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.