Horological Meandering

Marcus Hanke
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Czapek

Last weekend, I spent some (my wife says: too much) time at the Munichtime watch show in, good guess!, Munich. Tons of rather obscure new watch brands were present, and only a few larger and renown "magnet" manufacturers, like Lange, IWC or Panerai, that are able to attract many visitors. However, the crowd was large, so it was not easy to make one's path through the masses, so I found myself shoved against a desk wearing the brandname "Czapek". I have heard, read about the new brand, seen pictures of their watches, but never had the opportunity to handle the watches in reality. Before I realized what happened, I helplessly wriggled in the company CEO Xavier de Roquemaurel's spiderweb of friendliness, humour and compentence even in technical issues.

One can debate endlessly about the sense and justification of resurrecting more or less obscure brandnames from the distant past of horology. However, what I saw on the table and the small showcase was definitely impressive per se, even without the name of an old watchmaker on its dial.

Current mainstay of the brand is a simple handwinding watch with seven days power reserve out of two mainspring barrels. The movement is developed by Le Locle-based movement maker Chronode, who is also behind illustrous names as MB&F Legacy Machines, Harry Winston Opus X, Hyt, Urban Jürgensen. In order to make the final product financable for the "average" watch enthusiast, the movement finish remained, let's say "effective". Sor, for example, the fine anglage on the bridges was first made by machine diamond cut, only the final polishing was made by hand. The effect, though, is barely distinguishable from a much more expensive completely manual execution.

Another door opened for the enthusiast is the steel case offered, at a significant price advantage over the precious metal models. To keep an optical difference between steel and white gold, the steel case has a different execution in the flank. IN my opinion, it appears slimmer and even more attractive than the more conventional gold case.

Personalisation is widely possible, as happens to be the case with most small and recently started manufacturers. It is possible to choose from several dial materials, silver, brass, fired enamel (made by Donzé Cadrans), with polished or satinized finish, or a beautifully hand-made guilloche (by Metalem) dial in different colours, both with fine Roman numerals or applied markers.

Two types of hands are available, very fine ones sporting the French lily (this was very popular on pocket watches), or more modern designs, sometimes even equipped with luminous elements.

I really loved the execution and the care for details, at a really competitive price. This year, Czapek also presented a large tourbillon watch, an interesting mixture of classic and modern design features. But it was the "Quai des Bergues" entrance model that I was really fascinated with, so I took pictures only of this one in different variants. Enjoy!




















Marcus

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