When a watchmaker who has dedicated 16 years’ work to his own brand decides to leave and do something new, it comes as quite a surprise. This what occurred on 16 June 2017, when Christelle Rosnoblet, CEO of Speake-Marin, issued a press release saying that “After 16 years during which he shaped the image and…
A new version of a watch that is one of the best-selling models in the Speake-Marin collection, the 2017 New Brown Serpent Calendar has the same very three-dimensional dial of its predecessors, with an enlarged, convex calendar chapter ring, and now with a snailed-finish brown ring for the hours. All the rest of the habitually…
The Velsheda is one of Peter Speake-Marin’s most distinctive watches, with its single hand, an hour hand, with which you can read the time on the scale with 5-minute markings. In January 2017, Speake-Marin presented the Black Velsheda Gothic, for the first time with a black enamel dial. As in the previous version of the…
In 2016 and 2017, Peter Speake-Marin is presenting several pieces in small editions, in order to express many ideas without expanding the existing collection. At SIHH in Geneva in January 2017, the Wing Commander was presented in two limited editions, each 28 pieces, with white dials (an innovation with respect to previous Wing Commander models…
The Speake-Marin Crazy Skulls is a surprising watch, enormously ambitious, because it combines two of the most complex complications of all, the tourbillon and the minute repeater, with an animated dial that tells a story of love and death. There are a lot of design ideas here. It’s a notable achievement for a brand founded…
The New Blue Seafire is part of the Spirit collection by Speake-Marin, comprising men’s watches with a military inspiration. As is customary for the brand, this watch is completely different to anything else out there and in particular, it has nothing in common with the customary pilot’s watch aesthetic. There are distant echoes in the…
The Resilience was first launched in 2012, and in 2016 Peter Speake-Marin has introduced it with a black dial, in his signature 42 mm Piccadilly case in red gold. The black enamel dial has gold-coloured Arabic numerals and the Speake-Marin topping-tool logo above the numeral 6. The PVD gold-plated hands are in the Speake-Marin “Foundation”-style.…
The single-hand Velsheda by Speake-Marin began life in 2004 as the Shimoda, a visually striking piece with one single hand, but one in which you couldn’t tell, from the dial, that the piece was running. It returned as the Velsheda in 2014, named after a British J-Class yacht, with a central seconds wheel in the…
Company profile: Peter Speake-Marin was born in 1968 in Essex, England, studied watchmaking at Hackney Technical College in London and then at WOSTEP in Neuchâtel, Switzerland. He began working at Somlo Antiques in London, establishing its watch restoration department. Working on pieces by Arnold, Breguet, Frodsham, Nelson, Patek Philippe and other classic watchmakers enabled him…
In the vast range of watches, one of the things that you can choose is how many hands it has. From the serene simplicity of just a single hand to the complications with ten or more, here is a quick journey with a selection of watches in order of number of hands. This also reflects…
‘Skeleton watches’ seem perfect for Halloween, and so here is a small selection of watches on the skull theme. The motif has been around for a long time, more in art than in watches. Damien Hirst’s diamond-encrusted skull ‘For the Love of God’ is probably the best-known work on this theme, in platinum with 8,501…