Officially the opening day for the public, Thursday in Baselworld is a zoo, with folks running everywhere between appointments, eager to see the latest and greatest from the brands. I on the other hand, sauntered in after taking the train and then tram from Bienne into the fair for my first appointment with dear friend Marco Lang from Lang & Heyne in Dresden. Marco has made a big change this past year, with the expansion of his sphere of influence into other businesses. Essentially he sold his majority stake in L&H & Hartding (His retail shop in Dresden) for a smaller slice of a much bigger pie, Tempus Art Group, that encompasses L&H, Hartding, Leinfelder a jewelry manufacturing company in Munich and a movement manufacturer in Dresden. His day to day work hasn't changed tremendously, he is hard at work creating stunning mechanical watches. L&H remains his baby, and the good news from my standpoint is that it will remain essentially as I found it, highly compelling back in 2005. They will continue to make very few watches each year, around 45-50, and this is good news.
The Lang & Heyne "Augustus"
The superb hand engraved bridges on the new caliber of the Augustus.
As a result of this expansion, Marco was showing his wares in two places, the AHCI and then upstairs in a new stand together with Leinfelder, the jewelry company from Munich. I had a table to sit at to view Marco's latest watch, the Augustus. Originally the complication was the idea of a Dutch collector, who had in the past explored the idea with a couple of other AHCI colleagues, to no avail. Marco, conceived of an upgrade that makes sense and completes the original idea. This watch other than telling the time and date and month, has this rather remarkable mechanical mechanism that once programmed with 12 anniversaries of specific dates and years, will calculate the exact age and indicate the number of months to this specific date's anniversary.
Marco's upgrade and important addition that really makes sense was to add the year indication. The monopusher changing mechanism on the crown, with the usage of a column wheel type of gearing, allows the watch to switch between the various settings, indicated by the arc scale by 2.30 on the dial. When in the year mode, turning the crown to change years, the watch calculates the age of the anniversary for each year changed. The years currently go up to 2031, at which point, the watch would need to be returned to L&H for the year disc to be changed out. The current month and the anniversary month are both indicated on the retro-grade display at 12 o'clock. A totally customizable piece from Lang & Heyne, The Augustus provides a fantastic showcase for Marco's technological micro engineering brilliance.
We discussed aspects of his & my business and are planning on an event with Marco later this year in several locations across the country. Stay tuned for more on this. I then looked at a couple of pieces from the Lienfelder collection, which house the first movement Marco designed for the movement manufacturing company, Uhren-Werke-Dresden, that he now is a part of.
The Elysium Classic features a manual wind caliber, with a sub seconds hand, the watch is a good looking quite classical first model for Leinfelder and I think could be well received in it's native Germany. Whether or not these will be sold farther afield, remains to be seen. It certainly appeals to me with the elegant white lacquer dial and black roman numerals.
Finishing up here, my next stop was with Speake-Marin, who has also moved and stepped up his game. He was now showing upstairs in Hall 1.1, albeit a bit tucked away on the West side of the building behind Clerc & Links of London. A stand alone showroom/booth, he had two rooms, one for showing new products and the other for Peter to host the several hundred press appointments that had been scheduled for him. Brand building is occurring at Peter's company, and the feel has changed from previous years. Still creating some of the best looking watch made, his new "Velsheda" from the now christened "J Class" collection, is a continuance/update of one of my favorite all time classic Speake-Marin models, the "Shimoda".
See above the two positions of the center seconds topping tool.
Peter has gone a step further with the addition of his now brand image/logo, "topping tool" as the running seconds, which creates a rather elegant motion in the center of the dial, as the single hour hand has the fixed topping tool design in the center. One can see Peter has taken elements of the nautical theme in this watch, to me it is like a hand held compass. The elongated hour hand is read off the white lacquered dial on a railroad track scale with 5 minute markers between those classic black roman numeral hour markers. Again the base caliber is the automatic Eros, with it's twin barrels providing 5 days of power reserve. Here in the 42mm steel Piccadilly Speake-Marin case.
The other new addition to the roster is an automatic high polish Grade 5 Titanium cased Tourbillon escapement wristwatch, named the "Magister". It is a welcome addition to the J Class collection and priced very competitively at under $80,000.
Featuring Peter's lovely blued steel Foundation style hands and the classic white dial with black romans. The Tourbillon cage is his now familiar topping tool shape.
My personal viewpoint, is that the nomenclature on the dial is completely un-necessary. Those collectors who understand and appreciate a Tourbillon, do not need to be told it has a platinum rotor nor that it oscillates at 21,600vph. A shame as it is otherwise a lovely watch. Now if only Peter would case it in 18K Red Gold without the superfluous dial writing...
The Spirit Collection has expanded since last year by two models, which were released a little earlier than Baselworld in pictures. A big date with power reserve for the Wing Commander and the Seafire, an automatic chronograph, both these are cased in grade 5 Titanium.
The Seafire on the left and the Wing Commander on the right.
This is the area of his collection now, that is definitely aimed at a different audience, and as much as I appreciate the technical dial work, these two watches don't appeal to me. This is not to say they are bad looking, rather they just "miss the mark" in my opinion. I very much prefer the original "Spirit" in the 38mm case, with it's original dial; a classic Speake-Marin. Oh well, I can't have it all and time as they say marches on, so too does Peter's collection, as he consolidates his brand and looks to the future. He has also collaborated with an American company to produce some fun hand waxed cotton military style straps for the 42mm Spirit collection. Quite stylish I'd say and fitting for these watches. Each one is unique!
The Spirit "Wing Commander" with the one-of-a kind “Suigeneric for Speake-Marin” hand waxed cotton strap.
Peter had added an all steel version of his art piece from last year, the Triad, which had it's debut with an 18K RG bezel. I find this version better on the eyes...I still get asked if it is a three timezone watch! It takes a little explaining and viola, the rhyme and reason makes sense to most. It is purely micro-mechanical horological art for arts sake.
To me, a better looking piece.
I bid my hosts farewell, several new faces to the Speake-Marin team, and left for other watch makers to wow me. It was a different experience this year at Peter's booth/stand and one that is a big change from previous years. Time will tell if the feelings I got were accurate or not. I'm a patient man, so will give these new guys a chance to prove me wrong. I want the best for Peter, and having journeyed with him this long, I hope his well intentioned plans work for everyone's benefit, not only the collectors who supported him in the early days, but the new folk who are discovering his brand for the first time.
I headed off to my next appointment in the Ramada Hotel Tower with Glashutte's latest Independent brand, Moritz Grossmann.