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...