3-Watch Thursday #58
Vintage Piaget, Rare Universal Geneve, Berneron Mirage and a Rolex Scientific
Good morning team,
Welcome to #58 with a look at vintage Piaget again, a rare UG chronograph, an interview with Sylvain Berneron and a Rolex Scientific.
Lots to talk about this week, so let’s get straight into it!
Undervalued: Vintage Piaget Watches
This article published on Wind Vintage by Charlie Dunne went under the radar in the peak Piaget hype earlier in the year.
Even half a year and a bit on, it’s still a home run and full of really great info on movements, dials and cases.
Super stuff and well worth a read, particularly back in auction season again.
Vintage Watches Hands-On With One Of The Rarest Universal Geneve Chronographs, Ever
Another article that flew under the radar this week was this by Tony over at Hodinkee.
In a week with reference points, a JCB interview and GPHG, an insight into a cool watch that little is known about really floats my boat.
As someone mentioned in the comments, it would be really cool to see a microbrand (maybe Baltic) reintroduce the measuring scale of film flow rates that this watch is famous for.
In a time where analogue objects like film cameras are coming back in, this would be really cool to see.
Thanks for reintroducing this watch to the world Tony!
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Interview — A Deep Dive into Sylvain Berneron’s Mirage
I don’t think I’ve ever recommended an On The Dash article, but this week an interview surfaced with Sylvain Berneron of Breitling and his eponymous brand.
A few interviews have been released recently with Berneron, but this one in particular stood out for its open discussion about the state of the watch industry.
Funnily, Berneron recognises the growing trend amongst young people towards previously un-noticed shaped watches:
You look at the Gen Z of the new collectors coming, the collectors who are younger than me, and may be the tastemakers of tomorrow. They collect vintage Rolex Prince, Rolex Midas, Ultra-thin Piaget, stone dials, gold cases. I have multiple friends that wear their 34 millimeter gold cases, ultra-thin pieces from the seventies and the eighties, ideally with a stone dial, probably on a leather strap. And if this watch is on a metal bracelet, we can expect to see a bracelet that goes a long way aesthetically and is technically demanding, being an extension of the case, rather than an unrelated, technical piece of engineering.
While CHF 55,000 isn’t accessible to many Gen Z watch collectors, it’s shaped watches that will probably define the next 5-10 years of watchmaking and credit to what Berneron has achieved so far.
Rolex Scientific and Other Odd Models
Finally, just after sending out last week’s 3-Watch Thursday, I spotted this Rolex Scientific that Robin Mann had for sale.
Rare models like this Bubbleback are super cool and I would love to do a deeper dive into some of them one day.
On a similar note, there are a number of entirely forgotten Rolex models such as the Rolex Sky Rocket.
In fact one came up on Antiques Roadshow the other day!
At the time (the other week), the valuation of £1500-2000 felt absurd to me, but there just isn’t the demand for some of these models, either due to size, condition or materials. After all, it is a base metal WWII watch.
Thanks so much for reading this week.
Hope you have a lovely weekend and see you next!
Owen
Very nice roundup. I wrote briefly about the Scientific in my Auction Highlights: Oct 17 2023 post. Most of these Scientifics (and other 1930’s bubble/flatbacks) originated in the UK, and over the past 20 years some of the best specimens were exported to Japan and other parts of Asia. There are many variations of the Scientific dial. This one is very nice, but there are some earlier 12-3-6-9 sector style configs that are breathtaking.