Basel Day 3- Sarpaneva

My second day, wasn't full of appointments, rather time to walk the show meet friends old & new. I did have an appointment with Armin Strom, mostly out of courtesy to their very likeable international sales director Sebastian, who has been dogging me for over 6 months to work with them. I appreciate their products and their mission, but they are not a watchmaker who I need to work with. My preference is for small artisanal watchmakers rather than independent brands, and in Armin Strom's case well funded and not really needing my services to help market and sell the watches. They have Sebastian, who has been around the block and to my observation, is doing a great job. They showed their new system called a Configurator, which allows for clients to mock up their own version of an ideal custom unique watch. Various components can be colored with ADLC & a choice of metals for the case etc. The car industry has been at this for while now, and I'm only surprised a watch company hasn't done this before now. Congrats to the team at Armin Strom for giving the reins to the consumer, my belief is that this is where the luxury branded watch industry is headed. Now that I think about it, Vacheron did try a half cock attempt with their original introduction of the Quai De L'Ile in 2008, where one could have a small choice of case component and a couple of dial options from memory. Perhaps the technology wasn't up to speed back then...plus they had certain options that the client was not allowed to choose. Constricting the buyers choice doesn't seem to be terribly smart these days!

See this link http://www.thehourlounge.com/en/vacheron-constantin-articles/quai-de-lile-vacheron-constantins-bohemian-rhapsody-560871

Anyway, I then wandered over to meet up with Stepan and see his latest wizardry from Helsinki. There's obviously something in the water, or maybe it's just that lack of daylight in the deepest part of winter, that allows for his extra-ordinary creativity. On top of the fact that he is brilliant watchmaker, he's a delight to spend time with. A character of note. The watches this year were again utilizing a luminous material on the dial in a Super Hero shield type of configuration. Evel Knievel being a man to whom Stepan pays a lot of respect to, as a fellow motorcycle enthusiast, Daredevil is the new Korona K0 model for 2017. 20 pieces will be made in each model, Dusk & Dawn.

Dawn in daylight

Last year's collaboration with James Thompson of Black Badger Advanced Composites fame, The brilliant Korona K0 Seasons was a tremendous success, but with many artists, Stepan creativity and design ethos follows his heart, and that path had run it's course, so the Daredevil models feature Superluminova this year and will appeal I believe to a sightly different audience than previously.

Daredevil Dusk

Dusk's Lume charged...

He has a good friend and supporter, Kari Voutilainen, who helps with some dial execution, as he owns a dial factory in Switzerland, where some exquisite guilloche and enamel dials are made to friends specifications. Stepan has created a series of guilloche dials for his Korona K0 watches. I love the green with the moonphase...

In order to fulfill some wishes of watch buyers in his home country of Finland and being a proud Finn, Stepan created a second brand if you will, called SUF Helsinki. Standing for SarpanevaUhrenFabrik, it is in his own words:

"It’s limited edition, mechanical timepieces are designed and assembled in the heart of Helsinki by the Baltic Sea, with a style and build quality of distinctly Scandinavian pedigree. But it goes further than that – S.U.F. is horology’s embodiment of a certain “Finnishness”;  grit and determination known as sisu.

It’s impossible to translate literally but the stoicism and sheer guts that sisu describes are born of Finland’s remoteness, and long, bleak winters. With limited resources, the elements always against them, the country’s people have nonetheless risen to the challenge in every field, from the sea, to the land and into the air. And it is there that S.U.F. thrives, inspired by Finnish pioneers of engineering, speed and design – every one of them with sisu in spades."

The initial model named Myrksy, is a simple Time & date watch with a pilots style dark grey dial. This year though, Stepan upped his game with a Sports watch, the Vetehinen, which is 300m depth rated and features a Uni-directional dive bezel, screw down crown, brilliant Harpoon hands and 4 dial color variations. I eagerly ordered several blues and a couple grey dial pieces.

To be continued...

Basel Day 2- Lang & Heyne & Romain Gauthier

Anticipating my meetings with Marco and the usual suspects in the Independent Watchmaking arena, I eagerly headed towards the Messeplatz where the Baselworld exhibition is held annually. The amazing new (couple of years old now!) building is pretty impressive and the doughnut hole opening above the tram stop revealed the lack of attendees, relative to other years.

The first public day open Thursday, rather than the press day Wednesday, is usually mobbed; this year it wasn't. I headed into Hall 1.0 to get a general feel for traffic and glimpse at the main hall for the big brands, whose game in Basel is to impress and sell as many watches as possible to fill their order books for the year. Business as usual, well coiffed chaps in skinny dark suits and ladies dressed to kill, surround most entrances, eager to get inside for their appointments. Espressos, champagne flows & canapés are all offered in the process of writing orders. I've been there and done that, no thank you anymore! That was a previous life and one that I have to say I'm happy I experienced for several years, as it gave me perspective on the watch business and allowed me to see my chosen path to the world of Independent Watchmakers, initially within the AHCI arena in Baselworld.

