This year, BaselWorld 2009 is being held from March 26th till April 2nd. Together with Frank from Monochrome.nl, I’ll be visiting Basel from March 26th till March 29th. We booked our flights, hotels and together with Kyle from Perpetuelle.com we are planning our meetings already.

The pre-Basel news is already flooding the various watch portals. My earlier post on the Omega Speedmaster Pro 40th anniversary model should also classify as pre-Basel news. Omega has their press-kits already available for the large public on http://www.omega.ch/index.php?id=65. Breitling will be introducing their Navitimer 125th Anniversary model, as does Bvlgari.

Their Sotirio Bvlgari watch is a tribute to its founder, 125 years ago. Besides limited editions, tributes and anniversary models, brands are also introducing regular models [pheww]. Blancpain already spread the word on their Blancpain 500 Fathoms watch. This 48mm diameter titanium built watch is water-resistant to 1000 metres.

Smaller brands, such as Linde Werdelin, are introducing their new watches as well of course. Linde Werdelin’s SpidoLite watch with a movement finished by Svend Anderson. Ariel Adams over at Ablogtoread.com already blogged about this watch.

As a Rolex fan, I wonder what this Geneva based company is going to reveal this year. They are known to keep their new watches secret till the day of the BaselWorld Expo. I also wonder whether the atmosphere in Basel will be influenced by the global credit crisis, as it did during the SIHH expo a few weeks ago.

Anyway, looking forward to meet some of the LinkedIn ‘A Passion for Watches’-group members (almost 1000 this month), people I have only communicated with via e-mail (or LinkedIn) and some of the ‘regulars’ who will also be visiting Basel.

As I wrote in a post on the 29th of November 2004, involvement of a brand’s CEO is a mighty marketing weapon. Not only Angelo Bonati (CEO Panerai) got the hang of it, also Jean Claude Biver of Hublot seem to know how it works. Hublot, which is present on the TZ forum since may 2005, is responding to a long winded post by a dissappointed customer of the All-Chocolate Hublot Big Bang watch. Forum moderator Mike Margolis (also Sales Director of Hublot for North-America) and Jean Claude Biver (CEO Hublot) give a fair response to fellow TZ visitor and Hublot-fan Ron (a.k.a. WatchRon). The full post by Ron can be read here: http://forums.timezone.com/index.php?t=msg&goto=3867474&rid=37687#msg_3867474.

In short, Ron ordered an ‘All-Chocolate’ Hublot Big Bang wrist watch, as pictured below. This watch was introduced during the Basel 2008 expo in Switzerland. As you can see, it is an all-brown Hublot Big Bang (44mm). At least, that’s how it was presented during the Basel fair. On the TZ forum, Ron complains that the watch he got delivered turns out to be not so all-brown.. The chronograph second hand is red and the date disc is white. Both should be brown, according to the prototype that was demonstrated to him. Ron had sent this watch back to Hublot to get the correct brown second hand and date disc wheel. Free of charge.

Both Mike Margolis and Jean Claude Biver react on the message posted by Ron, saying that they are terribly sorry and that it was purely a business decision to send out these not-so-brown watches, because not all parts came in on time at Hublot. Dealers wanted it now, they didn’t care about these details. Right or wrong, up to you… It is clear that JC Biver and his Sales Director of the USA create a lot of respect and goodwill amongst Hublot (Big Bang) adepts by participating actively on TZ.

Note: Mike Margolis used to be the Hublot Forum moderator, this task is now done by AMR_KSA. Thanks for the info Ron.