The Piccadilly

I was most fortunate to be able to handle one of the more beautiful watches I have seen. It belongs to a good friend and he was kind enough to let me see and 'play' with it. It was The Piccadilly by Peter Speake-Marin. I was so mesmerised by the Fired-Enamel dial, I forgot to ask him about the watch. 

What I know is that the watch comes in at 38mm and has a white enamel dial with blue hands and markers. I believe it is from Peter's first Piccadilly series called the Original Piccadilly Collection. The watch features an enamel dial. Awesome. 

Just to give you an idea of how difficult it is to manufacture an enamel dial, the dials are repeatedly fired in an oven, up to six times (or more). The dial can (and many will) fail at any of these baking stages. The dials are baked to about 800 degrees Celsius. A layer of enamel is added to each baking stage, and this includes the numerals or markers and logo and legends or anything else you want on the dial. Once done, the dial receives a final polish.

The watch.....

Apologies for the number of dial shots but I just love the dial... simple yet functional....

The movement, the FW2012. Love the rotor. Other modifications? As explained by the master himself....

'The base of the FW2012 is the ETA 2824. Fundamentally the basic changes made are the replacement of the automatic bridge and the rotor combined with retouching of the time keeping of the calibre. The auto bridge is changed to a full plate to follow the style of early English pocket watches and the Foundation watch. The Rotor follows the design of the original toubillon cage bridge and has become a signature element in the DNA of my work. There are a number of variantes existing but the above are the principle changes. The heights are altered on the canon pinion and hour wheel and the setting mech altered but these are fundamental construction points along with adding blued screws to the base mvt.  The auto bridges have been made in brass and german silver are normally circular grained but are also on occasion hand engraved, either way the rotors and bridges are always hand finished, originally by me, now by Rochat in the Valley de Joux.'

The case back is just as awesome. 

The beautifully made case and crown. 

The crown does not screw down. 

Lug attachment...

More shots of the dial...

Closer shots of the dial.... 

I was told that the enamel will never tarnish. Cool.

Flame blue hands. Just beautiful.

The buckle. Signed....

I just love enamel dials....

Who knows, maybe one day....