00/24 WatchWorld

A watch brand has lately experienced an enormous attention. And I believe we can thank one guy for this, namely Anish Bhatt aka WatchAnish. This talented gentleman has a way of telling a story with luxurious pictures and makes the watches from SevenFriday look like something that should be on the wrist of any Lamborghini/Rolls Royce/Ferrari owner who travel in private jets and tan on their private yachts next to Jay Z and Beyonce.

As usual Gumball 3000 offers crazy and pimped cars but when Swedish pro skier Jon Olsson’s Ultima GTR Rebellion drove into the townhall square in central Copenhagen the other cars and respective owners must have felt a nasty sting of jalousy. This car is out of this world and the Swedish owner admitted that the 80 kilometers driven from Sweden to Denmark was the longest he had ever driven in this car that looks like a mix between the Batmobile and a car that Tom Kristensen would have loved to win his eight Le Mans victories in.

At the end of the stupid Seventies wrist watches were not considered to be fashion items or blunt instruments to emphasize social standing. They were things to tell the time and sometimes threw in a date indication for comfort. They were of course powered by mechanical movements only, since the Quartz Revolution still had to begin.

I had bought a nice number of GUB watches, but as my father had said ‘It’s nice to make money out of shit, but let’s get a better know brand too.’ So we made an appointment with the Rolex people in Switzerland. Rolex, dear reader, was as iconic then as it is now. The company was run like a religious sect and the families that owned Rolex behaved like monks. No flashy cars, no abundant luxury, no hookers, no champagne, they worked as hard as their employees with the sturdy doggedness that typifies a lot of Calvinist people. They worked their socks off to gain points that may or may not guarantee them a place in heaven. I was more interested in my current life then the awful afterlife that no doubt awaited me.

The Jeremiah & Jeremiah visit to Rolex headquarters was spectacular. The company had just announced the ‘Prix Rolex à l’esprit d’entreprise’ and my father thought our little shop qualified to receive this award without further ado. Rolex had a couple of bestselling models: Datejust, Submariner, Explorer, GMT-Master, Day-Date, Cosmograph Daytona.

Bruun Rasmussen Auctioneers will offer several extraordinary wristwatches on June 10th. Among the 78 lots a new old stock Tudor Submariner from 1979, complete with double boxset and certificates from a Danish retailer as well as an extremely rare Patek Philippe Calatrava of steel will go under the hammer.

Harry Winston keep their position as horological innovator par excellence with their 2012 launch of  the stunning and fascinating Opus 12. This innovative timepiece does not use hands to show time as we know them. Instead the 12 hourmarkers rotate every five minutes. This does not mean that you can only tell the precise time every five minutes as the central disc indicates these minutes via a retrograde hand.

Perrelet certainly hit Bull's Eye with their Turbine that was realased some four years ago. This year at Basel World it was all about colours and my attention was on the turbine Diver as the blue and yellow colours are rather attractive. This 47 millimetre novelty has all the details of a diver's watch, but not only is it fun til look at deep under water, due to the full illuminated dial behind the propella. You are also bound for attention by the audience of the night clubs, lightning up while everything moves.

It looked fantastic! The old man had painted Jeremiah & Jeremiah Uhren in archaic golden letters on the shop’s window, making my brand new store look old and respected. An elegant display of GUB watches made it abundantly clear the owner was a somewhat eccentric watch expert, emphasized by the fact that although there was only one Jeremiah present the double name suggested a mild form of schizophrenia.

Angelika pointed out to me that the notorious Leipziger Messe was the place to find out if the communist degenerates of the Glashütter Uhrenbetrieb were willing to sell some of their watches to me. I got the right papers via my corrupt but helpful father and travelled to Leipzig. Leipzig, dear readers, is an interesting town.

One of the most exciting presentations I have had yet here at Basel World 2013 was at HYT, the hydro mechanical horologists. This year the introduced the next step, H2, with a movement upgrade by Guilio Papi of renowned Renaud & Papi. The idea of the watch is still the same brilliant construction of liquids slowly showing he consumption of the day in two times 12 hours retrograde, however starting at 6 o'clock instead of 12 o'clock. This actually makes sense as the day usually starts at 6 AM and ends as 6 PM as. I don't anybody who claim that a new day starts just after midnight. Except night bartenders and guards at museums.

Coming to Basel World is usually all about the new watches being introduced to the hungry hoards of retailers and journalists. These are not up for graps, but merely shown to be manhandled and left for a later release. This year however I treated myself with a new watch, the stunning Linde Werdelin Oktopus Moon II and strapped it on right away, as Linde Werdelin were able to make delivery during Basel World.