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alex
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Musings on Peter Speake-Marins amazing SM2 inhouse caliber and more...

Do you remember your first girlfriend? Your first love, which set the benchmark for your future relationships and modelled your tastes? The one you bump into many years after and who is even more beautiful than in your memories and gives you an immense sense of pride?

Well… that’s how I feel about Peter Speake-Marin…well not Peter per se (even if he’s a really nice guy) but about his watches J

I remember back in 2002-2003 (which in internet terms is the equivalent to prehistory) I had come across some discussions on Peter’s work and had read a fantastic article by Curtis Thomson which pushed me too look further.

I ordered my Piccadilly in 2003 (steel with a gorgeous frosted dial) sight unseen. When I picked up the watch at Basel the following year (at the time Peter did not have ADs) I was flabbergasted: the watch was even more stunning than in the photos and that was a tough deed.

It was my very first watch from an independent watchmaker and it changed my perception of watchmaking and design.

Until then I collected mainly vintage pieces from Vacheron Constantin as well as modern Lange and AP. The meeting with Peter, his passion for what he did and the battles he had fought to achieve his dream without turning his back to who he really is as for his watch to be a reflection of himself, even though it did not appeal to the masses, won me over. He had a vision and had made it real.

The other immense seed of change that The Piccadilly planted in me is that of alternative designs. Not that The Piccadilly is in any way alternative (or to use the trendy term “a kinetic sculpture”), each element is classical but the whole comes “with a twist” to paraphrase another Brit: Sir Paul Smith.

Back in 2007 Peter contacted me about his new inhouse automatic calibre. He was setting up a subscription system with 20 perpetual calendar watches housing this new calibre (later christened SM2) which could each be personalised to the buyer’s requests. These presold watches would partially finance the development and manufacturing costs of this new calibre. At the time unfortunately I didn’t have the funds, however I waited with baited breath to see the final result and boy am I proud to have been a Speake-Marin fan from the beginning. Like that 1^st girlfriend I mentioned it gives me a sense of pride because the final result is nothing short of astounding.

The SM2 is a reflection of Peter’s watches, they look classical at first glance but upon closer inspection there is a firework of creative and visually enchanting details.

Peter’s goal from the start was for his watches to house a movement he would have imagined and created but developing a fully inhouse movement costs a tremendous amount of money so he relied on a heavily modified ETA 2892 for his Piccadilly models. However, starting 2007 he started working on his vision of what a Speake-Marin calibre should exactly look like and he teamed up with Laurent Besse of Les Artisans Horlogers for the technical drawings and calculations. The SM2 took 3 years to develop, construct and make reliable. The more the project advanced the more modifications were made to it to make it better, more reliable and more in line with what Peter wanted. As he states “this movement is made with no compromises” basically nothing is off the shelf: the setting mechanism, screws, balance etc… all components were made specially for this calibre. There is even a ratchet click for the winding which is already rare on a manual wind wrist watch but even more so on an automatic (not sure I’ve even seen one on an automatic).

backplate without the rotor

The SM2 is an over engineered calibre with a Gothic steampunkish movement design. At first glance it can look like a ¾ bridge design but not at all, these are a set of bridges (no straight lines but only curves) which imbricate into one another. That’s why I find the SM2 so fascinating, I love it, and it looks like nothing else on the market today. I asked Peter about this and according to him the movement design results from his years restoring antique pocket watches from different countries and periods and his movement is a mix of what he liked the most.

Says Peter: “I wanted to make something which is intrinsically a watchmaker’s watch, a watchmaker’s movement, without making the same kind of compromises that most companies do, from a watchmaker’s point of view.

This means the caliber had to be large. I wanted to make it larger because the larger a timepiece is, the stronger it tends to be, the longer it will last, and the more accurate it will be because of the larger balance you can have. This is all just basic watchmaking logic.”

For example there is a large cut out around the balance allowing the balance to be manipulated with greater ease. In fact the whole regulating system is original and features a double ended swan’s neck which acts on two parts of the regulating system; the beat and the regulation are adjusted by micro regulator screws.

It is also a workhorse movement as it is conceived in the light of being able to be fitted with extra complication modules without having an adverse affect of power reserve and accuracy.

Another point which really piqued my curiosity was the amazing level of finish. At the Basel fair this year I bumped into Philippe Dufour who advised me to have a closer look at Peter’s new calibre “the finish is really something, go have a look” he told me.

I took more than a look and the finish is really REALLY breathtaking. Peter wanted to go to the extreme and beyond challenge for his finish. He had always been open on the fact that the base calibre of his original Piccadilly was an ETA base but no matter how much he modified it, people associated his FW2012 caliber with ETA. With the SM2 he steps up and shows the level of quality he is capable of “I started off with a blank page, and when you do so you can do what ever you want” he says

The movement is made of German silver which as its name doesn’t suggest is neither German nor silver but a copper alloy which is more rigid than brass and which with time slightly changes color and for a beautiful patina effect (Lange also uses German silver). It is however a very delicate metal to work because the slightest touch of the skin and the metal changes color!

The final touch comes from the rotor in the shape of an 18^th century topping tool and now Peter’s signature, the rounded angles and bevelling is an art of work to itself. It is certainly the most visually arresting rotor I’ve seen up to now!

 top plate

But Peter is not just about his SM2 calibre. The look of a watch is as important and the SM2 is housed in the new Marin 1 which is a 42mm Piccadilly case in polished titanium with either a beautiful 2 level white enamel dial or a partially skeletonised enamel one revealing the underdial of the SM2 (I just wish he would add the gorgeous frosted dials available on the earlier Picadillys). One funky detail is the super nova treatment of the hand tips, once again a mix of very classical (enamel) with a modern touch (luminous hands).

What I really like about Peter, other than being a really nice guy, is that he had faith in himself and with just one watch - the Piccadilly - he has managed to create a piece which can be identified immediately as his. Furthermore, as they say "God is in the details" and Peter's work is a succession of small details which build up to timepieces which glow with craftsmanship and quality. And today even more this potent formula has been completed with the SM2 calibre making his watches as desirable inside as out.

He has a strong design which may not appeal to all but then again there is nothing worse than consensus oriented designs . So kudos to Peter Speak-Marin for this new road which he has built and I am impatiently awaiting to see the next (numerous) projects in the pipeline.

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