A chance encounter

Being in Mumbai, I and CF have attended several family functions from my sister's husband's side, who has most of his family settled here itself. They've always invited us for all their functions and hence we've known most of them pretty well by now. So when we arrived at the function the other day, I was surprised to find a white Porsche parked outside the venue. Being a big car buff, I was intrigued and asked my sis whose it was. I didn't have to wait too long and a little later I and CF were introduced to the owner. The guy in question was a in his 30s and a friendly guy to talk to. I felt awkward about simply bringing up the car, so instead we just exchanged some pleasantries and moved on to meet the other people there. Being a WIS, and thus out of habit, we both briefly glanced at his watch and noticed it looked similar to a Hublot Big Bang, though neither of us could be too sure at the moment.

A little later I found myself sitting next to him and took the opportunity to ask him about the watch. It turned out if wasn't a Hublot, but instead a Richard Mille! I've been to a few high end showrooms in the past but never got a chance to look at a RM closely, so when he offered to take it off his wrist and let me have a look at it I tried my best to keep my excitement in check :p

The watch was a Richard Mille RM032, with a red gold case (it's also availabe in Titanium and white gold).

The thing I immediately noticed was that it was really BIG (50mm by 17.8mm) and heavy! Watching the movement was mesmerizing and I can imagine anyone, who owns one, doing the same thing all day long. It boggles your mind when you realize what you hold in your hand costs nearly as much as the Porsche outside!

We got talking and he told me that he had checked out the RM027 Rafael Nadal watch and was shocked at how unbelievably light it was! I also learnt that he was also a collector and had several other high end watches, including a IWC Tourbillon, which I have to admit, I had never heard of. I discussed buying and selling watches as a hobby and he asked me if I ever made a profit on it. I replied that the only time I did make a tiny profit was on a pre-owned watch. He asked me more about it and I went over the pros and cons about buying pre-owned with him, to which he showed interest.

It's rare to come across a fellow collector, and rarer still coming across a collector of such high end watches. He was fun to talk to and maybe next time I meet him, we can discuss cars too :)

Oh, by the way, if anyone's interested in buying the RM, it retails for a paltry $175,000. Happy shopping! :D