Artya Son of a Gun “Guns don’t always kill people, time always does.”

Yvan Arpa, the CEO of Artya, has an irreverent sense of humour, as evidenced by the Bye Bye Euro watch. He was embroiled in a legal battle with his former employer, Romain Jerome, the company of rusty Titanic steel fame, but he apparently won. To mark his victory he made a watch with lawsuit – literally: “The “Rust” comes from the staples removed from all the legal papers from the past three years (it took Arpa’s team two weeks to take all the staples out and process them into the rusted bezel) and the “Dust” on the dial is from the ashes of all the legal papers, which were ceremoniously burnt.”   Here’s the full press release: “After a three year legal battle against Romain Jerome (RJ), the company’s former CEO and current owner of ArtyA, Yvan Arpa has won all trials and now has made a watch to celebrate this triumph. RJ and its management launched several lawsuits against Yvan Arpa, aiming to harm his reputation. Arpa won them all. He also still remains a shareholder of RJ. Arpa’s creations for RJ, the Titanic-DNA and the Moondust-DNA, became worldwide successes and he is commemorating them, and his victory in this ugly war, in the new Rust & Dust unique timepiece. This ArtyA piece unique does not contain rust from the Titanic, nor does it contain dust from the moon… Instead, the “Rust” comes from the staples removed from all the legal papers from the past three years (it took Arpa’s team two weeks to take all the staples out and process them into the rusted bezel) and the “Dust” on the dial is from the ashes of all the legal papers, which were ceremoniously burnt. To discover this unique piece from the infamous ArtyA Forbidden Collection, you need NOT to be: A conformist afraid to shock two-faced a hypocrite We would be honored to show you the Judgment-DNA watch, upon appointment only, at BaselWorld between the 8th and the 15th of March 2012. Mister Yvan Arpa would like to thank all his faithful friends and clients who supported him over the past years.” The technical and horological merits of Artya watches may be debatable but you have to salute Mr Arpa’s spirit! – SJX



JLC Gyrotourbillon 1 in white gold

A couple of days ago the Antiquorum sale in Hong Kong (which had its preview in Singapore cancelled with no notice) saw the sale of a trio of JLC super complications.

The Gyrotourbillon 1 in white gold hammered at HKD2,420,000 or about USD312,000 (including buyer’s premium), while the Reverso Gyrotourbillon 2 sold for HKD1,820,000 which is equivalent to about USD235,000.

The Reverso a Triptyque sold for HKD2,540,000 or about USD328,000. All the JLCs sold for a bit above the estimates and in line with past prices.

And the other notable complication at the sale, a piece unique IWC Destriero Scafusia in platinum, went unsold. As I noted in my earlier post pre-auction, the USD220,000-270,000 estimate for the IWC seemed ambitious.

– SJX