The Basel and SIHH Geneva Report 2005

by Tim Jackson G.G

Well to think that the last time I was here in Switzerland writing an article was a whole year ago.  ‘Time flies old boy’ as my dad’s expression vividly comes to mind.  I’m again on the train from Basel to Geneva having spent 3 1⁄2 days at the Basel Watch, Clock & Jewelry Show in the northwest of Switzerland where France, Germany and Switzerland all meet.

Day 2 - Thursday - Basel

Thursday morning I’m up early, a ten hour time difference tends to have that effect!  Eager to see more of the new watches, I arrived at the main watch hall at 8:30 am.  Conveniently, a business center is on hand, so I spent 30 minutes responding to email, and checking the various watch websites to see what else I could glean about some of the new offerings.  First up was supposed to be Blancpain, but this was postponed to Friday at their request as they were already running behind schedule.  I headed off to Tutima, our favorite military inspired sport watch.  Tutima offers superb value for the money, they are great people to work with as well.  A new red dial Ltd Edition F2 Power Reserve and a blue dial for the gold version of the same watch.  They also debuted a rose gold Big Date with power reserve function dress watch in the FX line, with a retail price of under $10k.  I think it will be well received.  Continuing on in the same Teutonic vein, I followed with Martin Braun.  He was showing the Astriaos a combination of the EOS and the Heliozentric, so a rather complicated astronomical watch showing sunrise, sunset and an approximate path of the earth around the sun.

Next up was my perennial German favorite, Glashutte Original.  Having perused the outside showcases the day before, I was surprised by yet more new offerings.  This was also where I got to finally touch and loupe the new Cal. 100, a replacement movement for the venerable Cal. 39; that powered the Senator line until now.  This is a wonderful motor that powers the slightly changed dial configurations of the familiar complications.  I have to say, I was a little apprehensive prior to seeing them in person.  Relieved to say that in person they are spectacular! 

Hublot followed with the “Big Bang”.  This is a bit of a departure from previous models, namely the ‘Classic’ and ‘Elegant’ options.  Here I can safely say Jean-Claude Biver of Blancpain fame, has made his mark.  Brought in by Carlo Croco on Hublot's 25^th anniversary to spice things up a bit.  Well, the ‘Beeg Bong’ as the French speaking employees of Hublot pronounce it, certainly got everyone’s attention.  This is a sport chronograph watch that uses a combination of Kevlar and steel or rose gold for its case together with a carbon fiber dial and a ceramic or Tantalum bezel!

Dinner that evening was kindly hosted by Ulysse Nardin, a small collection of the US top retailers and a few collectors gathered in a cozy dining room at the Hotel Meridian on the bank of the Rhine.  Sitting next to Rolf kept me on my toes!  Back to the boat at a reasonable hour around 11 pm and off to bed. 

Day 3 - Friday - Basel

Day three began with a breakfast appointment with Peter & Daniela Speake-Marin, where we discussed the past 12 months and the future 12 months.  We agreed that 2004 was a great start for the transatlantic British association formed a year ago in Basel.  2005 should be extraordinary with Peter & Daniela coming over to the US in August.

In anticipation of handling Marco Lang’s creations, I extricated myself from the Speake-Marin’s. For those of you who know me well and understand my penchant for genuine enamel dials will appreciate why when a watch connoisseur turned me on to these watches, and fast becoming a good friend, I had to investigate further.  I liked what I saw from the Lang und Heyne brochures, and as very often, in person found the watches to be exquisite. Thank you Ali S.  I appreciate the tip.  His brand new watch features all the functions of a complete calendar with the addition of what I think is a unique complication, a dial that shows the earth's tilt, depending upon the season.  Blancpain was next, here a monopusher rattrapante villeret chrono stole the show for me.  Their tourbillon with a synthetic sapphire dial is neat; it shows the inner workings of the big date, together with the tourbillon.  The 270^th Anniversary red gold Reveil is sure to be a hit.  There is a wonderful in depth article on the Blancpain website written by Jeff Kingston for those that want all the details!

The remainder of Friday was taken up with two of our long time jewelry suppliers, Cede and Luca Carati.  Cede, modern German designs and Luca Carati, with the Italian flair.  My last appointment was with Hearts on Fire.  Many stunning new designs to show off the ‘world’s most perfectly cut diamond’.  Dinner was kindly laid on by Hearts on Fire at a splendid Italian spot, particularly convenient for me, as it was only a 10-minute walk from my hotel/boat.

Day 4 - Saturday - Basel

First stop Saturday morning was Ulysse Nardin.  Lots to see from one of our favorite companies; the new Freak, an upgraded slightly larger version of the original. The Royal Blue Tourbillon caused quite a stir, a flying tourbillon with synthetic sapphire bridges and plates so that one can see through the movement!  They showed a couple of other new models and a couple of variations of existing models.  One watch that I have to say shocked me was the new "Quadrato" a square '70's looking GMT Perpetual.  Ugly will suffice. Sorry UN,  I usually love most of your creations, but this one seems to have ‘lost it on the corner’.  Oh well, you can’t please everyone all the time.  UN is consistently pushing the envelope, which we really appreciate and creates an excitement in the stand not found anywhere else.  After this long appointment, I headed off to finish up with Luca Carati before wending my way back to the watch hall to see Anonimo.  This relatively young Florentine watch company had some big news. Dino Zei, the original designer of many Panerai’s and one time owner of Panerai prior to selling to the Vendome/Richemont Group, decided he wanted to come out of retirement and work with Anonimo.  The future looks bright for Florentine watch making. 

