Speake-Marin
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| High-end Swiss watch brand | |
| Industry | Watch Making |
| Founded | 2002 |
| Founder | Peter Speake-Marin |
| Headquarters | Bursins, Switzerland |
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Area served
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Worldwide |
| Products | Luxury Timepieces |
| Website | www |
Speake-Marin is a watchmaking company specializing in high-end timepieces. It was founded in 2002 by English watchmaker Peter Speake-Marin and is based in Bursins, Switzerland.
Peter Speake-Marin was born Peter Neville Speake in 1968 in Essex, England, to an English mother and Welsh father. After graduating as a watchmaker from Hackney Technical College in London in 1985, Speake-Marin went to Switzerland to do an in-depth course in horological complications at the WOSTEP school in Neuchâtel. He then returned to London and joined Somlo Antiques, heading the antique watch restoration department. After seven years at Somlo, Speake-Marin went back to Switzerland in 1996 to develop and build high-end complications for Renaud & Papi (now Audemars Piguet Renaud & Papi SA).
Since the launch of Speake-Marin, the Speake-Marin collection has grown from time-only wristwatches to include models with a single hand; date; jumping hours; perpetual calendars; tourbillons and minute repeaters; while featuring fired-enamel; semi-skeletonised; hand-engraved; and multi-level dials.
The first timepiece to bear the Speake-Marin name was a hand-made tourbillon pocket watch, called the Foundation Watch because it formed a template for future Speake-Marin watches through the spade shaped hands and pleated crown, watchmaker’s topping-tool motif, (here in the shape of the tourbillon cage) and hand-engraving.
Completing this unique piece helped Peter Speake-Marin to become a member of the Académie Horlogère des Créateurs Indépendants (AHCI) and it set the 'foundation'paved for the Speake-Marin collection.
Launched in 2002, Peter Speake-Marin’s first wristwatch was the Piccadilly. Various Piccadilly series and unique pieces have been created since, the first of which was the Original Piccadilly featuring enamel dial.
The Piccadilly case features screwed lugs, pleated crown and a drum-like case shape, which was inspired by the movement holders Peter Speake-Marin worked while at Renaud & Papi, and named after his seven years in antique restoration at Somlo in Piccadilly, London.
Launched in 2009, the Marin 1 features Speake-Marin's first in-house movement, a grade 5 titanium case, flame-blued hands, two-piece oven-fired enamel dial and stainless steel Piccadilly case. Its three concentric rings for the minutes were inspired by early pocket watch chronographs.
Marin 1 Mk I was the first Speake-Marin model to feature the SM2 calibre, an in-house calibre, designed and manufactured by Speake-Marin. It took three years to develop.
The SM2 Calibre has been described as a “watchmaker’s movement”
The balance wheel is large (weight of balance is 0118gr inertia 25 mg.cm2) and oscillates at 21,600 vph. The plates and bridges are made in untreated German silver. All bridges, levers and the mainplate are finished by hand (circling, spotting and polished). The rotor wheel angles are hand-finished then the surface is mirror-finished. All pivots are burnished. The SM2 has a power reserve of 72 hours, features 29 jewels and contains 211 components altogether.
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Wikipedia