Horological Meandering

monochrome
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Picking up my new watch in Helsinki

Because of a few changes in my life i decided to buy a special watch. After giving to a lot of thought I finally decided which watch was going to be my ‘special watch’. Not that making the choice was difficult, but I wanted to be really, really sure about it. It was going to be a Sarpaneva Korona K1 in steel.

After I seeing the photos of the Black Moon Ceremony and the lovely ladies in Stepan’s arms, I joked on my weblog about going to Helsinki to pick up your own Sarpaneva. I guess it inspired me to pick up my new Sarpaneva myself.

For me this is so much better than a Fedex guy bringing a package or even visiting a good AD. Here’s a report from my trip…

Saturday morning around 10 AM I walked out the door to catch a tram going to the central station.



Since there are often traffic jams on the road to Schiphol Airport, going by train is so much easier. Also no problems with parking the car on remote parking places… the train stops right underneath the airport!



Everything went very smooth and within a few hours I was in the airplane bringing me to Helsinki.



And a few hours later, after a smooth and relaxing flight, I was at Helsinki-Vantaa Airport, watching the last passengers getting out of the airplane.



Since I only had hand luggage I walked out the airport within a few minutes and there was my ride….



I don’t think Jaeger LeCoultre, IWC, Lange & Söhne or Patek Philippe will pick you up from the airport when you’re buying one of their watches. They will probably not bring the watches to their customers like Stepan brought the first Korona K3’s to Kuala Lumpur, July of last year.
By the way, that post was one of the first posts where I got a good look of Sarpaneva’s watches. The impression was made, the desire started to grow.

Driving from Helsinki-Vantaa airport to the city of Helsinki takes about 30 minutes. This was very nice to get a bit of a view of the area surrounding Helsinki. It’s very green, lots of trees!



Stepan took me to his atelier where he had the watch waiting for me. Sarpaneva’s atelier is in the old cable factory of Nokia, where they made the immense telephone cables used for transatlantic telephony. The building is next to the sea, so the long, long cables could immediately be loaded on a boat for transport.



To thank Stepan for taking the time to pick me up from the airport, welcome me in his workshop, telling me a lot about his watches and showing me around town, I brought a bottle of fine champagne as small gesture of appreciation.
Stepan insisted we would open it to celebrate this special occasion for me. And since the champagne wasn’t cold enough, Stepan showed he was a very pragmatic man



In the far corner of Stepan’s atelier I saw a lovely watch being tested….



The test results where very good and well within C.O.S.C. specifications! No need for any Swiss testing laboratory to test it. Every Sarpaneva watch will be tested to make sure everything is OK before it’s delivered to the new owner.



Later I will post more about my visit to Helsinki, to pick up my first watch of Finnish independent watchmaker Stepan Sarpaneva. Stepan told me so much about the modifications he makes on the movement, the finish of the hands and dial of the Korona watches and about the new Korona in white gold and red gold.

In the atelier I also caught some glimpses of things to come… it looks like Stepan is full of exiting ideas for future watches!

I will end this report of my trip showing you the first wrist shot I made of the reason for going to Helsinki.

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