SIHH 2012 - Experiences of a Rookie !!

Dear all, what a fantastic week!! I can only second what everybody else have written and express my heartfelt gratitude to Michael and Oliver who were so kind as to invite this single IWC owner to SIHH - thanks gentlemen!!

Of course I cannot forget the other IWC staff and especially all the wonderful forum friends I met in Geneva - it was a true pleasure to meet you all and to feel included in the family from the first minute. This place, the forum, is truly life changing as Michael and Argiris put it. I have made friends with the greatest people from all over the world. Thanks guys, I cannot wait to see you again!!

Now, on to the business at hand. As so many great pictures have been shared of the new collection, I thought I'd try to give you all a few words to go along with mine. As much as I really enjoyed seeing the new pilot line, I think I appreciated even more beeing with my fellow forumers and seeing the watches the forumer's brought along, and some of the other ones IWC had.

On Wednesday night we all met up at a small restaurant for dinner, and Roberto and Argiris immediatley took me under their wing and came to pick me up at my hotel - thanks again guys!!!

Upon arrival a few other forumers were already there and introductions were quickly made before the watches started to come off and being passed around! Being a rookie it was difficult to get and remember everybody's name so please forgive me for not remembering all of them :-) Maybe you can quote/comment any picture with your missing name so I can remember it for next time??

Antonio (Clepsydra), Nelson, Shing, Oliver, and Michael:

KS Low and Roberto admiring Robertos NOS Inge:

Michael and Ralph (Rave) in deep conversation while Andrew and Hans Conrad pay close attention:

Roberto, Kevin, Alan and Alex:

Alex and the Greek half God Argiris:

Oh, and here are some of the watches - I guess they speak for themselves:




Two brothers:

And a brother with its big brother:

And that was day 1, Wednesday - I went to bed very exited for what day 2 would bring!!

Day 2 started early, I arrived SIHH 5 minutes before they opened the doors at 8:30:



After walking around for 1,5 hours it was impossible to miss the best stand at the show:

And one of the first persons I saw was the legend himself - so here is the legend and the Norwegian rookie grinning from ear to ear (no prize for guessing who is who):

Kevin and Allan waiting to be lead into the Mission Control room for our first mission briefing:

Oliver and Michael getting everything ready for launch:

Here we go - the Pilot product managers give us the details:


And then it was time to see them all and try them on - the Spitfire chrono with its ardoise dial (to the right) was my favourite of them all, it looked even better with the brown leather strap but the new bracelet is indeed very nice:

The world timer looks good:

Two perpetuals:

The Miramar:

Well, actually this one was my favourite of all the pilots - Tracy's fantastic Buehler, too bad they only made 12 of this!!

The back really looks cool too:

We had a good 30 minute Q&A session with George Kern:

Three very happy chaps at SIHH - me, KS Low and Mark (8541)

Nelson, Shing and KS Low ordering lunch:

Of course the watches come off - I am really glad Mark decised to not buy my rose gold PPC at Schipol and wait for his beautiful 5021 in blue, if not I would not have seen it and I would not have been here with you all - Thanks Mark:

I can fit two on my wrist can't I??

Shing's gorgeous Jubilee with my PPC (and I did feel like an amateur with only one watch on one wrist as most of the IWC forumers were sporting one on each wrist :-):

Ok - that was the first half of day 2. The second half was even better if you ask me, and the pictures will be up soon - I just have to go out and shovel 30 cm of snow so that the wife can get to the grocery store.

I'll be back!!

Give the wife the shovel and continue with your report, priorities please!!!

Great report Skule! I'm looking forward to Part II!

Thanks Skule, waiting for next part...

In the afternoon we had the special Siderale presentation, and this was quite something - what a remarkable piece of engineering, art, technology and beauty mixed into one solid watch.

The difference between solar time and siderale time explained. At midnight on March 31 every year is the only moment the two times are exactly the same!

The big box comes out:

WOW is all I can say - and you get to choose any material and color combo you like. If you do order one you are either invited to Schaffhausen to be given a detailed presentation and tour, and then to spec your specific watch. Or two managers from IWC will fly to your house and give the presentation and options to you there:

Inside the big box is the little travel box with the battery driven automatic crown winder for the Siderale (as it is a handwound watch of course):

And then we got to try it on - IWC had 3 of them there for us to "play" with - Roberto and Ralph dove in for a one million dollar encounter while Tracy, ??Larry, ?? and Argiris pay close attention to what Oliver has to say:

As you probably have heard before, the starchart on the back is specially made to your location on the planet. This one happens to reflect the night sky from the exact spot of George Kern's parking spot outside the IWC offices in Schaffhausen:

And finaly - I have it on my wrist:

A nice pair - the platinum version weighs in at a mighty 280 grams!!!

