March 11th: Upcoming Vacation
We will be away between April 11th through May 20th on vacation. I had considered shutting down the site while I am away but realized that there is a lot of maintenance that is long overdue…not to mention it might misinterpreted. Among other things we haven’t changed our prices in about 2 years despite numerous increases in the price of various components. The last day to submit orders with our “old” prices will be March 31st. From April 1st through May 14th the login/checkout functions on our site will be disabled so that we can make the changes and perform the updates we need to take care of.
While you will not be able to login/checkout between April 1st and May 14th the cart function will work so that you can continue to browse our site and price out future purchases/projects. However when you go to “checkout” or “login” you will be re-directed to an information page explaining that we aren’t taking orders at that time. Please note that between May 14th and May 21st we will not be able to process orders. If you place an order during that time you will receive a response after we are back on the 21st. Also between April 1st and May 14th the prices you see in the “Cart” may differ from those listed on the site because price changes do not propagate automatically throughout the entire site.
We should be able to answer e-mails while we are away if I should have any problems accessing e-mail I will post a note here on the blog.
As we work to ship our orders before we leave on the 10th please note that e-mails to our info account may go unanswered until after April 20th. We are currently running one week behind schedule which would be fine but we got a “late” order from one our dealers for custom Seikos that we need to fill before we leave.
March 4th: Stingray Update
The custom Stingray order page is almost ready. I just need to add a few more photos, some information, and to test the page. A order page for Swiss Made Stingrays will be ready a few days to a week after that. Pre-order customers can submit an order for a custom version or a Swiss Made version. The Swiss Made version will be less expensive and depending which of the two versions of the Swiss Made Stingray gets assembled first its likely that they will begin shipping at the same time the custom versions do. At this point I only have enough movements on hand to send one dial type to Switzerland for assembly. The second version will be sent for assembly in June when our next shipment of movements is due.
The pre-order has been officially closed due to high demand.
February 28th: Stingray and other news
Sorry I haven’t posted pictures yet of the 12-3-6-9 dial and the new hands yet. I have been busy working on the Stingray ordering page and trying to get it functional so that pre-order customers can begin working on their options. I hope to have this up later this week but we’ll see. A lot of new artwork had to be produced for the new dials and hands that will be available.
I will be closing the pre-order option very very soon. I don’t want to take as many pre-orders as I did last time with the Blackwater which I think contributed to a lot of the communication problems. At the same time I want to keep the number of pre-orders lower in order to minimize the impact it will have on customer service levels. Currently I have enough orders to keep me busy pretty much all summer since I also have to leave capacity to deliver our other watches and products.
In the next 2 weeks or so I hope to announce our next watch….the Sea Fighter. Its a diver with a crown at 4 o’clock based on the BUND diver introduced in the mid-70s. This watch is meant to fill in the gap that the Seiko watches used to occupy in our line-up. I had meant to announce this earlier but pushed it off to wait for the hands which arrived sooner than expected. I look forward to hearing your feedback on our latest offering. The launch of this product will scheduled and handled slightly differently than previous models in order to minimize its impact on our capacity.
Stingray: Minor update
The date wheels for the Stingray are here. These are the black background, white text wheels for the 4.30 window. The 12-3-6-9 dial samples have also arrived. The hands were due to ship sometime last week and I will have to check on the mfg to see how they are going. I hope to have them sometime this coming week but we’ll see. I will post a pick of the whole package if the hands don’t take too much longer.
Stingray: Minor update
The date wheels for the Stingray are here. These are the black background, white text wheels for the 4.30 window. The 12-3-6-9 dial samples have also arrived. The hands were due to ship sometime last week and I will have to check on the mfg to see how they are going. I hope to have them sometime this coming week but we’ll see. I will post a pick of the whole package if the hands don’t take too much longer.
February 15th
Got snowed in today so orders that were supposed to ship today won’t ship until Saturday. For those customers sorry for the additional delay. For orders submitted in the last couple of days you will receive your confirmation e-mails in the next day or two.
In other news…those deposits for the Stingray received by the 10th should have received an e-mail by this time with a copy of their sales order attached. If you didn’t receive this e-mail please contact me. For orders received earlier this week we are a little backlogged at the moment and will clear up the backlog by the end of the weekend.
Feburary 7th
The pre-order page for the Mk II Stingray is now up and open for business 
Febuary 4th
The pre-order page for the Stingray will be open by Wednesday of this week. There has been some delay in getting the page up on our site because I want to provide as much information about the process to customers at the time they place their pre-order as possible. We had quite a few communication problems last time with our MMT “Blackwater” pre-order. Since then a number of new processes have been put into place such as the online Order Status Portal and offering a Swiss Made option that I hope will make the pre-order experience more pleasant and organized. While I doubt I have forseen every possible potential problem I want everyone to know that I have made every effort to improve the process.’
I have a bunch of e-mails to send out but won’t be able to do so until I get back into the office on Monday afternoon. Thanks for your patience.
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.
Mk II Stingray Update: Stingray 50
The first sample dials arrived earlier this month. The dial needs a minor adjustment but the quality of the print and lume look very good. The date window was stamped using the wrong specs so the date window is too far away from the center of the dial and the window itself is a hair too big. Those issues will naturally corrected before mass production. The current view of the watch somewhat minimizes the misalignment. The design itself is one of the most readily identified with the vintage Blancpain “Fifty Fathoms” name and was featured on a number of military issued pieces in a wide range of different case styles in the 60s and 70s.
I placed the date window at 4.30 because it minimizes the impact on the symmetry of the overall design. While purists would argue that the original design didn’t feature a date display I feel that utility has to take priority. The final date wheels will be black with white text to further tone-down the date window. One of the primary reasons that I chose to have the text printed vertically is so that left-handed customers or those that choose to wear their watches on the right hand will have an easier time reading the date. I have heard from a number of left-handed customers that they generally dislike the traditional 4.30 date window orientation because it is awkward to read from the right wrist.
“Stingray 50″…no this isn’t a typo and you aren’t seeing things. There are two bezels for the Stingray that will be almost identical except for one detail. The bezel insert for the Stingray 50 bezel is smaller in diameter than the 60 but the bezels are the same overall diameter. There have been so many different “Fifty Fathoms” that I couldn’t really pick just one style that I wanted to work with so I choose a sample of three vintage styles. I had calls from customers to work with the “big-bezel” version, hence the 60, but in my humble opinion the very first bezel version from 1953 is the most elegant. So despite is similarity to the 60 I decided to offer this version as well. If the 50 and 60 bezels cause too much confusion I will only offer the more popular of the two after the pre-orders are completed.
In a few days we will begin taking pre-order deposits for the Stingray on the main Mk II site. Since there are still a few items outstanding, such as the hands and other options, those interested won’t be asked to select any options just to purchase a “place-in-line” so to speak.
The final hands for this dial will be arriving in February so I will post another update once those are in. I literally just received the first trial run of the acrylic inserts and after I have a chance to experiment with them I will report back on the feasibility of this option. In the meantime let me know what you think of the way the project is shaping up!
