Sunday morning is a bit relaxed, breakfast with my hosts and then off to the fair. Kari was my first port of call this day and his offering this year was not to be trifled with. So often he has created a unique piece that is shown and pre-sold, but here was a new item with his guilloche dials looking classically "Voutilainen" but with a twist. inside the hours chapter is a date sector from 8 o'clock sweeping around to 4 o'clock leaving the sub seconds alone. A retro-grade or perhaps like Marco Lang's effort in the Konrad or Heinrich models, an anti-retrograde perhaps??? No, this is another variation on the theme of retro-grade dates. Upon arriving at midnight on the 31st, the date hand doesn't just flick back to the 1st, it slowly and visibly sweeps back, so that the owner can observe it's motion over the course of 2+seconds. I don't think this has been done prior. The 217QRS is a totally lovely watch and will only be made in tiny quantities, 10 RG, 10 WG & 10 Platinum.

Superbly finished caliber of the Observatoire.

I enjoyed three executions of this model that Kari had with him, my favorite was the lovely blue dial within a RG case. The other two were a WG with grey dial, minimal guilloche and 12,3 & 9 romans, with a platinum watch with a black multi style guilloche & arabics at 12, 3 & 9 dial. All three would be right at home on my wrist mind you, but the I have a soft spot for blue dials, so that got my vote. Now if the blue was in a platinum case, then hands downs a winner we'd have. The other fun piece that was on show, was a WG Observatoire with a guilloche grey dial and full applied RG radial arabics. I was able to snap some comparison shots for you. There was one Vingt-8 on show, that I was surprised to see and it too had a stunning light blue guilloche dial cased in WG with a lovely frosted movement finish.

Vingt-8 with pale blue guilloche enamel dial with the QRS behind.

As I finalized the potential purchase of a 217QRS for a great client with Kari, I was still snapping pics of his watches and trying them on, he picked up my Speake-Marin Piccadilly and strapped it on. He commented on how heavy it was and how classic Speake-Marin was in the day. Wise words from such a sage of the Independent watch world...it's what I found so compelling back in 2003 when I started this journey.

Kari checking out my original Piccadilly from 2005.

I then headed out to meet Stephen McGonigle for a quick beer & to grab a sandwich before my next stop. Whilst outside I bumped into a dear friend and watchmaker, Briana Le, who was visiting Basel from the SF Bay Area. She happened to be with some good watchmaker friends & student watchmakers, one of whom I'd met briefly prior, Kaj Korpela. He had on his wrist his own stunning rectangular watch with a Tourbillon escapement. Beautiful and quite elegant.

Next stop was back inside, and to visit with completely new to me watchmaker, the brilliant Rexhep Rexhepi of Akrivia and his brother Xhevdet Rexhepi, also brilliant by the way. Their prior offerings were not really to my taste and stylistically didn't seem something my clients would be excited about. Obviously technically the tourbillons were impressive and appeared to have very fine hand finishing, but designwies they just didn't it enough for me to reach. Last year an open dialed watch the AK-06 was revealed that had their own caliber and dial side was quite busy. A good step in the right direction for me, however this year they revealed a watch that I was very excited to see in person, The Chronometre Contemporain Rexhep Rexhepi.

The rose gold execution with black enamel dial

Exciting caliber, beautifully hand finished!

An enameled dial time only beauty with elegant proportions in a 38mm case of either 18K RG or platinum. The RG case sported a black enamel dial whilst the platinum a white version. Simple, yet brilliant in it's design. The caliber is similar to last year's effort in the AK-06, with it's symmetrical design and beautifully hand-finshed with all the classic elements of fine hand finished movements. Another one to add to the list.

Platinum elegance with white enamel dial.

My first meeting was with Romain, who didn't have a new model, rather an expansion on the Insight Micro-Rotor model he debutted last year. This year a polished Titanium version with several dial options. The blue enamel piece limited to 10 was a winner.

He also for the first time in several years (4yrs at Baselworld) showed a couple of pieces from the original HM series. These are the simple classic Hours & Minutes pieces with lovely guilloche dials.

The movement finishing is superlative and a refreshing moment to reflect upon where he has come since the beginning.

The platinum model with it's lovely frosted finish of the mainplate and bridges and the RG with the Geneva stripes. The HM model is so much Romain, and knowing him that much better now after all these years, I really appreciate this exquisite time only watch.

The back of the Insight Micro Rotor

Here is a new Logical One in natural titanium with a lovely black enamal dial

I then headed about 50' away to where Marco was showing. Eagerly anticipating the release of the Anton, I was not to be disappointed. This watch is cased in the rectangular case from last year's massive hit, the Georg. Featuring again the lovely white enamel arabic dial, this execution sports an elegant classic Saxon style Flying Tourbillon down at 6 o'clock in place of the sub seconds. The Anton movement side sports those wonderfully high polish curved steel cocks against the frosted finish main plate. A feast for the eyes! Marco showed me a platinum version as well as a RG model. The wonderfully thin cage is styled after the brilliant and famous Saxon watchmaking teacher, Alfred Helwig used to design his tourbillon cages. Black polished superbly, it is a sight to behold. Marco resisted for years to make a tourbillon, as he felt it was over subscribed within the watch world, well finally he decided to do it and wow! As is his way, it is so well designed and executed to his exacting standards, the Anton will make it's new owner very happy.

I spoke about an impending USA visit by Marco, and made plans for an event on the west coast and also hopefully on the East Coast, NYC a likely place. One of the great things about Basel is the ability to view models never before been seen or created, in this vein I was thrilled to see a Friedrich-August 1st cased in RG with the killer blued steel Louis XV hands. Particularly as I have a client who is interested in ordering this piece, and I have to say I really liked it in person, even though I typically prefer romans.

Next up was a lunch meeting with Stefan Kudoke, usually associated with hand skeletonizing and his famous Kudoktopus model. In fact until now, all his work has been the highly skilled manually, rather than with the help of CNC machines, skeleton working of the calibers, dials and hands of his watches. Based outside of Dresden in the former eastern Germany, his focus and passion is patently obvious when Stefan is speaking of his work and about watchmaking. This year he collaborated with the brilliant Austrian duo, known to many a seasoned watch aficionado as Habring2. He designed his new caliber using the Felix caliber as a starting point and certainly changed much about the aesthetic to give it a very different look and feel to it's Austrian counterpart. Basing the design of the main bridge from an old English pocketwatch he's owned for many years, he has a hand engraved balance cock that features his signature infinity symbol within the engraving. The frosted finish and blued screws are common in Saxon watchmaking. A note here, to say that Stefan does all this hand finishing of the mainplate, bridges, wheels and bluing of the screws himself. The hand engraving is done by a colleague, but again to Stefan's exacting design ethos. This resulting Time Only piece, known as the Kudoke 1, is to my sense of watchmaking, quite lovely. A coherent design executed by a truly skilled watchmaker/craftsman. I am excited to bring a couple of these lovely pieces out to California in due course once he has begun to build them in a series. As a prototype, this watch is impressive and I'm not sure it needs anything else to improve it!

Day Four, Kari Voutilainen & Rexhep Rexhepi (Akrivia)

Day One, Romain Gauthier, Lang & Heyne & Kudoke