the/gp/chronicles

from/my/collection: hidden pearls Part 1

Most collectors I know follow a deep passion and have a relatively clear path or theme they pursue. For me this is vintage and modern Girard-Perregaux watches. When you collect you look at targets in a different way. You will pick up watches for their historical place within the brand or in order to fill a gap within a specific collection. As a result, you end up with much more watches than you can practically wear regularly.

Typically, collectors grow a collection and when it comes to wrist time, there are often only T.W.O type of watches that get the bulk of wrist time. A smaller number of favourite watches that you rotate and wear regularly and secondly, wearing your latest catches. As a result, there are a number of watches sitting most of the time in some boxes or vaults and seldom get the privilege of a longer wrist time. Some of those are often hidden pearls. I’m no different from that observation.

So let’s dig through some boxes this week and take out some of those watches that do not get much wrist time anymore. I’ll start with the Girard-Perregaux Deep Diver 9076B. Within a vintage collection of GP watches, any good condition Deep Diver normally would fall in the category of favourite watches. The bad luck of the 9076B is its close brother, the 9076C, the same Reference Deep Diver but with the mesmerising green dial. In addition, there is also the 8867 Deep Diver and consequently, the Deep Diver 9076B is unfortunately not getting much wrist time anymore.

deep diver 9076b

A late 60s C-Shape Diver case with screw-in crown and rotating bezel with a good 40mm diameter has all the ingredients you need for a great vintage diver. The black dial has square applied indexes and enough lume to glow in the dark. There are little red accents on the indexes that add some spice.

Quite a hidden pearl to start with but I’m sure my boxes will reveal a few more this week, so stay tuned!

 

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