Marco was in the same stand alone show room, alongside his AHCI colleagues in Hall 2.0, where he has been for the past two years. I had had a preview of the movement months prior to Basel and was sworn to secrecy for obvious reasons, so was excited to see the real life new model, Georg. Press release images were revealed a couple of days before I arrived, so I knew what it looked like, however I wasn't ready for the impact the Georg would have on me in person, when Marco handed me the RG model! The 2 layer (simple sunk) enamel dial sporting the arabic numerals worked so well, I'm usually a roman numeral guy, together with the huge sub seconds. The new style hands were lovely and I appreciated the attention to detail in the 2 color printed enamel dial. The diamond shaped markers for the 12, 3, 6 & 9 within the minute track are blue, while the remainder of the printing is black. The watch was fitted with RG Lancet hands, which if I had picked, would be blued steel! I personally like the contrast with blued steel hands against the sharp white enamel, however I wouldn't kick this out of bed just for having RG hands ;-) To say I love this new model is an understatement, it has such a huge impact on me, that I just sat there staring and fondling the watch happily for several minutes before beaming up at Marco and telling him congratulations! I strapped it on my wrist and began snapping pictures, hoping to capture it's brilliance in order to share with my friends and collectors. There was also a WG execution fitted with the blued steel Lancet hands, lovely too, but my pick was the RG version.

For those of you who prefer white metal watches, here is the Georg cased in WG with the lovely blued steel Lancet hands.

WG case.

The watch is fitted with the Caliber VIII and is also new territory for Marco. His original Calibers were terribly traditional Saxon offerings, with the classic 3/4 plates, screwed gold chatons and lovingly hand engraved balance cocks. Not so the Cal. VIII, here for the first time Marco went for his most 3-D movement, using beautifully hand polished steel cocks/bars and bridges that hold the movement to the flat mainplate, with lovely blued steel screws. Gone is the hand engraved balance cock, replaced by the killer polished steel bridge. All in all, a gorgeous movement commensurate with Marco's brilliance as an Independent Watchmaker.

Here a front & back shot of both the watches Macro had for show and tell...

The 2 first ever Cal VIII's

Absolutely gorgeous!

Leaving Marco and his team, with an order for a couple of Georg watches, I headed out to the new area in Hall 1.2 where the other Independent Watchmakers and smaller Independent brands were located. Having been moved out of the tented Palace from the past several years of exhibition space, the location of the "Les Ateliers" was upstairs above the main hall. Interestingly enough it was laid out in a similar fashion to the old Palace area. My dear friends were grouped together in a stand that was shared between Kari Voutilainen, Fiona Kruger, Bart & Tim Gronefeld, Stepan Sarpaneva, Alberto from Loupe System and the watch winder wizard, Bernard Favre. Romain Gauthier had his own space in the next aisle over. 

My first appointment in this area was with Romain. I'd again had prior notice of something exciting being previewed, and the center sub seconds dial layout was known to me, however what wasn't known was the fact that the new caliber featured a micro-rotor, as it was automatic. I was shown several variants of the Insight Micro-Rotor, in platinum and gold, that had lovely enamel dials.

 RG with white enamel dial

RG straight grained finish movt.

the platinum version with lovely blue fired enamel dial.

the stunning caliber within the platinum version, a frosted finish.

Plat. edition with the black enamel dial.

The platinum one had a lovely blue enamel and the RG had a glowing white dial. Laid out in a similar fashion to the LOGICAL One, with the exposed balance wheel at 6 o'clock under it's own bridge, the dial is easily read. The solid 22K gold micro rotor is visible from either side of the watch. Made in an edition of 10 pieces per dial and corresponding metal.

From last year's release, the HMS 10 in RG

The glorious hand wind caliber from Romain within the HMS 10

I spoke about upcoming CA visits by Romain, southern CA being one of his fav. spots on the planet to visit, fortunately for me!

One more gratuitous image of the mighty LOGICAL One, here in 18K WG

To be continued...

Switzerland 2017-Day 1

My stay with the Prescher family just outside Bienne, has become something of a tradition. Doing the 9hr time zone change prior to hitting Baselworld running, is a must for me, otherwise I run out of energy at 2pm and would wander around in a fog. Two days are spent in the U.K. with family, then an evening and most of the following day with Thomas. Getting to see & hear first hand what he's up to is important and always enlightening horologically. His days are spent in two modes, either restoration or creating his own pieces for clients. Many of the historical and important pocketwatches of the past two centuries that collectors acquire, need TLC. In order to keep them running, chiming or operating complications, they require the rare & highly skilled hands of a master watchmaker, whose understanding and appreciation for age old methods is well practiced. Thomas is sought out by many of these folks to service and/or restore antique horological objects and this visit revealed several pieces he was working on and had completed. A very early Tourbillon escapement pocketwatch from the 1820's, a paired case Pinchbeck quarter repeater with a stunning enamel dial and an amazing twin love birds hinged covered enamel ladies watch.

Also on his desk in various stages of completion were three amazingly complicated pieces being created for his clients. I am not at liberty to reveal what exactly they are, but suffice to say, Wow! I know one of the collectors and his piece will be quite something. Steam punk in style but with one of Thomas' signature complications. The other exciting item I saw was one of his Triple Axis Tourbillons. This one was cased in platinum and featured a black onyx dial around the Tourbillon opening.

These watches are tremendously rare and only 6 have been created since the initial 2004 revelation of the Trilogy set containing the three Tourbillons, a Single Axis, a Double Axis and the Triple Axis. These are all Flying Tourbillons with a Constant Force mechanism within the carriage.

to be continued...