Five Things

[tribe125]

• The rich don’t always get what they want. Bovet had a client who ordered a bespoke minute-repeater tourbillon, complete with hand-engraving and an enamel painting. All was agreed, and then Bovet asked where he might wear it. The client said he would be proud to wear the watch anywhere, which included swimming. ‘Forget it’, said Bovet, kissing goodbye to an order worth two million Swiss francs.
  
  
• Rod Stewart’s Cartier wristwatch was stolen while he was participating in a pitch invasion at Wembley stadium. It was 1977, and against all expectation, Scotland had just beaten England in a football tournament. The Tartan Army swarmed across the pitch, broke down the goalposts - and were later observed trying to get a crossbar onto a tube train in order to take it back to Scotland. Amongst the rampaging army was Rod Stewart, and newspaper pictures showed him being hoisted aloft and carried around the pitch on supporters’ shoulders. And one of them stole his watch. The police had initially barred Stewart’s entry to the pitch, but he was wearing a hat and they hadn’t recognised him. When he took off his hat, they said: “Oh it’s you, is it?”, and let him pass. Stewart was later reunited with his Cartier when it turned up in Edinburgh two months later. Stewart has owned many Cartiers over the years and the model that was stolen is not known.
  
  
• Greubel Forsey employs one hundred people and makes one hundred watches a year. The watches are powered by thirty different movements, all of them highly decorated, and the complications include seven ‘major inventions’. There’s a limited market for watches that can cost a million Swiss francs, so the company is considering a more affordable range. The new watches, says Greubel Forsey, will be ‘for wearing’.
  
  
• It wasn’t Sylvester Stallone who prompted the resurgence of Panerai, it was Monty Shadow, and it was all about product placement and taking a cut of the profits. To his parents, Monty Shadow was Cedo Komljenović, and he came from Montenegro. Shadow, if we can call him that, became a fashion photographer, and he became a friend of Johann Rupert, the owner of the Richemont Group. Monty Shadow also knew a business opportunity when he saw one, and moved into ‘luxury consulting’. It has been said of Monty Shadow that everybody knows him, but nobody knows exactly what he does or who he works for. Stallone didn’t stumble across Panerai while strolling through the streets of Florence or Rome, he was introduced to Panerai by Monty Shadow, and Monty Shadow had a plan. Shadow came up with idea of the ‘Slytech’, Panerai took off, and Monty and Sly banked their cash. Johann Rupert bought Panerai. In 2020, Stallone auctioned the Panerai that he had worn throughout the filming of Daylight, and it went for $214,200. It wasn’t actually the only Panerai that Stallone wore in the film, and some say that he still has another four.
  
  
• The grey market in wristwatches was created by an economic crisis in Thailand. An economic bubble had been growing in Thailand, and when it burst in 1998, there wasn’t a country in the region that wasn’t suddenly short of cash. Watch companies had been operating in an old-fashioned manner, by entrusting their distribution to independent wholesalers, and the wholesalers were free to do whatever was best for them. The regional wholesalers shifted their stock to America, and the grey market was born. Rolex reacted more quickly than most, and were soon managing their own distribution. Rolexes did find their way onto the grey market, but they came from dealers with a handful of surplus watches, rather than from wholesalers with thousands. Patek Philippe responded to the crisis by carrying on as they always had, through revolutions, economic depressions and world wars. If your perspective is long enough, you can shrug and say: “There will always be a Patek Philippe”, which is apparently exactly what they said.

[Matt]

I'm just trying to get my head around anyone trusting someone in what is effectively public relations when that person had deliberately called themselves 'Monty Shadow' without a gun to their head.

[mlcor]

• The new watches, says Greubel Forsey, will be ‘for wearing’.

Well, that would be quite a change of pace for them.

They do make incredible stuff, though--I've seen a couple in person and they are startling. And unwearable...

[rodia77]

• The rich don’t always get what they want. Bovet had a client who ordered a bespoke minute-repeater tourbillon, complete with hand-engraving and an enamel painting. All was agreed, and then Bovet asked where he might wear it. The client said he would be proud to wear the watch anywhere, which included swimming. ‘Forget it’, said Bovet, kissing goodbye to an order worth two million Swiss francs.

1. I hope his client told him where he can put a watch without WR.
2. Note to self: remember to not allow any lousy Bovets on my purchase lists.

• and were later observed trying to get a crossbar onto a tube train in order to take it back to Scotland.

Adorable lads.

[WWII70]

• Rod Stewart’s Cartier wristwatch was stolen while he was participating in a pitch invasion at Wembley stadium. It was 1977, and against all expectation, Scotland had just beaten England in a football tournament. The Tartan Army swarmed across the pitch, broke down the goalposts - and were later observed trying to get a crossbar onto a tube train in order to take it back to Scotland. Amongst the rampaging army was Rod Stewart, and newspaper pictures showed him being hoisted aloft and carried around the pitch on supporters’ shoulders. And one of them stole his watch. The police had initially barred Stewart’s entry to the pitch, but he was wearing a hat and they hadn’t recognised him. When he took off his hat, they said: “Oh it’s you, is it?”, and let him pass. Stewart was later reunited with his Cartier when it turned up in Edinburgh two months later. Stewart has owned many Cartiers over the years and the model that was stolen is not known.

