Hi there,

This is formally my first post as new member in this forum, but I need to say there is "subtle" caveat in this statement (bear with me for a few minutes...).

First of all, I need to stress that English is not my mother tongue. French is. This may explain that I may not necessarily get all the subtleties of some of the posts shared on this forum by native English speakers and will possibly express myself using seemingly awkward sentences. I am doing my best (trust me) to be clear in what I am trying to convey.

My name is Ronald. I am (almost) 48, married, father of three beautiful daughters (trust my judgment on this ), owner of a cat and a dog, and watch and motorsport enthusiast. I live in Switzerland, in the Lake Geneva region, not that far away from the Watch Valley.

I have an engineering background (I studied Microengineering at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology – or “EPFL” – in Lausanne) but have in effect specialized in Intellectual Property matters right after completing my engineering studies.

You may think that growing in Switzerland, next to the Watch Valley, may automatically turn you into a watch enthusiast, but that was not really my case. I only happened to learn more about watchmaking and the watch industry upon joining the Swatch Group as a patent attorney trainee back in November 1997. I stayed there for almost seven years, becoming a qualified European Patent Attorney in the process, and left the Swatch Group in 2004 to work in an entirely different industry sector for almost fourteen years. I had a couple of occasions during that post-Swatch period to sporadically handle IP-related matters touching on watchmaking technology.

Since December 2017 I have joined the ranks of a private IP practice located in Lausanne, Switzerland, which fortunately gives me opportunities to deal with watchmaking technology, from an IP perspective, on a more regular basis.

I am therefore a watch enthusiast with a strong appetite for innovation. I forgot to mention that I am also very much a motorsport enthusiast, and (recent) fan of the 24 hours of Le Mans in particular, which I have been led to follow as a result of Audi Sport’s involvement in this sport from 1999 to 2016.

Enough with my personal and professional background. What about watches?

I own a small and rather eclectic watch collection including a variety of mechanical watches and quartz watches. I am not going to spend much time talking about the quartz watches I own (Longines, Tissot, etc.) as these merely sit in a drawer at the moment with exhausted batteries…

I have started building a collection of mechanical watches “in earnest” back in 2001 with my first automatic chronograph, a Tag Heuer Monza “Re-edition” (Tag Heuer calibre 17, based on an ETA 2894-2 movement). This is a watch I really loved and wore a lot. It has become less attractive to me over the years, especially due to the relatively small size of the watch (37 mm).

My next acquisition was an Omega Seamaster “Railmaster” Chronometer (Omega calibre 2403), another watch “re-edition” that Omega launched back in 2003 or possibly a couple of years prior to that. A rather simple and elegant watch that I still very much love to wear on a regular basis as the size thereof (41 mm) is much more to my liking. I do wear it as I am typing this introduction.

I did not acquire any particularly attractive or fancy mechanical watch for some time after that, until I was lucky to a win a contest organized by Oris in 2015 in the context of their partnership with Audi Sport at events including the 24 hours of Le Mans. Here comes the Oris Audi Sport Limited Edition II (Oris calibre 778, based on a Sellita SW500 movement, titanium case with black DLC coating, 44 mm diameter). Not the greatest watch in terms of legibility, and not a watch that I would necessarily have acquired, but a watch I love nonetheless.

Two year ago, I acquired an Alpina Extreme Diver (Alpina calibre AL-525, based on a Sellita SW200 movement) through a Club of watch enthusiasts, here in Switzerland. This was more an opportunistic acquisition than anything else, as I had been looking for some time to add a diver watch to my collection. Not the greatest watch in terms of legibility either as the particular piece I acquired is literally a “black-on-black” edition (PVD black-coated case, black dial, black indexes, black hands, black strap). I have not worn this watch for a while now.

The latest addition to my collection is a CODE41 NB24 chronograph, which I have just pre-ordered and should be delivered later this year. “Crazy you” some might say considering this is a microbrand with an unknown future in the long term, but I have become very enthusiastic about this watch and CODE41’s approach (and you will come to understand the caveat I was alluding to at the beginning of this rather lengthy introduction).

I say “caveat” as I have, as a matter of fact, made a number of posts on this forum prior to this particular one, however not under this particular account, but a different one. These earlier posts were made in one single thread that I did not initiate as matter of fact (and that I will not dare to link here). My earlier posts seemingly generated a lot of suspicion as to my true motivations to post messages in that thread. This “funnily” (actually not really) earned me a ban for “spamming”, which I am still very much confused about as no explanations have been provided to me at this hour as to the objective reasons for such ban. It would seem that part of the explanation for this ban may result from the fact that I did not previously take time to introduce myself on this forum prior to posting messages under the “MyNameIsNigel” nickname. Some on this forum seemingly held (and probably still hold) that I was acting as some sort of (not very subtle) CODE41 “operative”, which I am clearly not. I hope that the lengthy introduction that I took time to make helps establishing who I truly am and what (still) motivates me to share views on this forum.

If this happens to be the sole and unique (further) post I am allowed to make on this forum, in view of the ban referred to above, then “so be it”. This might be my sole opportunity to set the records straight, but who knows

Cheers to you all !

 

I've seen the thread/posts in question...perhaps you'll get a second chance. Otherwise, sounds like you will fit right in.
Make sure to explore and find all the car/motorsports threads as well.
But maybe set an avatar and share some pics of your collection.

 

Once burned, twice, shy.

 

Welcome Ronald and good luck. I suggest that you select an avatar for your id if you plan to stay around. Your collection is off to a good start.

 

My native language is not English either.
I use a translation service.
It's a very convenient world.

 

Welcome Ronald,
I too saw your posts in the other thread and admit I was initially suspicious of your motive, but am pleased to say that your introduction has changed my mind. I hope you enjoy your stay

 

Welcome....be sure to post some pictures. I would love to see the Oris Audi LE.

 

There you go:

 

Very nice piece! Thanks for sharing

 

Appreciated. Thanks