Independents

Our visit with PSM

 

One of the treats for our group during the week of SIHH was a visit with Peter Speake-Marin at his new quarters -- a very pleasant facility in a light-industrial park area. 

Since I have the pleasure of seeing Peter fairly often, I didn't do a lot of photography.  Mostly we sat around chatting and hearing about Peter's latest progress. 

Certainly one highlight was hearing about his new Renaissance line, the first example of which is the splendid Perpetual Calendar Minute Repeater:

Lovely repeater sound, and very attractive presentation (in my view) -- including custom engraving on the reverse of the movement by Eddy Jaquet, who also did the engraving on Kari's Masterpieces 6 and 7, the Voutilainen "Orion" unique piece, and the movement of the MB&F Legacy Machine 1.

At the other end of the offering is the Classic series -- the current offering being the Spirit shown below.  A very attractive piece, in my view, and obviously very popular given that it has now sold out

Finally, the last of the Thalassas -- a black dial version with lots of bling.  My impression from Peter was that there will still be some Marin-movement based watches, but the economics of producing this extremely high quality movement at small volumes makes it difficult to recoup the investment in the retail price, especially once channel margins are added in.  Still, a lovely watch and a great accomplishment in movement design and execution, if you ask me.

It was great to see Peter in good spirits, as the past couple of years have been quite challenging for him as well as for many other independent watchmakers.  He seems very focused on his two main product lines, has bolstered his distribution and marketing, has brought in the right supporting staff for everything from operations management to accounting, and seems ready for a major expansion in his business.  He has great ambitions for his brand, and the optimism, energy, and now resources to pull them off.

All best wishes to you, Peter, for continued success!

Best,

Gary G