Late Notice- Los Angeles GTG Monday Nov 16

Aww. Long lost brothers, separated by three hundred and change serial numbers, reunited after 55 years. Not sure, but I think Lot 5 was fighting back a few tears.

I'm assuming you will do the right thing and reunite them permanently?

I may have been a slacker, but I'm pretty sure I saw @repoman getting some nice close ups of the flown Apollo 17 watch.

Any more pics? .....

Sorry guys, I've been busy with real life. Here's my trip report, pic heavy:

So, a small gaggle of OF'ers @tpatta @Modest_Proposal @flyingout @Taddyangle @Jones in LA and myself met up at the Boutique and we were quickly greeted by Eric and Brandon from Christies, as well as the friendly staff at the Boutique. We wasted no time and went straight for the goodies!! I believe they brought 20 of the 50 pieces, as well as hardcopies of the auction catalog. Each watch was tagged with its lot # and estimate range (expect for the flown Speedy, more on that in a bit).



My personal wish list of the pieces brought to LA were:
- 1975 Apollo Soyuz (lot #28)
- Gold 20th anniversary Apollo Soyuz (lot #36)
- Ron Evans flown Speedmaster (lot #15)
- Ron Evans Gold Speedmaster (lot #16)
- 2915-1 (lot #3)
- 2915-2 (lot #4)
- Apollo 15 35th anniv (lot #46)

I wasn't particularly interested in pieces I've seen before, the prototypes, or digitals. We are all somewhat jaded hanging out on OF as we have members here who have museum quality pieces. My list above are watches I haven't seen before and for which I have some personal interest. Thankfully, most of the above were brought to LA !!! And there were a few surprises as well... more on that in a bit.

Let's start off with my personal favorite... the 1975 Apollo Soyuz. I want this in a really bad bad way:





There is nothing special about this... stainless cal 861 with a goofy logo at 12oclock... but there is something magical about it. The fact they rarely come up for sale, 500 only in Italy which means they never leave Italy, the bracelet is gorgeous... I don't have any logical explanation, its something intangible, veblan, what can I say. I think this will sell in the documented range, $35k uSD is my guess.

Next... the space flown Speedmaster... O M F G. I got to wear an Apollo 17 flown Speedy. How cool is that?






Unreal. The hand engraving is really crude, and to me, off-putting, but still, its part of the history of this piece. More in my next post...

After strutting around like a peacock with the Ron Evans Speedy, I decided it was time to go for the gold... Lets start with the Ron Evan's gold Speedmaster:







The watch is not overly heavy, and that burgundy bezel is gorgeous. There have been astronaut gold speedy's available for sale before, but this will still generate a lot of interest. Although it is a historically significant piece and is really cool, I didn't get any emotional response from it, and I'm not sure why.

The gold Mark II was not something that I initially noted in the catalog, but blew me away in person:





Condition was really good, the case was beautiful, chunky gold, bracelet in suprisingly good shape as well, this watch has barely been worn. I have to say I preferred this to the Gold Evans' Speedmaster. @Robert-Jan says this is getting a lot of attention, so expect it to blow past the estimates.

It was at this point I was already on sensory overload, so we thankfully broke for lunch, with plans to return for the formal cocktail event later that evening, where I would have a chance to play with the rest of the toys. After a small fashion emergency (I grabbed the wrong garment bag when I left the house, I recovered and we were greeted by @georgetownhoya who gave a nice presentation on the collection and how it all came together.




I figured I would just get some of my DNA on the remaining pieces and then head home, but the evening turned out much differently... next up for me was the early Speedy's. The collection has two 2915's, and several 2998's. Again, we're jaded around here, as we see fine examples in OF members collections on a regular basis. I'm not personally smitten with 2915's as I don't like broad arrows, but still, they were really nice, particularly the 2915-1, lot #3:







Look at the facets on that case... wow. Although I didn't get any shots of the 2915-2, a very well respected collector in LA was eye-balling it hard under a loupe and expressed some concerns about the pronounced dots on the bezel (compared to his museum quality 2915-2 in his private collection), I agree the two examples had differences to my untrained and non-expert eye, but ultimately this collector looked up from the loupe, with a big smile on his face saying "this is a really really nice example".

Next surprise for me.. the grey dialed racing edition. In the metal this piece is an ass kicker of epic proportion:





I didn't expect this piece to grab me, but the grey dial is superb, like nothing I've seen before, plus it kinda-sorta matched my shirt 😀. This one will get a lot of bidders, I'm sure of it.

There were several other pieces in the collection, so please look through the online catalog. I want to move to the final part of the evening which was the meet and greet...

After looking through the Christies Speedy 50 collection, we had time mingle with the collectors at the event, talk Omega, share some pieces of our own, and generally geek out on horology. The LA crowd is really friendly, and laid back, but is every bit as serious with their watch collecting as the east coast crowd! Paul, from Bobs Watches was humbly asking me about Omega and what Speedy he should consider buying, and then I noticed this on his wrist:


He was super humble but did confess he's turned down enormous offers to sell this piece. I brought case of modern Speedy's which was fun and a good contrast to so many vintage pieces in the room:


A local collector took notice of my 145.012-67, and after chatting for a bit, I noticed something very special on his wrist, and I had an OMFG moment: as much as I'd like to post pictures of it, after getting to know him through the evening, it was clear he would prefer his pieces not be posted online, and I will respect that, but thanks to Moonwatch Only, this was quickly moved from his wrist to mine:


I cannot explain how insane this timepiece is in person. Only 50 made in 1992, Moonwatch Only has it listed in the "Exceptional Pieces" section, and I couldn't agree more. WOW WOW WOW!!! Spending time with this collector was inspiring, he had brought several other pieces as well, but declined to show them earlier in the evening when asked, but later as the crowd thinned and we got to know each other he kindly let me have a look and handle a 2915-2, the finest I've seen, beyond museum quality, and a grey dial late 145.003, pristine condition, late 60's date which is rare for that reference... you don't know how bad I want to post my pictures of those, but I have to respect the man's wishes.

My buddy Danny was going over the top with this, as we played "mix and match the straps":


And the usual GTG shots concluded the evening

Thanks for the play by play @repoman

Yep. Nice work @repoman. You single handedly raised the SoCal group out of the GTG photography dregs. Of course we didn't document lunch with its associated watches, so we still have a long way to go.

You are so right Paul... major party foul we didn't have a watch sexpile and lunch pics. Oh well, still learning GTG etiquette, but yes, definitely out of the basement, not quite in the big leagues yet. 😁