Money, influence and becoming "visible"...that's me.

Beat that for an honest, no bullshit statement.
It may be untrue...maybe I am not at all influencial.
Maybe I tempered with google and wiki.

I do care.
I simply cannot convince people who are NOT inside the watch industry, ie my older and close friends how I became who I am.

BUT...I am starting an EXPERIMENT.
I am going to ASK for FREE watches as of last month.

In return, they get exposure from me.
This experiment is for 1 year.
After that, I don't need the money...I give it away anyway.

My rules are simple, I will talk about watches which are GIVEN to me.
I will also talk about watches NOT given to me.

The difference, I talk 25% more about those given to me...unfair?
I don't give a shit.

Will I destroy the reputations of watches that are kindly given to me?
Of course...it will make no diff.

I love these blogs!!!!
I get to say what I want....with some degree of responsibility...but..not much actually.
Just alot of opinion, which I feel is simply NOT available these days!!!!

Let's start with why on earth people read the kind of rubbish I write.
I bet I make more money than Jeremy Clarkson...yes. And I don't need an audience to feed me.
So, I think I am even worse than Clarkson.

This is a GIFT.
It is a DALI. The real thing, not made in China!

It's a gift from a VERY old friend.
He is no longer with us.
So, with due respect, I won't poke fun at him.
But it meant something to me....it was given to me because I had criticised the watches he made...and I had given him GOOD comments, both in print, on TV and online.
But he was well aware, at the time, that I knew NOTHING about art.
So he used DALI to illustrate that DALI too knew NOTHING about art, but knew alot about marketing!

I found the sculpture quite fascinating.
It was not at all inexpensive...much more than a Datograph!!!

But, he never kew, and neither does the world know, that I used to paint to releave stress when I was building my business in the 2980s.

Here is my pride...roses.
I call them roses because my mother is ROSY Cheong, and I love my parents!
My dad is Micheal Cheong, and he is represented by the BLUE leaves, because my dad is a very cool and unflustered man. I love him.

My parents believed in me.
Although while I was a student in ACS, I was caned publicly for all sorts of ill intentioned behavior.

Mischief was my main hobby.

Honestly, I may not have been able to live off my art....but I was quite good.

I mean...look at the roses and cat!

I painted these things BEFORE I recognised that watches, like Vianney, De Bethune, MBF and URWERK were collectable like art.

They also looked better than my paintings.

But if you learn anything from this post, learn that to be a collector of fine stuff...one may just need to have a natural eye, and also a deep understanding of what is of art, and what is simply artisan.

OK.

That's the last serious post for the month.

Tonight, I am going to buy myself..with my own money, a SEIKO GALANTE sbla 065, known also as the blood rose, made in 2012 this year, SEIKO GALANTE is a rival to Panerai and IWC, but from an angle that is from art.

It is UGLY at first sight...but after spending time with SEIKO's CEO and Chairman, and all his good men and women...I am willing to see if I can find beauty in the Galante.

BTW..all the previous Galantes made, they make between 30 to 62 pcs a year...that's VERY little!!!!
Are all sold out.
And on the secondary resale market, they are very very rare.
In auction houses like Sothebies, they do pretty well above their purchase prices!!!

That is a VERY good thing for SEIKO.

BTW..SEIKO does not pay or give me stuff....they are Japanese, and there, the code of business is different.