Horological Meandering

One year update: Sarpaneva's S.U.F Komentaja

 

I received my S.U.F Komentaja about a year ago and it has garnered more wrist time than any of my other watches. I wrote a short review of it and posted it on this forum:
 
click here 

For some reason this watch helps to put a smile on my face and let’s face it, that’s really all we want from a watch anyway, whether it is worth $1000 or $100,000, right? Well, later in the year I saw a picture of an update that Stepan was going to include in a run of his S.U.F, with carbon fiber dial and a new style of hands.
 
I loved the new look and inquired as to getting the dial and hands replaced on my watch. I was thrilled to learn that it could be done (and I really appreciate that Stepan will work with a client to give him what he wants). The hardest part was waiting for the parts to arrive, and the time between Stepan’s shipping the parts and their arriving on these shores was enormous (perhaps the parts were held hostage by menacing pirates off the coast of Somalia, demanding ransom for my dial and hands as well the shipments of Harry Winston’s Opus 3 and Volker Vyscocil’s watch ).
 
At least I held on to my watch while I waited and I kept enjoying it while looking forward to the upgrade. The switch was quick and easy and now I have an even bigger smile on my face:

 

 
I kept the Kevlar strap, which I much prefer over the “carbon fiber” strap that was in the picture I had seen of the watch. The new hands are much better proportioned and pleasing to the eye than what I had. The seconds hand is not actually blued steel, but rather it is made of brass and painted blue (a Pantone color). It color is unlike anything I have seen in a watch before and I quite like it. The carbon fiber gives a depth to the dial while still leaving a dark background to the hands for easy reading of the time.

As much as i enjoyed the original version of my S.U.F I have no intention of reverting to the old style, even though I still have the dial and hands. The watch is more interesting and more attractive now. The hands are better proportioned than before and the blue second hand on a military style watch is a whimsical touch that just simply works.
 
Stepan has had great success with his Sarpaneva branded watches, which exist at a much higher price point than his S.U.F line (which is made entirely from all generic, outsourced parts that are simply assembled by Stepan and his team whereas the Sarpaneva labeled watches are much more “designed” and require a lot more time and effort to produce). Despite this success, he intends to keep producing the S.U.F line, and he has hinted that he may add a variant to it later this year. Stay tuned.


Bill

 

This message has been edited by WHL on 2009-04-26 20:24:29