I am not new to watches or to the processes used to customize watches. I have seen first hand, custom work by the talented engravers at Jaeger Lecoultre, hand painted enameling done at Roger Dubuis, custom bezels from Vogard to the initials created on the carriage of a Tourbillon by Louis Vuitton. 

The work is tedious, demanding and has to be perfect in every respect, before it leaves the shop and enters into the even more demanding view of the buyer. One mistake on a dial or on the case is magnified ten fold when looked at by the buyer. 

I wanted to go through the customization process with SwissPL. The work shown on their website is impressive and fits in with what I wanted to do. 

My family name "URICH" has a Coat of Arms but to me it was old and did not fit in with my lifestyle or current ideas. It was not "my coat of arms." It belonged with my ancestors and I have no history on why the crest was created or the meanings of it. I wanted something that told my story, showed who I was and reflected what I considered important and to have a little fun too.

The name URICH is an old Swiss name and I am proud to be of Swiss heritage so I wanted the Swiss Cross to be included on the new crest. The Swiss Cross is also on my original family Coat of Arms. 

I have been in the watch business since I was a teenager, even though no one in my family for the last two hundred years has been involved in this business, so the Swiss Cross has more meaning for me and what I do. 

The crest should show or represent my activities or allegiances much in the same way that early family crests did. 

Companies, sports teams, military organizations and groups all have logos and symbols that can show quite a bit of information on them, with just one symbol. I wanted one that communicates who I am and where I'm from and what I do. 

I wanted to include New Orleans on the crest. I was brought up in Boston but my adopted hometown is New Orleans. Boston is wonderful but it is not where the heart is. Like many Bostonians who migrate to New Orleans because it still has that old neighborhood feel and camaraderie that Boston lost when Boston became a segregated city in the 60s and 70s. 

So the Fleur de lil, the unofficial/official symbol of the city, became part of my new URICH, Coat d'Arms.  

The colors on the logo have no more significance than " I like the Colors," they look good. The colors happen to be the Red,White and Blue of the USA, and the red background behind the Swiss Cross is the correct color for the Swiss Flag. 

A families name is usually placed on the bottom of a crest, on a scroll of some kind but I wanted the name to be included in actual logo. It is now a logo that tells a story. 

The back of the watch is another story all together.

Some friends of mine have called me The Watch God because I never stop taking about watches and for some crazy ability I have, to retain information about watches and watch companies much like sports fanatics who know the stats of all the sports teams. 

Being of a humble nature, God, was an echelon or two above my pay grade so I opted for an image of “Father Guido Sarducci” of Saturday Night Fame to be on the back of the watch. I wanted to keep the humor and the satirical side of my Watch God Status.  

That was the first step in creating my watch. What to put on the dial? DONE

Now to get the watch created. 

Picking the dial color was simple. I wanted a black dial as the background. Black dials are the most used for divers type watches and I like the look. 

I wanted the crest on the bottom of the dial just above the 6. Putting the crest on top would have been a little top heavy for my preferences. The dial needed balance.

I put my last name under the "12," in Caps, matching the name on the crest. 

The rest of the story should be seen. Each step was inspected and approved by me. There were some adjustments made because I listened to Alldaron who has done so many of these types of dials that his experience saved me from a few horrible design mistakes.  

A few pre-completion images.

I have a few rules when buying products. Some of these have nothing to do with watches but here they are anyhow. 

1. Never buy a used car for more money than the cheapest new car that is available. 

2. If purchasing a valuable item, buy the model shown, the one advertised in the magazines or brochures. Don't buy a red one if it has never been promoted that way if you ever want to sell it later. Collectors tend to buy collectible items, as they were promoted or shown in the original promotional materials. 

3. Buy from a company that has passion and a love for their products. 

If your interested in buying a brand name watch, I would encourage that. Customizing a brand name watch though, when it is allowed, can cost an outrageous amount of money. 

I remember, in the 1960s, you could buy a brand new Rolex for around $600.00. Today you can buy their newest basic model for around $6000.00. 

Why is the price for a Tag Heuer over three thousand dollars or a Panerai over $6000.00 when they use the same movement as SwissPL? There are many answers to that but the basic answer is, "A good story" and "What the market will bear." There is also a technical answer. 

A Tag or a Panerai are both well known brands and they spend countless dollars branding the movement itself. Their name is on the rotor and their logo is on the watch movement along with specialized polishing, branding and decorations. That costs money and to directly order them that way from ETA or to take thousands of movement apart to engrave them, decorate them and then reassemble is expensive. 

