Final Day in Switzerland 2013

I headed in to the show for a couple of hours after I dropped off my suitcases at the lockers in the Basel SBB train station. I was headed for Neuchâtel later that day to spend the afternoon and evening with Stephen McGonigle and his lovely lady, Cathriona prior to heading back to Zurich the following morning to catch the flights to London and then on to San Diego.

As I didn't intend to spend very long at the show, I hadn't any specific appointments set up, so I headed into the AHCI area, where I met up with Kari Voutilainen & enjoyed a coffee and a lovely Dutch cookie/biscuit that was waffle like in a sandwich format with honey/maple syrup in the middle. How it remained crunchy I'll never know, but suffice to say it was delicious with the strong coffee! I then chatted with Dutch brothers for a few minutes longer before heading over to see John McGonigle and his brother lurking off to the side.

I bid everyone good bye and then headed off to the train station with Stephen McGonigle to catch the train to Neuchâtel with Stephen. We grabbed a quick bite to eat prior to jumping on the train at a cafe close by the station:

I then grabbed my case and made for the train to Neuchâtel with Stephen. Arriving with a little light in the early evening, I headed to his pub that he and Cathriona own, the Cafe du Cerf, in the heart of old Neuchâtel, tucked away in an alley. We grabbed a pint and chatted for a while til Cathriona joined us. A fun moment as I hadn't seen her since their visit to San Diego in February.

As there was a traditional Irish music night with two musicians starting around 6.30pm, I decided to hang around and check them out as I could see Stephen was quite excited about them. I was rewarded with an amazing hour and a half of fantastic music played by two very skilled fellows. Playing the guitar and flute to start with, they then switched, so the flutist took over the guitar and the guitarist took up the banjo. Wow!

These guys played their hearts out, well done!

I stayed til the end at around 8pm, then headed home to Stephen's for a fabulous rack of lamb dinner. Excellent preparation and I headed off to bed happy and full. Up early Monday, I made my bus, train and planes via Zurich & London, back to San Diego.

All in all another successful Baselworld trip, with my friendships/relationships strengthened and many superb watches looked upon and handled! I thank all my gracious hosts in and out of the fair, and I look forward to next years event of the year!

Cheers,

Tim

Day 2 Baselworld 2013, McGonigle & Romain Gauthier

McGonigle

While going outside to photograph the One Hertz Techniek, I bumped into Stephen & John McGonigle with their latest version of the manual wind in-house Tuscar, the lovely 18K RG Banu. I have to say I prefer the aesthetic of this piece, even though I fully appreciate the technical aspects and stunning hand finishing of the open dial original.

It features a dark, almost black sapphire crystal that covers the top 3/4 of the dial and one is left with their free sprung balance wheel slowly oscillating and the off center subsidiary seconds hands. I have a bit of a soft spot for black dialed rose gold case watches!

Excuse the finger print on the bezel 4 o'clock.

Direct sunlight, stunning.

Anyway, after I enjoyed 5 minutes of sunshine, I headed indoors to my next appointment. I do want to mention that John was recently accepted as a full member of the AHCI, having been a candidate for 6 years. This a vote of confidence from ones peers and is a fabulous accomplishment for any Independent Watchmaker. The Academy is a huge benefit for these guys to pool their resources and be able to exhibit together under their group.

As is often the case with Independent Watchmakers of John & Stephen's caliber, they are in demand by specialist manufacturers of very complicated watches, so their time is split between creating their own watches and assembling and making work, highly complicated minute repeater tourbiiions for others. It is this outside work that really pays the bills for these guys at this stage, unfortunately they don't get the recognition they truly deserve. Again I feel it is one of my jobs to help spread the word...

I did get to see a McGonigle Tourbillon caliber in a movement holder, unfortunately the case got held up in the mail as there was a strike going on. A real shame as I still contend this is one of the most beautiful looking tourbillon wristwatches made to date, and I'd love to have had the opportunity to handle one and photograph it again. It was not to be and I'm sure it was a frustrating situation for John & Stephen, not having their lovely tourbillon caliber cased up as a complete watch for Basel!

The sublime McGonigle Tourbillon.

From a few years back, here cased in platinum. Photo courtesy of McGonigle Watches.

