If we could have a subtitle for this story, it would be “when a grating personality becomes your biggest liability.” But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s start with this: what is a hairspring (a.k.a., balance spring) and why was its invention by Robert Hooke one of the most important innovations in all of horology? wikipedia.org:
Remember analog car odometers? Back in the day, everything from cassette recorders to pedometers used tumbling counters. In TV and movies, whenever an airplane faced impending doom, there’d be a close-up of the digital altimeter counting down. Never mind that the first two numbers are actually ascending, the Pavlovian response is clear: the passengers are all going to crash and die. Trying to set the time on the Legacy Flight Hours left me with a similar sense of foreboding . . .
BALL fancies itself the G-SHOCK of mechanical watches. They reckon their timepieces are ideal for hurricanes hunters, big wave surfers, aviators piloting the world’s fastest airplane and first responders rescuing daredevils in daunting conditions. The BALL Engineer Hydrocarbon Original has a relatively simple mission: provide an affordable alternative to the Rolex Submariner. Mission accomplished? On one level, no . . .
We don’t know who bought a green dial Patek Nautilus for nearasdammit $500k. We may never know. Meanwhile, the auctioneer’s promo photo – since removed – reveals who sold the green grail: Gregory Pau. Thanks to some internet sleuthing by watchcollectinglifestyle.com, we also have an excellent idea how the U.K.-based Managing Director of the toptask “hire students cheap” app came to own the watch. This is a big deal because . . .
“As yet more proof of this insane situation, Antiquorum has just auctioned a Green Nautilus 5711, reaching a price of EUR 320,000 (before fees).” monochrome-watches.com reckons the fact that a Patek Philippe Nautilus Green Dial sold for $378k represents a trend that’s “killing the market.” A situation that restricts sales to “flippers and so-called investors with zero interest in what this watch actually represents in terms of watchmaking and history.” Nonsense . . .
