forums. But certaiinly they
: wanted those pieces very badly. Some other attendes attempted to
: counterbid half way during the auction, but these two gentlemen
: just kept going showing no hesitation whatsoever. We had the
: impression, for example, that the winner of the PVD could have
: paid much more than 40K (which translates in a final price of
: more than USD 70K for us in the States), if he had found
: somebody fighting him more persistently. It was a surreal
: experience.

: Of course, now we are all asking ourselves how Dec.12 2010 will
: affect the market value of vintage Heuers and the answer is not
: easy. I still believe that today's acution will drag the prices
: toward the higher bar that was set today, on some models more
: than on others. But the hammer price for those three lots really
: seemed disconnected from the real world and counterbidding
: against somebody that seemed having no cash limit left a sort of
: bitter taste....but I guess that's how the world goes...Not sure
: that the next PVD on the market will raise something close to
: USD 70K...

: It was a fantastic experience and I was really proud for being part
: of this community. Thanks to Arno and Paul at Bonhams for
: putting it together, to Paul Gavin for making the life of many
: of us very easy in London and to all the friends that made these
: two days an unforgettable event.

: Cheers,
: Francesco

: PS.
: Sorry for the typos. I am writing from a Starbucks in London (so
: that I don't miss NY) and no time for readproof....