The red gold version weighs a little less:

Happy man #1 - moi:

And happy man #2 - KS Low:

The travel box was not very light either, but a very good design and it will protect such a hefty investment very well, not to mention keeping it running at all times!!

Well - IWC unfortunately wanted them back again :-(

Time to hit the bar at USS FA Jones:

Another well respected man greeted us there:

Before the event was over and it was time to head towards our old town Geneva restaurant I took the opportunity to walk around a little more and to see the watches IWC exhibited in the windows along the outside of the stand - a few of my favourites were to be found there:

The Inge chrono - as I am an engineer I do need to get me one of these at some point:

And I do have a lot to learn from Alan, Nad, Bill etc. about taking good pictures - but I wanted to share this one with you anyway - who can avoid respecting the craftmaship that has gone into these two:

And these two aren't bad either:

Being a Portuguese lover one of these is also on my wish list:

Now, as many of you have read in some of my previous posts I do love my sportswatches - the ultimate AT for me is of course this one:


As we had to leave SIHH the finger food was being served:

And the emplyees of USS FA Jones gave us a nice farewell and bon voyage:

You'd think the evening ended there - but IWC had one more surprise up there sleeve - at least for me. They had invited all the forumers to a great dinner with scallops and foie gras for starter, veal as the main course and a very nice chocolate fondant as desert. All acompanied by nice wines.

About 8-10 of the IWC managers were there with us, together with Herr Klaus of course. We were sitting at 3 tables, here is Michael's table as he and Andrew deservedly thanked IWC for taking such good care of us forumers. I don't know about you but very few companies have ever made me feel as appreciated as a customer as IWC did during these 2 days.

Hajoth, Ralph, Nelson, Antonio, Shing, Mark, KS Low and myself shared a table with Oliver Siegle and Lorenz Baerlocher from IWC. Especially Lorenz and I had the great opportunity to get a recount of Shing's fantastic IWC year - I loved that Shing!!!
But in the middle of dinner KS Low suddenly presents me with what was maybe my favourite watch of the whole event - something Oliver had brought for the evening:

OMG - what a beauty. A Portuguese with such classic lines, a simple but clean face but oh so advanced a heart - the Minute Repeater instantly felt at home on my "crowded" wrist:

This was the first time ever I held a minute repeater, and just hearing that magnificient piece chime the time for the first time (yes I can apparently rhyme) :-) was fantastic. As I simply have to accept the fact that the Siderale will remain outside my possible reach for ever - I have a small glowing sensation that I someday may be able to give a proud home to a minute repeater. I think this shot sums up the whole SIHH experience for me - I am still grinning from ear to ear, and I probably will for days!!!

A last shot before everybody sadly had to leave and start the journey back home to their respective countries - as Michael stated in one of his fantastic blogs, the forumers surely brought some Heavy Metal to SIHH:

Ok my friends, that was the rookie experience of SIHH 2012. It couldn't have been better if you ask me. I loved it from start to finish - but as Argiris stated, the highlight indeed was meeting all the great people from this forum and from IWC, who share the same passion - I am so happy to now have made real friends with many of my forum friends. To those of you I have yet to meet, I really hope we get to meet in the future!!

To sum it all up in one sentence - Great watches and fantastic people!!

Thanks for readig and "see" you all soon!!!

Best regards,

A wonderful record. Thank you, Skule. I thoroughly enjoyed your company over the 2 days.

A great report!
A wonderful mix between everything you can taste at SIHH : super watches, great friendship, enthousiastic IWC collectors from all over the world, excellent IWC staff, a top (gun) booth, food and drinks.
Thanks for sharing.
Adrian,
(alwaysiwc).

Skule-

This is the best report so far!

I have a feeling that you're going to be a regular attendee at SIHH.

-Tracy

Great review of our common meeting, Skule. Vivid and emotional, thank you.

now, that is a greaaaattttttt report !!!!

it was great meeting you and we had fun ! more great times ahead.

Excellent report. Waiting on part ii.
Regards, Kevin

Skule,
Great report you have there!
It was great meeting you finally in Geneva after all the emails exchange we had earlier in the month.

See you soon in Asia.

I finished with parts 2 and 3 on page 1 - I was just a little late ;o)

Good job! I feel like I was there with you!

Thanks for an excellent report and for taking the time to share it with us.

Awesome report. Thanks Skule for preparing this report to us.