Very nice
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I’m not sufficiently familiar with old Breguet to know how close he was, but I do know that the way he arranges his dials, the proportions, and the way he uses colour and texture are just intuitively perfect - before I had the slightest clue what was considered good or otherwise, I loved it. Lots of majors try to do it, and Daniels was right about them - they look like what they are: drawings from computers, so often heavy, lumpen, awkward, unbalanced, machine-made. His stuff is just so bloody elegant and timeless.
Plenty of others have made a fortune and/or a great reputation with attempts at more experimental designs - Svend Andersen, Richard Mille, Konstantin Chaykin, Roger Dubuis, Speake-Marin, &c, &c… all re-inventing the wheel to varying extents, mostly resulting in ugly, vulgar, awkward, clever-clever designs.
All hypothetical of course, never going to own any of it!
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Yes it was a huge thing for breguet, the exact thickness of each element, it’s position width etc. He was one of the first to put so much detail in to something that was usually just subbed out.
Ignoring the enamel dials on this page you can see the influence in the silver dial watches here:
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Nice one 
This is still the king of all things watches. Quarter repeating pocket watch. Nice enough.
But when you put it on the holder at the top of the clock it winds the pocket watch over night, regulates it and sets the time to match the clock. All mechanically, made by hand in 1830! Crazy and nothing has been made like it since.
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That is absolutely fucking spectacular. The kind of mind that can even conceive of such a thing is truly remarkable, never mind getting-on for 200 years ago…
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If you fancy giving it a go he does describe the mechanism in some detail in the same book (the art of breguet). So not only did he restore many of the watches in the book, assemble them together from collections and museums around the world pre internet. He also took all the photos and more annoyingly did the amazing line drawings. All at the same time as making some of the most expensive watches ever made.
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Oh yeah and he restored them himself! An utter legend
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Sounds like a remarkable man.
He really was, started from real poverty. Managed to get an apprenticeship repairing wind up cine cameras, then repaired watches for money during WW2 before getting a qualification in watch repairs.
He has restored some of the most historically significant watches remaking lost and replaced parts. The watchmakers apprentice is a good film and his biography is decent. But I suspect only really interesting if you are really in to watches.
I am not really that into watches, but seeing any craftsman at work, is always amazing.
Might give his autobiography a read. How could it not be interesting!
biography, he didn’t have time to write a book about himself 
I think I’d struggle to spend £11k on a holiday, and I definitely wouldn’t spend £11k on a Valjoux 7750.
Watches that look like this are ten a penny. Watches made like this are rare as hen’s teeth.
Just a fact.
Thought you were Anti precious metals on watch cases Paul…
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