Proprietary cases, made by some companies, to continue their branding and technology takes years to do correctly and millions of dollars to perfect. 

The Rolex case for example is unique and the case back requires a special case opener to remove the case back. It is also used to ensure their brands look and to secure the watch for diving. 

The amount of budget required to make Tag a world wide product is huge. Tag makes a great watch and they spend millions of dollars in design and inventing new technologies for their watches that use "their own manufactured movements," not the ETA movements, but their own. 

So to create and maintain a world wide presence, stay ahead of the competition, create new technologies, and sponsor sporting events is all very important to Tag and its future. Tag is a major brand and outsells most other brands except for Rolex at this time. 

SwissPL is not a world wide brand yet but is now creating affordable watches with the highest of standards. Someday SwissPL will create its own commercial brand and knowing the people at SwissPL they will match any other brand in the world. 

So if Tag or Breitling or Hublot took all the branding and modifications they make to the movement out of the watch, would it cost as much as a SwissPL watch? NO. 

At this time, Alldaron and his family do all the work and if they charged as much for one of their customized watches, as a Tag or an Oris does for one of their basic watches, no one would take them seriously. The major brands have thousands of employees around the world to pay for. 

If you asked Tag or Oris to customize one of their watches for you and to take all the time that is required to get it done for just one customer or 50 members of a military group, it is they who would laugh at you. They could not do it. The specialization is not there. The dedication to one product or to one customized change to a dial, is just not in the cards. 

SwissPL does what it does and does it well. For SwissPL to start producing 5000 watches today would kill them. The machine is not there. The systems are not in place and the customers are not aware of SwissPL as a world wide product yet. 

Sure you can order 50 watches from Alldaron or just one. That is what SwissPL is geared up to do. They produce within the limits of their passion to individuals and groups who want personalized attention. 

During this process I have witnessed, seemingly timid people get very confident and creative about the design of their watches, especially after the work starts to take shape. People who in the beginning said, in a general fashion, " Just do it like this, red dial, my name on the top and ok, Mercedes type hour and minute hands and all is good." After some time that timid customer became a monster. A good monster who can now see how a slight change can make a watch look ridiculous or great. SwissPL encourages the involvement of its customers and will smile with a little knowing grin because this new customer is now one for life. The customer is as involved as Alldaron is. 

When the watch finally leaves the shop and the customer gets it, there is no doubt, no lingering hesitation about the color of the dial or how the graphics look. 

In the past and because of my professional and personal relationships with most of the watch manufacturers and the friendships I have made over the years, I tend to gravitate toward the independent watch companies because of the owners involvement in a company.

I have known Alldaron Knewitz, the President & Chief Bottle Washer of SwissPL and his parents for over 30 years. He was a three foot tall kid when I first met him. His parents encouraged him to follow his passion. 

I have to mention that I may be to blame for their involvement in the watch industry.

Alldaron has always been a professional type of person. He does a job with confidence and certainty. He did not opt for inexpensive watch parts, movements or equipment. He wanted what was affordable, useful, maintainable and of the highest quality first. 

He uses only the best of automatic, hand wind and quartz movements, all from Switzerland, like the ETA 2924-2, Ronda, Sellita and the Unitas 6498/6497. These movements have proven themselves for reliability, can be worked on by local watchmakers if needed and most of the industry use the same movements in their watches. From Ball Watch to Oris, Hublot, Omega and so many others, they have all used or are now using ETA or Valjoux movements. 

In truth, if the products created by SwissPL were not up to the same standards as I would expect from any other watch company in Germany or Switzerland, I would have encouraged him, supported him but I would never have trusted him to create a watch that I would wear in front of my peers in the watch industry. 

I will show this watch off to anyone who is near me because it is a beautiful product that I helped design and was produced by a rising star in the watch industry. 

Note: He also has a blood spattered watch dial, for the zombie crowd of his generation, and is experimenting with a few watch cases that I may want to change into once perfected. 

I once wrote, when Maximilian Büsser of MB&F created his first Time Machine watch:

"The design and mechanics remind me of the perfect pitch of Andrea Bocelli's voice. I could not imagine a more perfect voice from a singer or a better design for a new watch company."

I am certain that Alldaron will create a "Perfect Pitch" of his own and will take the watch industry by storm. 

URICH