I have been following the developments of what started as a project I think four years ago. Actually, I remember discussing it in its early days with Pascal at a time he was still working on superb restorations - and in fact several of my JLCs have received a 'Pascal treatment' back in the days. His full commitment to becoming a 'manufacture' watchmaker were bad news for me - meaning I had to find another 'service' watchmaker of his level for my vintage pieces, but it is certainly a very happy news for those praising quality and artisan approach to watchmaking, and a strong addition to the (very small) group of French high-end independents.
While reading your introduction to Pascal work, FX, I feel that there is a bit too much emphasis on the use of the Unitas base. Actually, what gets used is merely the gear trains. Not only the bridges are brand new fabrications, but also the base plate, which as you pointed out has all its design structured according to Pascal new layout for the gear train.
For that respect, I think this is pretty much the same approach than D. Dornbluth has. In both cases, I feel that associating their movements to Unitas in the introduction is a bit dismissing the amount of work that went into the design stage and later production of the plate and bridges.
I am really glad to see the project coming to life with the first customers taking delivery in a few weeks.
As for the case design being a bit generic, I think this is a fair comment, but I guess those interested in Pascal's watches have their primary focus on the quality of the movement, and in that department, I think they won't be disappointed.
Now, thinking of quality and price positioning, when was the last time we saw such a level of finish on a sub-10,000€ watch ?
(photocredit: Pascal)
This message has been edited by Clavi on 2014-07-18 09:07:16