Just the pitch invasion https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2PtQKVsHB70

Game highlights and pitch invasion. Physical game! England played better football than they do now! https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HGLrfSn4dvc


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[tribe125]

• Swiss secrecy has done wonders for the banking sector, but a lack of sharing and openness has not always been in the best interests of the watch industry. Philippe Dufour has said that the greatest repository of Swiss watchmaking knowledge is the cemetery in the Vallée de Joux.
  
  
• From Anthrax to Chopard. Anthrax is a truly horrible disease that is quite likely to kill you, which made it a great name for a heavy metal band. Guitarist Dan Spitz, realising that thrash metal is a silly job for a grown man, became ‘Watchmaker of Complications Specialist’ for Chopard. Completely reinventing himself, Spitz said: “When it comes to a watch’s quality, the truth is that the movement sucks ass or the movement kicks ass. With me, you are going to get the heavy metal answer from the heavy metal dude.” Spitz has developed his own escapement, which by following nineteenth-century principles, is more inclined to kick than suck.
  
  
• Johann Rupert, the owner of the Richemont Group, was one of the first people in Switzerland to receive a COVID vaccination. He is over 70, and is said to have co-morbidities, but he also received the vaccination at a hospital in which he has a significant investment. According to Rupert, Richemont executives received the vaccination as early as possible to set a good example for employees. Johann Rupert is South African, but also pays taxes in Switzerland. In fairness to Rupert, he has also made a personal contribution of £45.5 million ($56.9 million) to small businesses in South Africa (and their employees) that have been affected by the pandemic.
  
  
• F.P. Journe didn’t know he was going to meet one of his idols when he put on his watch. The watch was a prototype of the Octa Calendrier, and for convenience, some of the parts had been outsourced. Journe noticed that the case and crystal weren’t perfectly aligned. The flaw was hard to see, but you could feel it with your finger. It was just a prototype and nobody would notice, so he cased it up and wore it. Journe was sitting at a pavement café when he received a call asking if he’d like to come and meet Ray Charles. Journe had been a fan of Ray Charles since he was a teenager, and Georgia On My Mind is often to be heard in background music at an F.P. Journe event. Journe was excited, going over to the hotel, but it struck him that Ray Charles wouldn’t be able to appreciate the distinctive look and fine quality of his watches. And then, after introductions, Ray Charles did just what a blind man might do in the circumstances - he asked if F.P. Journe would pass him his watch so that he could feel it... To this day, when signing off a completed watch, F.P. Journe closes his eyes and runs his fingers over it, in memory of Ray Charles. According to F.P. Journe, Ray Charles had two watches, a Patek Philippe Minute Repeater and an electronic watch that spoke the time. Journe found a speaking movement, for which he was going to make a case, but Ray Charles died.
  
  
• Richard Branson once sold an LP (Blood on the Tracks by Bob Dylan) to an IWL Moderator, but he’s better known as a billionaire who owns a Caribbean island, and is planning commercial flights into space. Richard Branson wears a Torgoen T16, which costs around £250. ‘Torgoen’ is derived from Thor, the Nordic God of thunder, and an old Germanic word meaning gone - so Torgoen is Thor Gone. The Torgoen T16 is said to be a tribute to R.J. Mitchell, who designed the Spitfire fighter plane of World War II. The watch doesn’t look like it has anything to do with the Spitfire, but it does look like a Sinn or a Bell & Ross that has been made for pennies. Richard Branson says he wears a T16 “because of its pretty look”. Torgoen watches are made as cheaply as possible in Switzerland, which may mean that they’re mostly made somewhere else. None of these things are related, but together they can make up a fifth thing when you only have four.

[tribe125]

And that’s it, I’m out of things.

This was the third batch of things. The first ran for 67 weeks, the second for 40 weeks, and this one has been 29 weeks. Things get harder to find, but altogether that’s more than 2½ years and 680 things.

I’ll keep looking.

[Fantasio]

LOL. Coming up next, "Four things".

• None of these things are related, but together they can make up a fifth thing when you only have four.

[rodia77]

Things get harder to find

Do what the greatest of this world do: make sh... stuff up! Or in your case -- make things up.

Thanks Alan, I still haven't read lotsa things from batch 1, so I can go there when thingy-hungry.

[Dimman]

And that’s it, I’m out of things.

This was the third batch of things. The first ran for 67 weeks, the second for 40 weeks, and this one has been 29 weeks. Things get harder to find, but altogether that’s more than 2½ years and 680 things.

I’ll keep looking.

Now you have time for compilation into a book or 3...