The Universal Genève Guru

Welcome to the 2020, although it has passed for few weeks, we are still excited to introduce to you our first #berdetikPARTNER of the year, @y.andre.ch or you can call him as Andre.

An avid watch collector based in Sydney and from his short period of stay at Indonesia (It’s a transit in the airport) we are really happy to be able to meet and chat with him in person. At that time Andre brought best pieces from his collections which is not on a purpose (we just arrange a few days back before he decided to transit in Jakarta). We met him in the airport and first watch that we saw in person is his birth-year watch from Andre, the all gold Rolex "Zenith" Daytona with inverted 6 dial (1991) which for us is really good piece in person. It’s not super flashy yet show really good statement for watch collectors. A watch that Andre has aimed for a long time (#throwback to his story when he first saw this piece at international seller). Andre aimed this piece for years and finally got to acquired it in 2019. A really statement watch which really has a side of you are going to love it or simply hate it. For us it a real love and the vintage feeling from zenith movement and look still really strong in the presence.

As a collector, we know that Andre started collecting watches with Universal Genève and at that night we asked him quite a lot of questions about the topic. It’s an really interesting subject for us to see how Andre explained from his first collection of UG (read : Universal Genève) and moved into the other pieces which will be another page of blog when we write about it (we hope that we can cover all of his UG journey). See how really experience he is in this UG industry made us really put a respect into him.

His collections of that night is the A Universal Genève Polarouter De Luxe SAS (1954), UG Polerouter De Luxe with Black Crosshair dial (1954) and UG Polarouter with tropical dial. All of these 3 are a really stunning ones where the most noticeable collections is the SAS with an impactful story, where gerald Genta got his first admission to design a watch for the flight from NY or LA to Europe through North Pole. Another one is the black and gold with the unique indexes combined with rare dial. The tropical one is also a really famous piece amongst collectors. All come in big size and really suits for the modern wrist (Note : you will notice the SAS and Tropical are Pola not Pole cause of the earliest iteration).

The other unique piece that Andre brought that night the LeCoultre Quartermaster - remained the only watch from JLC that has 24 hours dial. A simple piece, subtle in the hand but when you are looking closely, it’s like a tiny charm where will fit for a lot of occasions.

The other piece that steal our attention is also this Angelus Chronodato with seldom seen grey dial, where the blend or the function (day-date-month), grey dial and highlight of the indexes is just perfect. This piece got the chance to be featured on Hodinkee “Bring A Loupe” (Check out this link)

Last but not least is the Andre’s signature watch, UG Tri-Compac black dial (3rd known example that has surfaced, 1945), where this watch is a really perfection for us, from the size, details, rarity and movement, this is the second to one. be able to see something like this alive is one of our happiness too, the beauty of horology is something that really limitless and complex yet sparks joy amongst all collectors.

Thank you Andre for the chance and hope to see you on the next round.

Danny Aw, berdetik.co