Baselworld Day 1-the short version...pictures mostly

Well, this is coming to you live from my room in beautiful Luzern at 5.22am, having just spent the last hour and a half culling through the 250 odd images I snapped yesterday in the show.

Meeting up with many dear friends, I have to say I was most excited to see John & Stephen's "Tuscar" and Bart & Tim's "One Hertz", they did not disappoint, however Marco's new piece, the "Friedrich II", his first ever steel watch, and a couple of others where a welcome respite from the standard big brand products. Made with the blood sweat and tears of years of experience, often gained under the thumb of some not so pleasant big company, while managing to keep their passion going and sanity intact. now is their time to show off their wares, and I'm thrilled to be part of it and to be able to share with you my thoughts and "down & dirty" pictures, shot with a relatively pedestrian camera, compared to most of the "journalists" cruising the halls.

So to the pictures, rather than my words, there will be more writing to come, so for now please enjoy.

The faithful, pouring out of the many trains arriving at the main railway station in Basel from all over Switzerland at 8am.

So to the watches, first up is the Tuscar:

the backside:

Now the One Hertz in either steel or a new version I wasn't expecting, in red gold with a chocolate dial, stunning!

Steel back:

Now to the red gold stunner, I especially like the movement's amazing steel bridges contrasting against the gold case:

And it's lovely dial side:

Now to Dresden's genius, Marco Lang:

And here is his new Caliber VI, a derivative of the superb Caliber V that sports the remontoir and central jumping seconds.

Romain Gauthier surprised me with a new version of his HMS, this time in Titanium at 43mm:

Superlative finishing:

And debutted last year, but I still love this more dressy, classic version, the white gold HMS:

And my Finninsh friend, Stepan Sarpaneva's superb art:

Here is the DLC K3 Northern Stars with red gold moons:

The iconic Korona Moonshine, this one with a YG Moon and brilliant luminous moonphase indicator at the bottom of the dial:

And the piece I was very excited to see last year, here again the sport watch, which will be in steel in actual production, this working proto is Ti.

Peter Speake-marin and I go back the longest of all, 8 years, and he showed me a unique piece that i could not picture, but was for me, possibly the most stunning mechanical watch I have ever seen to date. Details of which I cannot reveal in this forum, but which one lucky collector will treasure. It is red gold, that's all I can tell you. Peter showed me several future projects which will be developed in the next months and years, suffice to say, they will appeal to a variety of collectors and I think will define Peter even more as one of the most innovative and brilliant Independent Master Watchmakers creating today. I don't love all his work aesthetically, however I appreciate what he does and why.

This is a one off QP in red gold, there will also be one in white gold, that's it.

OK, that's it for now, I have to re-do yesterday again in a few hours, seeing other people & pieces, so must get showered and shaved!

Thanks for reading and looking,

Cheers,

Tim