Pre-built watches en-route
Albeit late the pre-built Blackwaters and Stingray watches are finally on their way out of Switzerland. They should be here, baring custom’s clearance delays, by Friday.
In other Mk II news:
- An acrylic insert option has been added to the custom Sea Fighter page although the preview function will not be updated for a few more days. Essentially the insert is a single luminous triangle that is split down the middle. The Split-T as its called was modified from a single triangle for two reasons 1) to distinguish these watches from the original and 2) to provide added support to the luminous section. In the vintage versions you will often see the luminous triangle cracked practically right down the middle. I believe that this is due to a lack of support for such a large luminous area. In order to get around that I have split the triangle down the middle (engraving two smaller triangles rather just one large one) to add support to where the triangle is weakest.
- Updates for Vantage deliveries will be e-mailed out later today. Unfortunately there is a delay. The Vantage is to be assembled after the Blackwater and Stingray watches and since completion of those two watches was delayed at the assembler the Vantage is just being started. Originally they were to be completed by now. With the holiday rush to deliver watches to retailers I am doubtful that the Swiss company will be able to complete the watches before the end of this month which will likely push delivery to me to sometime in December. December will have its own problems considering the Christmas rush and end of year holidays. As a result deliveries for the Vantage will be pushed back to the end of January 2008. Given that the watches are not likely to be shipping in time for Christmas delivery there seems to be little value in scheduling shipments before year end.
MMT Blackwater Pre-built: New ordering page
I have consolidated the MMT MOD1A, MOD1B, MOD1C, and MOD1RC into one ordering page. I did this because after the Stingray and Sea Fighter are added to the pre-built ordering pages it was going to get a little cluttered. The Sea Fighter is going to have one page for the date-only version (2824) and one page for the day/date version (2836) and then the Stingray will have its own page. In addition the MMT will be offered in the Type II date version in September/October in a separate ordering page. This consolidation should make the navigation easier once all of the pages are up and running.
The pre-built MMT is undergoing slight tweaking. The MOD1 (Type I date dial) will be changing from the black background date wheel to one with a white background, black text date wheel. After a good deal of feedback from customers I had to agree that this was a more balanced and appropriate look for this model. If you have already ordered a MOD1 I will be contacting you regarding the change.
The new MOD 2 (Type II date dial) will come with a black background date wheel that I feel best suits the design of the dial. One feature that is woefully neglected on my site is the detail that the Type II date dial’s larger Arabic numerals are all luminous. I hope that this will be a welcome addition to the MMT Blackwater collection.
Movements are here!
Big sigh of relief! ETA delivered my 2824-2 movements earlier this week. I will finally be able to send components again to Switzerland for assembly of Blackwaters and begin offering pre-built Stingrays in about two month’s time. Much of the industry is currently “on vacation” for another two weeks or so. There are a few companies, like ETA, that don’t formally observe the summer break but the vast majority of firms are practically shut down for 2-4 weeks each summer.
The pre-order of the Sea Fighter and the Vantage will open in a few days to a week from now. I am working on the ordering pages at the moment and now that the movements are here a huge varible in the production schedule for the next couple of months has finally been removed. The Vantage should begin shipping around the end of October. The photos that will be posted in a few days of the 1016 homage will actually be temporarily using the older Stick and Ball handset and not the new hands as they aren’t ready at this time. The Sea Fighter, initially shipping as a pre-built homage to the Blancpain BUND diver using a 2824, should begin delivery before the end of the year. A 2836-2 version of the Sea Fighter should be available around January of 2008.
February 1st
At this time I have to push the lead times for custom watches out to 16 weeks. The reason that the lead times have jumped so suddenly is because I am almost out of 2824 movements and I will be taking some time off in April/May right after the Basel show. The remaining movements that we have on hand are going to be reserved for the upcoming Stingray launch so that we can minimize any delays before our next movement order is due in from ETA in June. The movement delivery timetable gave me a natural window to take my wife and daughter to visit my in-laws. So tentatively we will be “out” between April 11th and May 20th. I do expect the lead times to naturally come down to a more normal level as April approaches.
Below are two custom MMT “Blackwaters” that we just shipped out. I’ll post pics of two Seikos that we finished in a little bit.
The pre-order page for the Stingray will be going up probably later today. I didn’t get to finishing up the page today.
January 9th
I know this isn’t what many of you were exactly waiting for but we have made some more investments into lighting/photographic equipment. I hope that this time around with the Stingray when it begins to ship and with future Blackwater orders that we will be posting more actual photos of the watches that we build for customers. The problem that I have had for quite some time is being able to take consistent photographs quickly. Finally after doing quite a bit of research over the holidays we gathered the equipment that finally looks like its doing the trick.
In the photograph below is a picture of my own personal MMT. It features the Sea Serpent hand set which I hope that I will finally get around to posting on the site for sale in the next few weeks. The big thing for me is that finally the picture of the hands actually reflects the actual color orange and didn’t take hours of post-production clean-up and fiddling. The additional Stingray photos that will be going up soon will benefit from better quality and more realistic representations than in the past. Moreover we should be able to produce more of them. I hope that you will enjoy the picture attached below.
