), John loves Japanese divers but British humour and Ted's new excuse to get a Panny is that the model name matches his wifes first name. Hey, and I even won a prize (nope, not the Martin Braun I had hoped for and neither the RGM Tourbillon minute repeater I had sort of settled for as an affordable alternative 
).
Anyhow, I guess most of you have seen the photos Ted and others posted already, so here are a few more photos and impressions:
Anyone not familiar with our passion could have mistaken us for a photo class from the local community college....
And the clock tower sure was something to admire and to capture in photographs...
...however it seems that miniaturisation didn't rank very high amongst the priorities of American watchmaking tradition and oddly enough, the movement often ended up exceeding the dial in size and requiring a building such as the clock tower to house it versus a stainless steel watch case commonly found in wristwatches today:
To noone's surprise, Minnesota's frozen tundra proved to have been fertile ground for past horological achievements (though still lacking American royalty found in other, more mountainous states) so I intend to continue Minnesota's watchmaking tradition.
One of us complimented the "finer art of watchmaking" with a tough work-out program involving the largest wristwatch I had ever laid my eyes on. I have no idea how John did it, but he dragged it around all day long and didn't seem to get tired at all!
The museum was great, but even more impressive was the watch- and clockmakers school.
For those of you that always wanted to know how a watch works, you can enter a 20 month class plus a 3 year apprentice program.
On the other hand, you might as well simply read and study the following photo for a while (no tuition payment required, but donations to my "new watch fund" are always welcome).
By the way, my wife caught onto the information on the top right hand side of the photo immediately and proceeded to add a few more "types of jewels" as well as her list of what she'd like to get for christmas...be careful when examining this photo if there's even a slight chance your spouse might see it too!
Seriously though, here's a "miniature version" of an escapement clearly showing the different components from the pallet fork to the balance wheel. How I'd love to work on a few models like this...
If any of you know a source for a nice old watchmakers lather, please give me a heads up! Don't they look just beautiful?
One of the most accurate watch treasures I discovered was this Omega marine chronometer...
...located inside the museum close to one of the "Chris Moy G-shock exhibits", which is adding new Casio models on a daily basis...
Most of us had come for the watches and we got to see some of the coolest timepieces ever.
Common remark however was that seeing them in person sure was the way to go and that a photograph, as nice as it could be, never got the character, size etc. of a nice watch across. I don't know why I agreed, because as it turns out I managed to shoot some half way decent (IMHO) pictures during the event after all.
Here's some of Roland's treasures (I wish I knew how I got these photos to turn out as nice as I believe they did, so I could offer them my services in return for some of their stunning watches )
The turned dials are a work of art....
...and the movement decoration made me think about wearing these watches with the dial towards the wrist.
Just as a comparison, here's how JLC Reverso (one of SteveG's pieces) looks at a few times their prices...
But SteveG had another temptation waiting for me...
So next year I'll either have to bring a wet-suit or a healthy supply of bibs as I couldn't help but drool...
This would have been just the right watch for that occasion: THE Enicar Sherpa diver....
While I was admiring these cool watches, I also had to constantly keep an eye on my own: there was this guy that kept putting watches into a storage compartment inside a mockup camera (the large size clearly gave it away). Even though he appeared to be sponsored by a North-American motorcycle company (see the logo on the shirt), in the end the license plate on his car suggested an affiliation with the airline industry.
So again, thanks everyone for a wonderful time and I'm already looking forward to next year. Maybe I'll take some decent photographs than...
Cheers
Matt