Over the moon, PPC meeting in the Netherlands

The idea for this rather special meeting dates back from May this year, to be precise from the moment I got my Pisa Perpetual. William owns the even more rare Zegg & Cerlati Perpetual and I knew another handful of owners of double moon phase Portuguese Perpetuals. The idea was born to get all these people and their watches together and try to create a unique lineup.

As you all probably know, most people were very busy and it was impossible to arrange something before the summer Holiday season. We finally managed to set a date: September 29, 2012. It turned out to be allmost full moon, very appropriate if I may say so.

During the final stages of arranging the meeting, a esteemed member of our Forum (Giovanni) was lucky enough to get hold of a wonderful blue dial Portugese Perpetual 503203 as you all know from his wonder ful post and travel report. This was just a few days ago and Mark was still a bit green from the drive with Giovanni!

So with Giovanni, Mark, Paul, Tonny, William and I we had six double moon phase Portuguese Perpetuals, and even more special was that these were all different pieces. I wonder if such a setting will ever be equalled or surpassed.

Besides the Portuguese Perpetuals, we all brought a few other watches so the total number of watches was probably well over 50, including the wonderful collection of pocket watches Mark and Tonny brought with them.

We had a great meeting, chatted about watches; cars; milk that went sour; more watches; food; travels and even more watches!

After two hours, Giovanni had to leave and the rest of us went for dinner. Dinner was great but not as splendid and photogenic as the mouth-watering dinner pictures we know from other Forum members. The bockbeer was great and the pleasant company made it a wonderful meal!

To avoid that most of you fall asleep while reading, here are the photo's. I will try to group them a bit. I used 2 camera's and the iPhone so the natural order of pictures would be a mess.

First of all, the traditional wrist shot on my way to pick up Paul:

A few of the other watches present:

Portuguese Régulateur in Pt:

New Pilot's watch Chrono with inhouse movement:

Portofino 8 days:

Aquatimer Galapagos:

Aquatimer Chrono Cousteau:

A lovely Bund:

Aquatimer Deep 2:

The lovely Jubilee:

The Big Pilot 5002:

To be continued in the followup post

Kind regards,

Clemens

PART 2

Now let's move on to them Portuguese Perpetuals!

Blue dial 5021 from Mark:

Yellow Gold from Paul added:

Pisa from me joins the ranks:

Zegg & Cerlati from William added:

Rose Gold from Tonny joins the club:

A little mixup and the Blue 5032 from Giovanni completes this unique lineup!

Here is a larger version without the typical Dutch stroopwafels:

Now a few shots from a bit closer (no good Macro shots due to lack of time):

And another bunch from the lineup:

More pictures of the other beauties and some messy stuff in the follow up post!

Kind regards,

Clemens

I don't think I'll ever see all those different six double moons together --not even at the factory-- but for your post. It must have been great fun, and thanks for the report.

It's wonderful that you were able to get together and share a good time. As for the watches, that's an impressive lineup of serious hardware. And now we know why Giovanni drove so fast to get the 5032 -- he needed a ticket to the party. Congratulations to all.

PART 3

You already noticed we had some more watches present. Here are a few messy shots from what was laying around:

We also had two Pure Classics and a Jubilee present. Here are a few pictures of these beauties.

Two Pure Classics and a pocketwatch from Tonny:

With a Jubilee:

Just the Pure Classics:

William had a lovely model of a sextant at hand and since this is the engraving on the Pure Classic, we needed a picture of the watch & sextant:

Here are 2 other shots of the sextant, sorry for the bad focus:

As you have already seen, there were a few pocket watches present too, including a perfectly running Pallweber!

A meeting like this is nothing without a bunch of great guys (no gals present unfortunately). So here are a few shots of us:

Tonny, Giovanni & William:

William, Giovanni, Tonny, Mark & Paul:

Tonny & Mark, concentrated on taking pictures:

Giovanni signing my IWC book (like we all did to commemorate this meeting):

Group shots of us all (thanks to tripod and timer):

And to end this report of a wonderful GTG, some restaurant pictures:

Tonny sitting on the throne, ready to rule Belgium after he has crushed the opposition during Elections:

A delicious Bockbier, Brugse Zot!

Tournedos, 'rare' please:

Heavy metal during dinner:

And a picture of my dessert, Dame Blanche:

And now as a last image, the illustrous blue dial of Mark's Portuguese Perpetual. Mark, I am glad I convinced you that a blue dial would never be boring!

Thank you all for this great meeting. I am looking forward to more meetings with more members!

Kind regards,

Clemens

A great series, Clemens, well done! I even think it is a bit moving to see this set of watches together, from just a bunch of (extra)ordinary guys meeting in that lovely little town called Wageningen. Thank you!

Kind regards,
Paul

Clemens,

Talk about a Spectacular GTG. Great photos of all those PCs
Thanks for sharing and posting. Glad you all skipped dancing lessons. LOL

Regards,
Kevin

Holy s*** !
Now that is a great GTG. The progressive PPC pics are simply terrific. What a wonderful way to spend some quality time together. I trust that Tonny was happy to give up his dancing day. LOL
I am still stunned after looking at these pics.
Bravo guys! Too good.

Clemens, I am loss for words to describe that wonderful feeling of seeing that many Perpetuals at one setting. This is easily one of the best posts of the year. Still trying to catch my breath... Thanks for sharing this wonderful report.

It was fun....

..and I at least managed to get my name on the stand-bye list for that black dialed beauty of Williams should he ever want to sell it!

Fantastic, Clemens!

Congratulations everyone, what a feast to my eyes...!

The food looks pretty nice, but the set of PC really made it for me, I was glad to see the beautiful pocket watches present. Great GTG.

Cheers!

Looks like a celestial event ! I have no words to describe it further.

Vishal.

It was fun and a great pleasure to meet in person. It was my first GTG of that kind, and seeing all that hardware there in real life took my breath away.
Just last Tuesday with that double acquisition I thought I would have fed my IWC virus for some time ... but after that GTG my IWC virus is hell of hungry again.

@Mark: I am sooo sorry, but it's my name which is on the Zegg & Cerlati as well as on the PISA. In my dreams they are already mine:-)
Btw, the PISA was speaking to me ... in Italian ... and guess what it was saying - LoL
Guys, thanks for having invited me.
@IWC: Thanks for enabling through this forum such great things!

Incredible. There are no limits to the number of colorful metaphors and expletives that I could use in reacting to this post. Outstanding. Thanks for sharing. Rare group of Portuguese Perpetuals there gentlemen. The other watches arent too shabby either. Makes me yearn to go to some GTGs soon!

Tonny - congratulations on the election!

wow, now THAT is some GTG with some heavy hitting watches.

a great post with some wonderful watches!

regards,
thang

A remarkable conjunction of moons, movements and collectors.

Thanks for posting.

WOW WOW WOW. Absolutey incredible get together. You guys are phenomenal.
I hope with all those beautiful watches around you all went home with the watches you arrived with. To better such an event with 3 BlueMoons from the 6 PPC will be tough.