Hope everyone’s doing well these days. This duo to me represents a wonderful example of modern interpretations of purity coming from opposite approaches. The 5056p is a watch that I had sold before. Needed the funding for more important things back then, but I kept its papers and box knowing it would come back to me one day. Don’t think I can ask for anything more from a calendar.
The design is beautiful yet is very accessible and non-intimidating to others... a sleeper among PP’s dress watches, which are generally overlooked when compared to the demand of their sportier models anyway. The leaf hands and lume across roman indices (and regular roman four) are simply too good. Balanced dial layout. Traditional size. As usual, it’s a great movement but not the best. Crucify me if you must, but I think that there are better (more innovative, reliable, quirky) movements to be found out there as far as value goes.
In contrast to the old school non-hacking seconds movement of the 5056p is the innovative spring drive movement in the sbgy-003. The watch in high polish almost looks like it’s made of the same white metal as the PP. But as everyone knows it’s in steel. Whereas the romance of the patek comes from all its unnecessary mumbo jumbo (romantic moonphase, inset, leaf hands, PR, etc...), the romance of the sbgy comes from its design language. It has nothing unnecessarily added, yet is able to do the one job it was built to do better than its mechanical competitors due to SD. The dial was apparently inspired by sunlight passing through leaf foliage, and nothing else printed onto it other than the logo and single line of text. Even the power reserve was moved to the back of the watch... visible only through the caseback... allowing someone to fully enjoy the smooth sweep and dial work (which imo are the brand’s strongest points).
What do you prefer? Complicated purity? Simple purity? Or just screw symmetry altogether and go as quirky as possible?