Here is a picture of me in June of this year visiting my old friend Philippe Dufour during my last trip to Switzerland.
I first met Philippe just a few years after starting RGM, this was back around 1993/94. This was long before he was well known as he is today. During my many trips to Switzerland back when I was younger I would often stop and see him, and spend a little time talking about watchmaking. I remember visiting him at his house back when his workshop was in the attic, he had a computer in front of him and he was working on the CAD design of a perpetual calendar for Daniel Roth. I remember him telling me that Daniel Roth ask him to make nice curves, he wanted classic beautiful shapes in his watch. Philippe would do some work back then for other watchmakers, like he did back in the day building Grande Sonnerie pocket watches for Audemars Piguet.
Under his own name Phillip built the first Grande et Petite Sonnerie wristwatch, then built his Duality wristwatch with dual escapements and balances, and then came his Simplicity. You can read more about these watches in this article from my friends at Quill & Pad. https://quillandpad.com/2018/02/24/philippe-dufour-matters-not-secret-archive-2/
I took my wife by to see Phillip and see what he was working on. He let me take a few pictures of his current project a Grande Sonnerie pocket watch very much like the ones he made many years ago for AP. He also pulled out of his vault two of his Simplicty watches, number #000 and #001, the very first ones!
Philippe is the only person I know who calls me by my last name, he’s being doing if for more then 20 years. It makes me smile when I see him somewhere and hear “Murphy”!
Roland