Stepan Sarpaneva & Kari Voutilainen, the Finnish watch mafia...

Finland produces superb watchmakers. No idea why, but two of my favorite Independent Watchmakers are Finns. The famous Kari V. has had much written about him over the past years and I've had the pleasure of getting to know him professionally and personally for several years now. I have fond memories of a brilliant dinner in Basel with Kari and John McGonigle a couple of years ago. These guys were exhibiting for the first time over in the Palace (the tent) across the street in a little park from Hall 2.0, where the AHCI stand is.

Entrance to the Palace

Inside the Palace, Kari & Stepan share a stand with friends. Other than the AHCI, this is where you'd find me.

I did get to handle one of the most exquisite pieces with Kari, the stunning Japanese lacquered dial & caliber Vingt-8...a testament to two schools of art.

Just superlative workmanship! Wow, wow I could look at this for hours, especially under a loupe.

Being Kari, he typically only has a watch or two on display, as his tiny production is highly sought after and he doesn't have stock piece lying around waiting for clients to hopefully buy them. Different and enviable position as compared to most big brands, whose over production is causing sleepless nights I'm sure for some.

Two tables over, in the corner is the other Finn, Stepan Sarpaneva. Having worked with him for many years now, I have forged a very good relationship with this master of the moon. As he freely mentions, a full moon causes him restless nights, so his watches reflect this important celestial body. Last year Stepan collaborated with James Thompson, whose industrial art/jewelry company Black Badger Advanced Composites utilizes amazing luminous materials, and they created the Northern Lights series. Twenty Four pieces in total, which sold out during the fair. As I only ordered one piece with the blue lume dial last year, I was eager to see this years collaborative effort with James. This year with last year's over subscribed series, Stepan decided to create a few more pieces thankfully, and the Korona K0 Seasons was revealed in all it's glory.

Winter on the wrist in day light

Winter glowing after charging with sunlight.

Four colors, 20 pieces for each Season; Teal-Spring, Green-Summer, Purple-Autumn & Blue-Winter. Preserving the exclusivity of early adopters for the Northern Lights, Stepan made this model a Time Only version. His iconic Moon Face is the case back, rather than the previous effort where it was the moophase.

Autumn with a wild frogskin strap and DLC matt black and shiny DLC gold combination case-daylight

Autumn glowing after charging with UV light, this only charges with UV!

These watches will not last long I predict, and I ordered several in Blue & Green. I'm not sure I ordered enough! I'll see ;-) The other piece I fell in love with, owing to it's white enamel dial and blued steel time telling grate over laying the enamel, is the exceedingly limited K1 Emali.

The very rare K1 Emali, limited to 8 pieces...if he ever makes them all!

Spring-with matt black DLC coating on the steel case in daylight. This one glows teal, I didn't snap a pic, so take my word please.

I bid Stepan farewell and headed out to my next stop...

Baselworld continues, Speake-Marin & Romain Gauthier

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.

Baselworld in 2016

Amazingly this is my 16th year attending the annual fair in Basel and it becomes quite familiar now, with the overpriced food and beer around the exhibition center known as the Messe! Expertly coiffed watch and jewelry marketing and sales personnel from the approx. 1800 exhibitors from 41 different countries, stroll around the exhibition halls, as though what they are doing is actually meaningful in the big scheme of life...I suppose one could argue that some of the big brands do contribute some portion of their millions to deserving charities and causes, but essentially for most it is hard core business, albeit a bit sexier than selling computers or insurance!

Exhibition Square tram stop, Basel.

Jaded, perhaps, but the reality of the "Watch business" has made me see the ugly underbelly and it isn't pretty. I love many of the products the watch houses create, but I can't abide by their business practices and in particular their lack of customer service when it comes to watch service and repair. Much of the watch world is consolidating and in a wait and see mode, or outright free fall, with too many watches being produced for the market. So, I spend my time in the rarified world of the Independent Watchmaker, found in the AHCI or typically the Palace areas of the Baselworld show.

Since I arrived in Switzerland from the west coast of the US, the 9hr time difference can be quite a challenge if I go right to the show, so I typically take a couple of days to decompress and adjust to European time in the UK (visiting family) and sometimes a day in Switzerland visiting a watchmaker if possible. This year was similar to previous ones and I got to spend an evening with Thomas Prescher and his lovely family together with the following day spent touring Alsace ending up in Strasbourg on Wednesday.

Quite exquisite hand-carved stone work inside, the trusty L&H Moritz to keep me company.

Thomas Prescher is one of the rare breed of truly brilliant watchmakers, whose body of work speaks for itself. As the guy who designed and built the very first and only Flying Triple Axis Tourbillon back in 2004, I'm allways excited to see what he's up to. I got to spy in on his workbench and lo & behold there was a vintage Minute Repeater caliber. This is going into a custom Prescher piece commissioned by a collector. Here is an image of it:

I got to see Marco from Lang & Heyne first on Thursday, he exhibits next door to the AHCI stand in Hall 2. This year the only new aspect of his previous offerings was a black dial for the Johann model that I love.

Discussing future business, I decided to order another Friedrich III in steel for stock with the new solid silver frosted dial and romans. Previously this model in steel was only offered with a black dial with the roman numerals, and as a change I thought this would make a good addition to the inventory in Solana Beach. It will come with blued steel cathedral hands, so quite a classical watch for the enjoyment of many years. 

Friedrich III with solid silver frosted dial and killer blued steel L&H "Cathedral" hands

I typically spend anywhere from 30mins to an hour with the watchmakers, going over new product, discussing client needs and wants, ordering new pieces if needed and generally building my relationships, that many times are more like friendships. As with a good friendship, there is a certain level of comfortableness and that creates great trust, which after all is really important in our world of hand shake agreements. No lawyers overseeing legal docs. to sign before one strikes up a business relationship, etc. This is real old school, people working together for the betterment of all parties, including the end user who after all supports this fragile world of the Independent Watchmaker and allows him/her to follow their chosen path of micro-mechanical artistry. Lest anyone belittle what these guys & gals do, I can tell you that they are integral to the workings of the big watch business too. They are the ones who can actually make watches from scratch and preserve the knowledge of true watchmaking for generations to come.

To be continued...