Speake-Marin Watches — a Watchmaker Without its Namesake? Part Two

When and why did the Speake-Marin brand stopped being synonymous with its founder? The story continues.

The year 2006 saw the arrival of the Art Series created in collaboration with masters who held the secrets to hand-engraving and the Japanese lacquer technique known as maki-e. The dials of the Piccadilly Captive in Time and Piccadilly Fighting Time watches were engraved by Kees Engelbarts, while the lacquered dials of Piccadilly Visionary Lion,

Speake-Marin watches Piccadilly Eternal and Piccadilly Hungry for Time were decorated by the Japanese artist Yamazaki Mushu. For the Piccadilly Sea & Stone models released in 2008, Peter Speake crafted dials from mother-of-pearl and decorative stones for the first time: jadeite, onyx, hawk's eye, tiger's eye, pietersite and ammonite.

He also created a number of dial designs including split star and pearl star dials, dials cut in hexagonal form, full-moon and pupil dials, and a golden spiral dial inspired by the Fibonacci spiral. 2009, the watchmaker finished developing the first in-house movement fully designed and manufactured by Speake-Marin called Caliber SM2, which was intended for models across various case-height categories.

The base movement without any added complicated functions was used in models such as Marin-1, while complicated variations were used in models like the 20-piece automatic perpetual calendar pre-series called 1in20 QP.  In 2010, the line of in-house movements was advanced in the Marin 2 Thalassa watch with its unusual skeletonized dial powered by the SM2m manual-winding movement as its motor.

The Spirit Pioneer "Limited Edition 1 in 68" was introduced in 2011 and sold out very quickly. For this model, Peter Speake updated the classic Piccadilly design many were already familiar with at that stage by giving it a military-inspired vintage look.

The model was positioned as a sports watch, justified by the white luminescent dial markings and hands along with the steel watch case. The first Spirit Pioneer was equipped with caliber FW2012 developed by Speake in the early days of his career.

The year 2012 was jam-packed with landmark debuts. The Renaissance watch was fully openworked on the dial side and was given a very complicated manually wound movement with a tourbillon and a minute repeater. It was one of the most expensive watches created by Speake-Marin at the time it was released with its retail price set at CHF 370,000.

The Resilience collection was the descendant of the earlier Piccadilly models, although these watches still continued to have the inscription “THE PICCADILLY” engraved on their casebacks. Peter Speake updated the case for these watches by making them slimmer and more elegant as a result. That's how the first legitimate Speake-Marin dress watches were born.

 In order to make his watches thinner, Speake switched to using the automatic Eros 2 movement with a five-day power reserve which he built based on the TT 738 movement produced by the factory Technotime. The Resilience Classic HMS models only had the bare minimum of hour, minute and second hands, while the Resilience Serpent Calendar watch was given an additional serpentine date hand.

Members of the Spirit Mk II family of watches were also essentially equipped with the Eros 2 movement, although it was called it calibre TT 738 in the press release. Peter Speake launched Mechanical Art in 2013, which was the series where he decided to bring an interesting complicated mechanism of his own invention to life. 

The series was renamed Cabinet des Mystères the following year. The first model to be unveiled was the Mechanical Art Triad with three pairs of interdependent hands and seven wheels fitted on the dial in the brand's trademark topping-tool-shaped style. The watch movement modified to accomodate the unusual triple indication was the Technotime TT 738.

The year 2014 was devoted to reformatting the brand's range, which was grouped into three main collections: the military-style Spirit watches, complicated classics in J-Class and outlandish mechanical and decorative curiosities in Cabinet des Mystères.

The tone for the Spirit watches was set by the Spirit Pioneer, the Spirit Wing Commander with its big date and power reserve indicator, and the automatic Spirit Seafire Chronograph — the first to be equipped with the Valjoux 7750 later altered by Concepto.

The trump cards J-Class placed its bets on were the automatic Resilience and Serpent Calendar, the new Velsheda mono-aiguille (single-hand) watch with the automatic Eros 2 movement and the Magister Tourbillon with a micro-rotor system for its automatic winding.

Its movement was initially referred to as SM3, although now marketed as SMA-HH03. The company underwent serious restructuring around the same time. Peter Speake left the brand's direct leadership to focus all his energy on creative goals.

The next steps taken by the brand were related to a change in the supplier of its base movements. The decision was made to replace the modified Technotime TT 738 calibers which had been used before 2015 with movements produced by the factory Vaucher Manufacture Fleurier.

For instance, the Veshelda from 2015 was equipped with the Vaucher 3002 automatic movement with a center rotor. A watch with a quartz movement for her also appeared in the 2015 collection, which was a first. The Shenandoah watch had a curved oval case in gold and was encrusted with diamonds. Its two hands for timekeeping were driven by two quartz movements.

The subject of double mechanisms was touched upon again in a complicated mechanical model called Magister Vertical Double Tourbillon with two tourbillons vertically aligned on its dial. An unusual new appearance in the Cabinet des Mystères collection which recalled Triad was the Jumping Hours watch.

They were both apparantly developed at the same time. There are clear similarities in terms of concept, and both are driven by the same Technotime TT 738 as their base movement. The Jumping Hours sported central minute and second hands on its dial, along with four small hour hands which make a jump with every new hour.

Unlike the serial Triad model, Jumping Hours was released in a single edition as the culmination of the series of complicated mechanical models in the Cabinet des Mystères collection. The decorative pieces continued to be developed.

In 2015 for instance, another dragon appeared on the engraved dial of a watch called the Cabinet des Mystères Kennin-Ji Temple Masters Project, which encased the SM2 movement developed by Speake-Marin in-house. Titanium arrived in Speake-Marin's collections in 2016 with the Velsheda Gothic model.

The new case material was paired with a white enamel dial with Gothic numerals. The watch was once again equipped with the Vaucher 3002 automatic movement and made available in cases measuring 38 mm and 42 mm— a traditional option for almost all models in Speake-Marin's collections.

Retro pieces were in vogue, which led to the appearance of the London Chronograph Special Edition for Harrods powered by a carefully refurbished vintage Valjoux 92 chronograph movement. In 2017, the brand welcomed an updated version of its iconic watch called Brown Serpent Calendar.

By the looks of it, the Velsheda Gothic with a black enamel dial was the last watch to be made by Peter Speake himself. That was the year he left the brand along with his wife Daniela to concentrate on his informative online resource called The Naked Watchmaker. The Speake-Marin brand continues to release new watches, and there have been some intriguing pieces among them, but the brand has yet to revive its namesake's charisma.