It's difficult to look back, and summarize a year of collecting in a quick message, but I'll try to give an overview and mention some highlights.
On the plus / additions side, I am happy to have added the following to the collection of Heuers:
- a Chronomatic Monaco, which I will take whenever the opportunity presents itself
- a Black PVD Monaco
- the earliest Autavia chronograph that I have seen
- a "grail" Carrera (white dial with black registers)
- a "grail" Poor Man's Carrera 12 Dato (by Zodiac)
- a Dugena version of the three-register, manual "Siffert" AUtavia
- two of my favorites -- three-register Abercrombie chronographs [one of which still rests on the watchmaker's bench . . . oh, well!]
As satisfying as these physical additions to the collection may be, I am as happy to have leanred much about the history of the Chronomatics and the PVD Monacos. I will be publishing some of the information in the near future.
Beyond the Heuers, I added:
- the very rare Breitling Chrono-Matic GMT, a worthy companion to the Autavia GMTs
- my first two Rolexes, an early Explorer (6610) and a Bubbleback (2940) [if you can get past the "attitude" of so many of the Rolex collectors, they really are good watches]
- a handful of automatic watches from the 1950's [the Polerouters are 10% the price of the Rolexes, and give good bang for the buck]
- my first new watch, the Guinand Buren 12 Chronomatic, which arrived the last week of the year
On the deletions / sales / trades, I am proud of myself for having parted with approximately eight watches. I had planned to cycle through a few more, in order to fund the additions, but we all learn that it is so much more difficult selling or trading our watches, than it is buying them.
I will take the same oath now as I took one year ago: to consolidate the collection over the next year, only adding watches that improve the collection and finding new homes that the ones that don't.
Thanks to everyone here at Chronocentric / OnTheDash for a fantastic 2007, and here's to an even better 2008!!
Jeff
[Each thumbnail in the image below is a "live" link that will take you to additional photos of the thumbnail watch. If you are unable to see the thumbnails in the frame below, you can use the link, at the bottom of this message.]