As this was my last day at the show in Basel, I made my way to the AHCI area to bid my friends farewell before returning to Luca Carati’s stand for a wine tasting event showcasing a friend of Gianluca's from Valenza, who makes terrific wine.  Fresh reggiano, copa, prociutto and homemade salami were offered to accompany the wine.  The Italians know how to live!  I managed to get myself invited to a dinner hosted by Town & Country a US publisher of trade magazines with the Luca Carati team.  What a fabulous location, a castle surrounded by a moat.  Walking across the drawbridge we anticipated the best, unfortunately to find the wine undrinkable.  The look on Paulo, the winemaker friend, said it all, hastily followed up by a request for beer!

Travel day to Geneva by train; efficient, clean, comfortable and on time!  I arrived in Geneva mid-afternoon, which allowed me a couple hours spent walking across the city to the old town and up to the cathedral.  That evening was the ‘Big Event’.  Vacheron Constantin are celebrating their 250^th Anniversary this year, so they laid on a spectacular evening for about 500 guests.  A black tie affair that started at 7:30pm with champagne and hors d’oeuvres in the Vacheron Museum and finished at 1:00am with single malt and a cigar!  The chef I’m told is regarded as the finest in Geneva, so we ate extremely well.  Meanwhile we were entertained by a variety of musicians and acrobats.  The requisite speakers went on a bit, otherwise a splendid evening. 

Day 6 – Monday & SIHH

I arrived at the show a half hour prior to meeting with Piaget.  I enjoyed the Financial Times with several croissants and tea, to get back on track.  Piaget was more of a courtesy appointment really than anything else.  Good people, beautiful jewelry and mostly dress watches.  Probably not for Jackson Square at the present time!  Next up was MontBlanc, the writing instrument, and lately, watch company.  I did get to see some extraordinary jeweled fountain pens that sell for between $50 – 80k. Their watches are improving over time and certainly fill a good niche for us.  I then dropped into Audemars Piguet to say hello, you never know if and when we might want to do something here!

After lunch, I tried to get in early to see Roger Dubuis; I had an hour to kill, so I thought I’d take some photos. Unfortunately, I was rather quickly accosted by a security guard who didn’t speak English, my broken French failed to get the message across that I was a Dubuis dealer and that I needed these images for my clients.  At 6’5”, 250 lbs, I protested only briefly and then put away the camera.  He was suggesting that as I didn’t have a press badge, no photos!  You’ll be happy to see, I did in fact get to snap quite a few prior to our encounter.

Vacheron was next.  In the expansive entrance of their stand was the ‘Tour d’Isle’, the world’s most complicated limited production wristwatch.  If you’ve seen the pictures, wow in person it blew me away!  Too many complications to list here but you name it, it has it!  It also happens to be a well designed and pleasing to the eye, wristwatch.  The team at Vacheron showed the world what haute horology is all about.  Unfortunately only 8 of these beautiful works of art will be made.  During our meeting, some new pieces were unveiled.  A Royal Eagle rose or white gold dual time zone watch really caught my eye.  The ‘1755 Jubilee’ limited editions were much better in person and we hope to be allocated a couple of pieces!  I must point out that Vacheron had been featured at the Antiquorum Auction held on Sunday, at which several world records were broken for Vacheron.  One of the sales I thought most interesting was a 52mm steel aviator watch from 1936 that fetched around $300k!!!  I’m told that got a big round of applause!  Logic says maybe $50-75k, perhaps the new owner knows something we don’t!  With this renewed interest in Vacheron, their stand was buzzing.

Roger Dubuis was the final port of call.  After last year’s introduction of the SAW (Sport Activity Watch), I though I was ready for anything.  You can imagine my face on seeing the Double Tourbillon with Retrograde minute hand and the new Tourbillon Minute Repeater.  These were housed in the new beefed up Sympathie case introduced last year.  Several new dial executions for the SAW’s. A new variation on the dual timezone jumping hour indicator.  Last year introduced in the Too Much case, now found in the Much More case.  An improvement from my perspective.  A fourth size for the Golden Square, 37mm, will find new fans for this great Dubuis look.  Many more watches now coming with the Cal. 14 movement.  Their fully in-house manufactured movement from scratch, that is taking over from the Cal. 57 that was used alone and as a base for much more complicated pieces.  Again, for such a relatively new company, they offered many new innovative pieces and complications.  The creative side of Carlos Dias strikes again.  Leaving at 7pm, I dashed back to the hotel prior to joining a small group of watch connoisseurs for an intimate dinner.  I met several new people and am always excited to see rare fine timepieces being worn. Many thanks go to Larry S. for organizing again!

The following day was spent with my mum and dad revisiting old town and catching up on family life back in the UK.  As we walked across the Rue de Rhone, Geneva’s ‘Rodeo Drive’, I couldn’t help myself – so I dragged them to Cartier, where in the window resided several huge diamond pieces.  Most impressive was a cushion cut diamond solitaire ring of well over 20ct!!! I'm still trying to get my Dad to open up to the concept of quality jewelry and fine watches. The gold plated quartz dress watch is "just the job" in his world. I'm glad to say it certainly isn't in mine; my Speake-Marin “Piccadilly” is an anathema to Dad.

 I must reiterate that getting to meet and spend time with many of the world's great artisan watchmakers is still a thrill after six years. Basel and SIHH are work; only it is what I love.

I'm available as always, to discuss further or request additional data regarding my visit to Switzerland. Hope you enjoyed my little slice of Basel and SIHH Geneva 2005.

Tim Jackson G.G.