As reported earlier, the ‘Handcrafted Time’ exhibition took place from the 18th of June till the 21st of June in the Time Gallery in Bern.

Elizabeth Doerr wrote an excellent report on this exhibition, which has been published on WatchUseek (click here to read the report). One of the participants was BLU (Bernhard Lederer Universe), one of my favorite BaselWorld visits this year. Bern’s newspaper ‘Der Bund’ noticed the Handcrafted Time event and did an interview with Bernhard Lederer of BLU. Below you find a screenshot of the newspaper article (in German). Click here for a full blown version (readable).

It is great to see that events like these get media attention! Events related to watches and especially to independent watchmaking are great initiatives but require a lot of funding, which is hard for the brands to do by themselves. By giving these events attention in (local) newspapers and television, chances are bigger for the organizers of these events to get some nice sponsorship deals.

It has been almost 2 months ago, since Frank and I visited BaselWorld 2009. One of the highlights was visiting the Blu stand in Hall 2.0 on our last day there. After looking at their displayed watches for a while, I decided to go and ask for some more information about them, as I liked their style and use of precious materials. My questions about the brand were answered by Mrs. Lederer, wife of Bernhard Lederer (Blu stands for Bernhard Lederer Universum). She invited us over to a desk, to show us some watches of the Blu collection and give us some more explanation on the brand. Our discussion was mainly about materials, such as diamonds on Blu’s watches for men. When our questions became more and more technical, Mrs Lederer decided to bring in Mr. Bernhard Lederer himself, who seemed to be happy to sit with us and discuss the technical aspects of the Blu watches, especially the MT3 Majesty Tourbillon.

But before I continue, let me give me you some background information about Blu, because it is not the every day brand you read about on the internet. Bernhard Lederer (German from origin) is a qualified Master Watchmaker since 1984, and he started his own atelier called ‘Uhrenmanufaktur Lederer’ and specialized in the restoration of vintage time pieces. He also begun developing his own time pieces and in 1985, he got accepted to join the Horological Academy of Independent Watchmakers, better known as A.H.C.I. It wasn’t until the year 2000, when Bernhard Lederer found his watch brand Bernhard Lederer Universe, Blu, as we know it now. The Blu manufacture is located in Neuchâtel, Switzerland.

During our conversation, Bernhard Lederer told us that Blu creates everything in house for the MT3 Majesty Tourbillon, with the exception of the sapphire crystal. This is the only (important) part of the watch that Blu can’t do. The shape of the sapphire crystal is very hard to get right, and even his subcontractor on the crystal had to invest a lot of time to get it done properly. This means, that every small screw, gear or disc has been produced by Blu.

It goes without saying, that Blu doesn’t have a reptile farm, so the production of leather straps is being outsourced of course Because Blu is a small and independent watch maker (and this goes for most small independents), Bernhard Lederer does not have to make a lot of concessions when designing and creating a watch, because he doesn’t have to deal with large design departments, marketing departments, construction/R&D departments etcetera that each have their own specific interests when working on a watch. There are no internal conflicts of interest, so to speak.

We also received a free watchmaking class on tourbillons by Mr Lederer. There are three sorts of tourbillon constructions: the classic tourbillon, as Breguet created it, the flying tourbillon which is a spin-off on the classic tourbillon and invented by Alfred Helwig and the semi-flying tourbillon, which is a construction where the tourbillon has no (own) cage. The MT3 Majesty Tourbillon, as the name reveals, has three tourbillons. The semi-flying one-minute tourbillon is literally housed inside the flying one-hour tourbillon and both of these are arranged eccentrically within the third 12-hour flying tourbillon. In other words, the Blu Mt3 Majesty Tourbillon uses two flying tourbillons and one semi-flying tourbillon.

Luckily, our partnersite TheTimeTV did an interview with Bernhard Lederer on video, where he explains the above in his own words. Listening to him, and looking at the watch at the same time, makes it a bit easier to understand.. However, and let me speak for myself to be save, a full understanding of the whole system is not going to happen any time soon

Unfortunately, as we did not intent to take up so much time of Bernhard Lederer, he had to run off to another appointment, so we didn’t have the chance to thank him for his wonderful explanation and time. We fully understand and thank you for your precious time!

Also thanks to TheTimeTV for the great interview on video with Blu.

For your information, the Blu MT3 Majestic Tourbillon is available starting at 205.000 Euro (price information from the 2009 Armband Uhren Katalog).

As you can see, the weather was cloudy and we only had some sun rays on friday. However, we were inside the BaselWorld building anyway. The first day of Basel was overwhelming. BaselWorld is so big and so crowded, I really had the feeling that I hadn’t see anything at the end of the day. Friday we were packed with appointments with brands like Blancpain, Glashütte Original, Jean Dunand and Jaquet Droz. We only had little time to wander around to see all the watches we wanted to see. However, I did meet for the first time with the Grönefeld brothers and got a nice introduction on their GMT06 watch (and had a few beers with them later on that day). We also teamed up with the people of a Dutch magazine called Watching and got invited for a nice diner organized by Nomos.

On of my personal highlights of BaselWorld 2009 was the introduction of the new Omega Speedmaster Professional 40th Anniversary edition by former Apollo astronauts (Aldrin, Duke, Schmitt, Cernan and Stafford) on saturday around noon.

Omega also displayed some of their Speedmasters, used by the astronauts in the 1960s and 1970s. These watches are normally part of their museum watches (which is located in Biel, Switzerland).

Another high light was our meeting with Maitres du Temps, the introduction of their Chapter Two watch by Steven Holtzman and an unexpected interview with master watchmakers Roger Dubuis and Daniel Roth. More on that in our detailed report later on.

I also was pleasantly surprised by the product knowledge meeting of Glashütte Original, presented my Mr Meier, Managing Director of Glashütte Original. It was very easy-going, with a lot of humour and some old faces that were nice to see again. A big thank you to Mr Marx for the invitation!

One of my personal favorites are the SpidoLite and 3-Timer watches from Linde Werdelin. We had a great meeting with Aphrodite of Linde Werdelin in their booth, and discussed all new models in detail. Aphrodite / Linde Werdelin really took the time (which is scarce for exhibitors on BaselWorld) to talk with us about their watches and professional instruments.

Pictured above is the 3-Timer, which I really love! The dial pattern is amazing, and I love GMT watches. Below is their SpidoLite model (photo by Frank), with the Svend Anderson finished movement. I wrote an introduction article on the Spidolite here already, but will do a more detailed review on Linde Werdelin’s watches in the near future.

Last thing to mention here, is our unexpected interview with Bernhard Lederer of BLU (Bernhard Lederer Universe) and his wife. They introduced us to their brand and Mr. Lederer described the inner workings of the MT3 Tourbillon Watch.

Keep an eye on Perpetuelle the coming days for more BaselWorld news!