My third day in Basel started with an appointment that was requested by the worldwide director of sales for the Russian AHCI member, Konstantin Chaykin. Up to this point in time, I honestly hadn't given his work much thought as there is only so many hours in the day to focus on ones core business. As a growing brand at this point, I was intrigued to see what they had to show me. When I sat down I was given a brief history of Konstantin's work, he only started making watches at 27, and his goal is to restore Russian high end mechanical watch and clock making to it's former glory. He has created quite a company and now has almost 50 people working in Moscow to help create his vision. Several of his watches were shown to me, in particular the Camera watch, that shows a horse running when a button is depressed at 9 o'clock.
The Cinema Watch.
It sounds and looks like an old movie camera! The movement is lovely and well finished.
The other watch I thought rather neat was the "Quartime ", as the Russian day is split into 4 periods, Morning, Day, Evening & Night, this watch shows you 6 hours at a time and the hour hand makes one revolution every 6 hours and as it does reach the traditional 12 o'clock position, the hour click over to represent the next 6 hour period. Quite a clever complication and fun to have.
The movement in the Quartime
Konstantin also makes several non Gregorian calendar watches, there was a Hebraic one and a Muslim one on offer.
The Decalogue Rega
The movement of the Decalogue Rega.
The other watches I thought were lovely were the mystery dial wristwatches. These have a couple of synthetic sapphire disks that have a minute & hour hand on them and appear to float inside the watch. The movement is hidden from the front, and upon turning over the watch, is revealed to be around the outside.
RG Levitas Moonphase on the wrist, with elegant guilloche enamel and the moonphase at 3 o'clock.
The back of the Levitas showing the caliber.
Similar in design as the famous Cartier Mystery clocks of the Art Deco era, these watches are fabulous dress watches sure to spark an interesting conversation. He designed a couple of jewelled & enamelled ladies pieces that are very elegant. All in all a fascinating insight into this blossoming Russian Manufacture. I tip my hat to the creativity coming from their workshops.
This is a ladies RG Mother of Pearl Levitas.
A lovely WG Levitas with a Pietra Dura (Micro Mosaic) stone dial and diamond case
Urban Jurgensen
My next stop was right across the aisle at the Palace, where a long time friend of mine, John McBarron was stationed. John has been helping Urban Jurgensen for many years now in the USA. As a fledgling brand of the late Peter Baumberger, who had begun to restore with the help of genius watchmaker Derek Pratt, the name of Urban Jurgensen as a top class watchmaker. The production has always been tiny and since both Peter and Derek have passed on, the company and it's stunning designs now are in the hands of a well known watch and pocket watch collector, Dr. Helmut Crott. Peter's legacy was the design and creation of their own movement, that with the help of Kari Voutilainen, was realized a couple of years prior to his death. What was a first in the world, a series production caliber with a detent chronometer escapement. This detent escapement was patented worldwide in 2008 and presented in Baselworld 2009 for the first time. Sadly Peter passed away a few months after Basel in 2009. A marvel of micro-mechanical engineering usually only found in unique precision pocket watches.
The stunning Platinum cased patented Spring Detent chronometer escapement with exquisite silver guilloche dial.
This is the Swiss Lever escapement in the platinum case. Both escapement calibers have twin barrels and a power reserve of about 88 hours (just over 3 1/2 days), perfect for taking off for a sporty weekend and having it running fine Monday morning!
Here is the Detent escapement caliber.
The collection has grown this year with the addition of something dear to my heart, an enamel dial with roman numerals. Limited in production to either a platinum or 18K RG case, this stunning version of the detent escapement Urban Jurgensen watch is now a reality.
Here is the glorious limited edition enamel dial Detent escapement new piece.
Another view with a bit different lighting.
Here both cases to compare. One interesting aspect of these dials is that the numerals and letters are black, whereas the lines are a grey color. Very subtle difference, but there nonetheless and adds to the depth of these lovely cream enamel dials. These are made by a specialist in Geneva, a friend of Dr. Crott's, who has made a name for himself repairing damaged enamel over the years.
This one I thought was a good illustration of the difference between a cream or off white enamel dial and a white enamel dial. As someone who has a particular penchant for enamel dials, these two are pretty much as good as it gets design wise.
One very curious decision by someone at UJS was to put a solid case back on the RG piece they were showing. I found this to be an extra-ordinary oversight on some person making that choice. I voiced my opinion on this to poor John, who rather sheepishly agreed with me. Now, in retrospect I have thought of a plausible explanation for this, and perhaps as it was a prototype watch, the movement might not have been completely finished, so they stuck a solid back on it, as the dial is new and the focus here. Other watches there had the standard open back revealing the lovely manual wind inhouse caliber.
Solid caseback?
On the wrist, probably my second favorite watch of Basel 2013!
Previously the classic dial as designed by Peter, was silver guilloche with printed romans executed almost perfectly. These are exceedingly beautiful classic watches and although not technically made by an Independent Watchmaker, I think are worth looking at and considering.
Simply a beautiful watch, the drooped tear drop lugs are a nod to some of the lovely Vacheron & Constantin case from the late fifties & sixties, Peter Baumberger's love of classic elegant design.
Here are side by side, the platinum detent escapement on the left and the standard Swiss Lever escapement on the right, here both with lovely silver guilloche dials.
As of this writing, the other interesting piece of watch news is that, I was given a history of the Jurgensen watchmaking efforts going back a couple of hundred years. The ugly duckling in the family, that of the recent 40 years or so, namely Jules Jurgensen, has been bought and will no longer produce cheap and cheerful watches that often times were confused with the brilliant and fabulous Urban Jurgensen watches. Mostly quartz watches sold by a US watch distributor who capitalised on the fantastic history of the Jurgensen name, these watches were not truly representative of the Jurgensen name and I'm sure they made Peter's life more tricky! As the name has been re-connected with Urban Jurgensen, this sorry chapter in the famous Jurgensen watchmaking house will be history. I do have to say there are quite a few very fine Jules Jurgensen pocketwatches that can be found from the former times, and these are serious collector pieces, but the rubbish produced in the eighties and nineties isn't worth looking at!
I'm curious to see how things will proceed with Urban Jurgensen and will hope to see more good things in due course. I then made my way outside to meet up with Richard from Meridian the relatively new English Watchmaking Co. Of course as is the way during Basel, one invariably bumps into friends and/or colleagues while walking to a meeting, which explains why many appointments run a bit late, 10-15mins! I ran into Max Busser, and enjoyed a brief but intense chat about goings on with MB&F. Suffice to say, he is a happy man having got to the point of choosing who does business with, and I'm sure the future is a promising one for Max.
12 minutes late, I met Richard and headed off for our appointment over lunch.
.