How did you come to collect and appreciate UG?

That's one of the ones that's gone, along with the two steel Tri-Compaxes: still got the rest

The Compur was a Ref 22516, 813k serial

I have just opened this UG rabbit hole some month ago, and it was pretty much pure accident. But let's start few years earlier:
I had my 50 years birthday coming and was thinking some present for my self...maybe my first real mechanical watch would be nice. (Well that didn't yet happened, bought nice professional camera instead.) Year passed and someone I closely knew got bad cancer...and suddenly first time of my life the time started to feel important and interest on watches took another step. I first went and bought Tudor Ranger. Half year later Longines Spirit for my son's birthday present. Then got good deals for Stowa Flieger 6498 and bit later for Marine Original...and that kind of started lead deeper to the watch history and vintage watches.
Then some month ago I was looking again vintage watches like so many evenings on earlier weeks and stumbled on this 80 year old Universal Geneve H.P.C. dress watch with the lugs that I had not yet seen...with the price that was much less than many other I was looking at that time. And this one was different, so very different...

At the time I bought this watch, all I knew was that Universal Genève was Swiss brand and apparently had been pretty decent one on it's best days and that brand had gone down quartz crisis. But this small dress watch has now open up this Wonderfull rabbit hole, which seem to go deeper and deeper every day...

I like many others got into Universal when Hodinkee was writing about them ad nauseam circa 2016 if I had to guess. I lurked OF for a long time before finally joining last year. I picked up a ref 224100 Uni-Compax from a small online dealer around 2017 for a good deal. When I saw the watch in person, that’s what got me hooked. It’s really the design language of UG that speaks to me, and the quirkiness of the brand. I’ve always gotten the sense that UG has been the “oddball” of the major Swiss watch companies in their heyday.

My collection is small compared to some other members on the forum. I have that Uni-Compax, an oversized Compur ref 22518, a gold Compur with 2-tone dial ref 12439, and two time only pieces from the 30s with no reference number. Out of the house right now so can’t post pics.

I only really got into watches last year, stumbled across one and loved the dial design. I'd heard of Gerald Genta's designs for various brands but this was a definite favourite.