Today I'm going to tell you about a watch that made a strong impression on me and that I fell in love with as soon as I saw it.
It was if my memory is correct during the presentation of the AHCI watches at Baselworld 2017, then in the watch selection of the GPHG 2017, the very surprising Konstantin Chaykin JOKER.
Unfortunately, as often, we wake up far too late because most of us do not spend our lives monitoring everything that is happening in the watchmaking microcosm, and so:
either the desired model can no longer be found because it is produced in very small series, and all are already sold,
or that all of a sudden the rating is taken by a vertiginous flight and that the finances no longer follow.
Here we are in the 2 cases successively, simply too late to participate in the project, because it was a limited edition of 99 pieces, all quickly sold to collectors who for the most part have no need to part with this room to continue to satisfy their passion or meme for another reason, in short the original joker is not found..
Certainly there was a second series of 88 pieces, but with some differences this time,
the main one is that the watch is made of titanium instead of steel, and the guillochage of the front and nose is no longer quite the same, certainly very pretty too but different, In any case as impossible to find as the first version, or has a price just as high as the previous version, as these 2 models trade between 2 and 3x their original price.
However, it turns out that apart from these two official series there is a hidden, confidential series of 188 additional pieces in steel, but with color variations compared to the original Joker, which makes it a different watch even if very close. This series was produced for the opening of the Tigre de Cristal (a hotel resort casino by the sea 1 hour north of the city of Vladivostok) these pieces intended for the clientele of this establishment.
