bernard cheong
7182
Had a chance to speak to Mark Schmidt of Vianney Halter
Thanks to a good friend from our local retailer, I had a chance to speak to mark Shcmidt, who is the "man" at Vianney's place.
Vianney was not in, and Mark happened to speak perfect English.
Let me just begin by saying that what prompted me to call Switzerland from Singapore was the sheer thirst for knowledge about this man's work and his plans.
His relative lack of fame and lack of huge funds from a mother company has forced the best from Vianney's creative and resourceful genius.
The look in his eyes betray his talent and unorthodox and eccentric perfectionalism.....the man is on a mission...from what I have heard, money does not cause him to compromise.
From the first time I saw the "antiqua",and to the inspection of the innerworks of the Goldpfeil and Opus3....I have wanted to share with the rest of the collecting fraternity, namely the connoseurs of the controversial and unique....that Vianney looks like a limited resource....like good wine ( thank you Thomas M )
They have barely 10 yes just TEN workers at the factory! The pieces that they are making require so much individual hand work that the process is VERY VERY LABOUR INTENSIVE and therefore slow.
The Goldpfeil pieces have absorbed much labour and time, they have produced just about 108 or so pieces of that and are contracted to make 180 in total, they have however stopped work on that for now...... OPUS3 is so demanding in execution that it is taking almost the entire concentration of the workforce!
All orders for OPUS3 is FULL and there is just tremendous interest in this piece beyond expectations.
The CLASSIC...the rivets are real, and they penetrate the bezel thru into the case , and are friction fitted.
The hands on the CLASSIC are CNC cut and then hand finished and slowly bent over at the edges, when viewed at 12 oclock, one can see how they fold over each other. This is extremely time intensive. They are then blued over a bunsen flame ...specifically bunsen...to give a deep blue lustre.
The Dial on the CLASSIC and Antiqua are extremely comples and consist of brass ( not gold..sorry ) plates of the numericals, name and logo all seperately applied to each other. The numerics are etched on the ring form plate, and the grooves are covered in paint, which is then polished off, to give the balck color in the markings.
Production numbers are erratic as the company is truely a factory of elves working making wonderful pieces just like we all imagined Swiss watch factories to be in the old days.
Music is heard thruout the factory.
Please reread JAW's post on his visit there.
his eyes....
