Like buses - you don’t see one for ages and then three arrive…. I imagine they have deliberately aimed low with the valuations / I suspect this auction will go very well. They are amazing pieces. Record prices are predicted when three watches by the ‘Founding Father of Independent Watchmaking’ go under the hammer at Phillips’ Geneva Watch Auction: XVI in Association with Bacs & Russo on 5-6 November. Among the three watches is a unique Spring Case Tourbillon in yellow gold, which will go for sale with a cryptic estimate of ‘in excess of CHF 1m (approx. £873,000)’. https://www.watchpro.com/a-trio-of-george-daniels-watches-to-be-sold-at-phillips-geneva/ .
In November 1993 there was a Longitude Symposium sponsored by Harvard University in Cambridge, MA, anybody who was anybody in the world of accurate mechanical timekeeping was there, including George Daniels who gave the concluding lecture Watchmaking in the Twenty-First Century: The Renaissance of the Mechanic. My wife and I were living in northern NJ so we travelled to Boston for the three day event, and most of the attendees and presenters stayed at The Charles Hotel. The first evening had a formal banquet dinner for everyone so as we were going down the elevator (lift) the car stopped on an intermediate floor, the doors opened and standing there was George Daniels, looking just like you see him in formal pictures, the complete picture of sophisticated English dress. We exchanged pleasantries and peeking out from his dress shirt was the Double Face Tourbillon pictured above, his personal wristwatch that he had apparently completed the year before. It just looked supreme, it just oozed quality even from three feet away. That was the closest I ever got to a real Daniels watch, or to the man himself. Alistair Cooke of 'Letter from America' fame for 58 years, and host for Masterpiece Theatre on PBS for 22 years, gave the address that evening at the banquet. Watches like this are few and far between, they don't get any better. The prices they fetch will confirm that.
I had the pleasure of meeting George a few times at the Basil Fair. The real treat was at one of the dinners for our tour group I got to sit with George and Timothy Treffry editor of the British Horological Journal. George was of course gracious to pass one of his watches around for us to admire. Was the Symposium that long ago. How the time passes. I was still new to the world of watch collecting at that time. I did however come back with all the books, and a new appriciation for Commander Gould. I think I can show this photograph now. I was not allowed to photograph the movement, one if not the only time I was denied permision to photograph at Omega. This was the prototype co-axial watch I think this dates to 1996. -j