My next stop was Speake-Marin in Hall 1, where he has joined the big leagues. Actually, he has been here for the past three years in a stand that elevates his presence in Baselworld to his company's current and future status. Of all the Independent Watchmakers I work with, Peter has always shown the most commercial tendencies, whilst being a brilliant watchmaker. This is a transition that many Independent Watchmakers struggle with and of course many are not even interested. I was greeted by his new distributor, a nice chap, and was brought up to speed on the plans for the U.S. market. Having worked with Peter since 2004, I have had the pleasure of seeing his growth, both personally and professionally. The guys blood, sweat, and tears have earned him tremendous accolades and the respect of his Independent Watchmaking colleagues. This year, no new models, rather some limited edition versions of some current pieces were shown: two limited edition Velsheda’s with enamel dials, a black enamel dial 18k RG resilience and two limited edition dialed Seafire models. He has also updated the Vertical DoubleTourbillon he showed last year with a dark finish on the movement that reveals the caliber in a better way, more contrast between the tourbillons being high polished and the remainder of the movement.
The Verticle Double Tourbillon caliber
Velsheda Gothic in polished Ti 38mm
A new Resilience in 18K RG with a black enamel dial and gothic numerals
Velsheda Deco in Ti.
As is so often the case in Basel, I bumped into an old friend, Scott Rosen, formerly head of Vacheron Constantin USA, who now works with DeBethune. I then headed back to the AHCI area to look at more watches and hand off a Paul Gerber watch for service.
That night, I was kindly invited again by the Dutch and Finnish watchmakers together with some collectors from the Far East to a fun dinner at a local Thai restaurant, where we had dined last year. We took over the whole downstairs dining room and enjoyed much fellowship, watch discussions, and general fun times. I was fortunate to be sat next to Fiona Kruger, so I got the opportunity to really get to know her and understand more of why she designs her skull watches. A native Scot married to a South African, Fiona now resides in Alsace, France, just outside of Basel and is therefore only about an hour from the watchmaking areas in North-West Switzerland. At the end of the evening the obligatory watch table shot was started by myself and Spanish Rob.
#independents rule!
As you can see, this was definitely a biased group, a solitary Patek, and a solitary AP snuck in there.
KV & Stepan
The following day, after a good night’s sleep, I headed in for my first appointment in the Palace, the tent across the street from Hall Two, where my good friend Romain Gauthier was exhibiting this year. Previously he was in Hall 2.0 close by the AHCI stand, but has now moved across the square to a more palatial spot! As the designer of the superlative Logical One, I have come to deeply respect his creations. I was greeted by his lovely wife, Ana, and preceded into our meeting behind closed doors. With some theater, Romain revealed his newest variations of existing watches. He utilizes raw titanium on the HMS and Logical One for their cases, together with a limited edition blue enamel dial for the natural finish titanium grade 5 Logical One.
The Limited Edition Ti cased Logical One with blue enamel dial
Raw Ti. cased Logical One, showing Romain's inner "rock'n roll" behind his conservative Swiss exterior ;-)
Superb hand finishing on the platinum HM Prestige.
HMS Ti version in polished natural Ti.
The beautifully hand finished movement of the HMS cased in Ti.
We discussed another trip to California and was shown an exquisite one off-piece that I was not allowed to photograph, commissioned by a client of Romain’s. Suffice to say it was a hand-painted cover on a rose gold Logical One. I bid him farewell and was kindly presented with chocolates in the form of the chain from his Logical One. I then headed out to lunch with John and Stephen McGonigle. Whilst enjoying our traditional Swiss kalbratwurst and fries, I invited a cyber friend from Australia whom I had met for the first time the previous evening @Horologium to join us. We enjoyed an outdoor lunch with much watch discussion! Sitting on the next table was M. Dufour and a big proponent/fan of his from Geneva, Roland Ren, another prior cyber friend, who now came to life in real time! These are the opportunities that only occur if you actually make the trek to Baselworld, and is one of the reasons I so religiously return year after year to meet up with my watchmaking friends.