August 17th
Spent the last few days digging out the office from all of the clutter and paperwork left scattered around in my drive to ship as many orders as possible before my flight left on the 29th of July. Finally all of the orders received up until this morning have been scheduled and the estimated ship dates updated on the respective sales orders. Copies of the revised sales orders with the estimated ship date were sent out via e-mail around 6pm this evening. If you don’t receive anything please check your SPAM filter/folder and if you still don’t have the message please e-mail me at orderstatus@mkiiwatches.com or call me during the day.
As some of you may remember I had crystals get hung up at the AR coater in July which meant that some orders that were supposed to ship before I left didn’t get finished. This resulted in my pushing back some earlier quoted ship dates in order to re-schedule those orders. I have also decreased the number of watches scheduled to ship per week so that customer service levels can get back to normal.
Thanks for everyone’s patience.
August 15th
I am back from my trip. At the moment I am processing the orders received since July 19th so that I may assess and assign timetables to those orders.
I will begin responding to orders status requests made via e-mail Wednesday after I have the new orders organized.
In the near term the following is underway to improve communication and resume a normal customer service level (which was lacking due to poor planning on my part with regards to delivering all of the pre-ordered MMTs.):
* An online (i.e. web based) order status system has been in the works over the last 6 weeks. Although with some delay the system is currently expected to come online around the first week of September. This system is being developed in response to the increasingly aggressive filters set up to reduce SPAM by ISPs which unfortunately also affects an increasing amount of legitimate correspondence sent from us. Also this should serve as a more efficient method of sending out order status updates and to request information from customers about orders that are in process.
* E-mails sent to the “info” account before the beginning of August will unfortunately have to be deleted wholesale. The strain of delivering the volume of watches that I have shipped over the last 6 months has meant that I didn’t have an opportunity to respond to e-mail inquiries to this account for quite some time. Each of those messages will receive an automated reply asking that if they still require the information requested to re-submit their message. Unfortunately this is the most practical solution given the volume of e-mail and considering that many of the older messages probably do not require a reply at this time. Please accept my apologies for this inconvenience.
* Over the next couple of weeks the web site will be revised in order to provide a more detailed list of our policies and shipping and handling procedures. In addition the ordering pages will be modified so that the lead times and information about out of stock parts can be updated more frequently. With regards to updated lead times that information has been unfortunately overly time consuming to update given the way the site was originally designed. In the future lead time information for all of our products and services will be consoldiated onto one page….the current “lead time” icon listed on the bottom of most pages will activate a pop-up window that will show this consolidated list.
* I am happy to announce that all of the pre-ordered MMTs have been completed with only a handful left to ship. Next time around I will have to figure out a better way to manage this process.
While I was in San Francisco I had the pleasure of meeting a few watch collectors/enthusiasts. I wanted to thank Mike, Eric, Drew, Ian, Gerard, and Gordon for making the time to meet with me.
June 7th Update
* Current customers waiting: E-mails with PDF copies of your sales orders attached have been e-mailed out. The sales orders basically have been updated to include an updated ship date. These lead times may differ from the one you may have been expecting but its the best estimate I have at this time and I will doing my utmost to keep to this schedule. For MMT customers your e-mails haven’t gone out yet.
* Those sending e-mails to the “info” account about new orders. Please accept my sincerest apologies but it doesn’t look like I will be able to respond to those messages until the end of June. I am just swamped with the MMT deliveries right now and some backlogged orders. The situation should normalize by the middle of August.
* MMT customers: I lost a few days last week working out some admin. Primarily formalizing our production schedule so that we can better manage lead times and working out some preliminary details for the order status portal that hope to have operational in a few weeks.
* If anyone has an order status inquiry please send your e-mails to the address listed on your order receipt. Sending order status inquiries to the “info” account will lead to delays.
* One final note for today….I expect to be pretty much fried by the middle of July so I will be taking time off from July 29th through August 12th. Please note that this break will pretty much affect lead times for all watch orders placed between now and the third week of June.
Monday April 17th
* The AR crystals for the Blackwaters have arrived and those orders with those requested will begin going out this week.
* Black/red date wheels are also in stock now
* Still waiting to hear from the machine shop about the fixed bar option.
Updates and pre-order fulfillment:
* E-mails went out today with serial number and your “place in line” enclosed. The serial number and queue information is printed on the attached PDF copies of your sales order. I will begin posting the order numbers that I am currently working on.
* If you haven’t submitted an order for your pre-order then nothing has gone out yet.
* If you required your order to be entered in manually it may/or may not have gone out this evening but will go out later this week.
* As mentioned in the e-mails the last day to change/cancel your order is May 1st. I need to set a cut-off date so that I can focus on shipping orders and get away from administrative work as much as possible. This deadline does not apply to those of you that requested the fixed bar option since we are still waiting on an answer regarding that option.
Tuesday April 11th
Back in the shop since yesterday. I got back to the US last Thursday but my brain just arrived 
6 hour jet lag doesn’t sound that bad until you get back.
Some updates:
* MMT AR coated sapphire crystals will be arriving later this week.
* The red/black date wheels will go up on the site later this week as well.
Please note that due to an oversight on my part the lead time isn’t listed on the MMT Blackwater page, which is about 12 weeks if you didn’t pre-order. If this is more than you bargained for when you placed an order please e-mail me.