Recommended Reading: 'Universal People, Universal Dreams' Is A Timely, Heartfelt Telling Of One Man's Collecting Journey Into The Rarest Of The Rare
Last week I kicked off a mini-series where I'm finally taking some great books off my shelf and sharing them with the world. We covered a brand-backed "Grand Seiko" book by ERG Media, which set a great tone. This week we're looking at another brand-focused tome, the much more recently released "Universal People, Universal Dreams," which documents the hyper-focused collection of one man. But it's more than a book about Universal Genève. I first met the author and publisher, Luca Mignini, a few years ago, though I'm not exactly sure where. Maybe at an auction in Geneva? At some point, he just turned into a fixture in my vintage watch sphere, a person who could turn up anywhere there was a vintage watch. At the famed antique fair in Parma, Italy? Sure. Luca Mignini and Max Bernardini He had a prototype Universal Genève Space Compax/Polerouter Sub dive watch made for the U.S. Navy, which I shared in my photo report from the fair. On that same trip, he just randomly showed up as I was looking at Patek 1518 dials with Max Bernardini (Uncle Max, to his close friends) at his shop right across the street from "The Last Supper" in Milan. That later encounter makes sense, as Bernardini (and his team, including Mauricio Gimenez, who is named as "The Trusted Advisor" in the book) was instrumental in curating the collection. Mignini frequently travels between his home in Rome and Milan, where he serves as a professor at Bocconi University. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Mignini and B...
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