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| Vacheron Constantin, ref. 57260 |
The watch would not only be for the storing of little souls. The science is still undecided on whether or not midgets even have souls. I've read that they're using albinos as a control group for testing, though I'm not sure how that would possibly settle the question. It is impossible to say what truths mankind has missed out on by ignoring some of its most cherished rituals. The science of cat-burning is no more. It fell out of favor as an area of serious intellectual inquiry hundreds of years ago. I suspect there may be fringe scientists along the coasts of Mississippi and Louisiana, doing God's work.
The watch pictured above is considered the most complicated mechanical watch ever built, with 57 complications. That is, 57 functions that go beyond the simple relaying of hours, minutes, and seconds. The watch I bought recently has a single complication, to give you an idea - it mechanically relays the date.
Cost for the Vacheron Constantin: somewhere near $8 million. It is not a watch that is meant to be touched very much.
Why the fascination with mechanical watches? I do not know and can not quite express it, but I feel it. I tend to doubt that I will buy another. They are not quite like cameras, for me, where each one does something slightly different, and where lenses can be used on multiple bodies. Or, even if each one does do something slightly different, I believe that I only wished to satiate my desire to own a mechanical watch once. I have no interest in becoming a collector, though there are a number of beautiful watches out there. People who collect watches are an interesting and odd group. There are many websites dedicated to the pursuit. Here is one that I find to be better than most of the others, also for reasons that I can't quite put my finger on.
The deep divisions within that group that the word "Rolex" evokes is a fascination unto itself. CS is against the chronograph behemoth. I will admit that they make fine watches, though they have never entered the truly haut de gamme market. CS says they are for douche-bags and there is evidence aplenty to suggest this is the case. Tag Hauer is not far off from Rolex, either. I'm thinking about going to a watch show just to see if I can get somebody to take a swing at me. My Casio is probably the best watch to be wearing for a fist fight, and jail.
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