Next up was Romain Gauthier.

Wandering a short way, maybe 10 yards, down the corridor, my next port of call was Romain Gauthier's stand. This was an eagerly anticipated appointment and from the pictures I had seen prior to Basel I was quite excited to see his latest creation, the LOGICAL One. Having known Romain now for 3 & 1/2 years, I have followed his progress with much anticipation and appreciation for his superb technical engineering aspects he designs in his watches and his commitment to superlative hand finishing of his in-house calibers.

The Prestige HMS, his second watch, featuring a semi open dial, to reveal the balance wheel and seconds wheel.

The first wristwatch he designed, the HM was not my favorite from the dial side, but turning it over to reveal the amazing caliber, one is treated to a plethora of aesthetically beautiful bridges, wheels and cocks hand finished. Maybe it was the lack of crown that threw me off initially, and perhaps the asymmetric dial design without the crown. It has grown on me over the years and as I began to learn about why he designed it, I came to appreciate more and more Romain's design and execution in his workshop. The fact that he isn't a watchmaker was also a bit of a sticking point for me prior to meeting him. However upon meeting him for the first time in 2009, and having the chance to spend two whole days with him in the Bay Area and Los Angeles, when we did two collector dinners, convinced me to re-evaluate my consideration.

The fabulous hand finishing, together with the back winding system that he designed purely because it is more efficient.

As a mechanical engineer specializing in Precision Mechanics by training, who wholly conceives and then designs the watch from scratch, he has an advantage over other colleagues in the Independent watch world. He isn't constrained by traditional watchmaking ideas, although he certainly appreciates and understands them, he has taken M. Dufour's advice and insistence of supreme levels of hand finishing, his friend and mentor who lives close by. As a matter of fact, John McGonigle mentioned to me in one of our conversations this week, that Romain's level of hand finishing is superlative and as close to Dufour's as he's seen. That is quite a vote of confidence, as John is no stranger to fine hand finishing.

Here's a close up, revealing what the naked can't see, courtesy of Romain Gauthier.

Romain mentioned some vague details about this project over a year ago, saying he had a new constant force mechanism with some type of chain, but leaving it sufficiently vague so that I really didn't have a clue. Upon sitting down with Romain, I was stunned by what he revealed to me!

The prototype, mind blowing.

Here is the back, which is also stunning to look at, almost as good as the front!

The watch is simply amazing and the chain with the snail cam that sits under a finely polished Titanium bridge immediately jumps out at you. The time part of the watch is rather neat in it's vertical layout, with the balance wheel oscillating below the dial for the running seconds and time at the top. Turning the watch over, again the senses are exhilarated by quite a three dimensional manual winding watch caliber. Romain has again dispensed with the traditional winding stem and crown and opted for a wholly new rack ratchet winding system, that is operated by a push button on the side of the case at 9 o'clock. I believe this is again a completely new concept in the watch world and as Romain has 4 patents pending for this new watch, I was blown away when he showed me how it worked. From an engineering perspective, he designs with mechanical efficiency as a prime directive. This means his watches look a bit different from what else is being created and how certain aspects of the watch operate. Tourbillons are cool and technically quite tricky to do well. This watch and its chronometric abilities are better. It has a brilliant constant force, that delivers exactly the same power whatever the level of winding. The chain is amazing and comprises of black polished steel with tiny synthetic rubies to massively reduce the friction and wear.

Fortunately Romain brought along an example of the chain, so I thought it'd be fun to picture it next to the watch. I examined it under a 10x loupe, it superb!

My pictures aren't brilliant, but then again the lighting was awful! He is only going to make 20 in each case metal of either platinum or 18K RG. Yes several of you have voiced your concern over the price and when he debuted this to a few collectors in Geneva during the SIHH show, it was higher. It is now priced at a level that although not inexpensive, is still I think a very fair price for what one gets in exchange. My sense is that those get one of these will be thrilled and time will tell that they were wise to grab one when they could.

I am excited for Romain and this will really put him on the map in terms of technical prowess. It is one thing to design a beautiful watch, but another thing to create something like LOGICAL One. Best watch of the show for me by a long shot.

OK this is photo of a photo, but I love this version with an enamel dial in RG!