Shipping!

The last confirmation came in today: watch boxes are now on their way… We shall be ready to start shipping on December 18th.

Our watch boxes are made in Portugal by a small family business. Over time we became really close to each other. They love wood and handcraft… and they have been really good at supplying us with beautiful watch boxes… So they were the logical partners for the revolutionary Antarctique watch box.

The box is really full of surprises, so the fine tuning was tough, but eventually in September we got everything right…

And then, on November 11, the Nevacril factory caught fire and was totally destroyed… I saved you this episode, as i didn’t wanted to stress you. Handling the stress is my job not yours, you should only enjoy the experience… So I give you updates when i know we resolved the problem.

Here is a few pictures received on November 12, just to give you a feel:

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No wonder that our “Sursum Corda” team motto is particularly appropriate!

Anyway, giving up is never an option. And after an intense Czapek spirit “infusion”, Nevacril worked on a new plan to re-do everything in one month. And they did it!! Today, Tuesday December 15th at 11h30am the first shipment left Balugaes to be delivered in Le Locle on Thursday night. We’ll then prepare as much as we can during the night for the first shipments on Friday 18th (43 watches).

In the meantime, Dann and Julian are finishing the assembly of the calibers for the same dates. In the end, everything is coming together…

The next shipment day will take place on Monday December 21st (63 watches) after a good week-end of work, and the last one for 2020 will be on Wednesday 23rd (6 watches).

There is a last challenge: what if we couldn’t ship all watches promised for this year before December 21st or last 23rd?

The only answer is then triage. So we have asked the ones of our shareholders having ordered a Terre Adélie about accepting to be the last ones in the list in favour of you, our direct customers and our retailers. They have unanimously accepted, even if for some of them this will mean getting the watch in January. They all stand firm behind our vision of watchmaking and our “way” of doing things. This is a real illustration of the “Czapek spirit” that I was commenting before… and a unique attention to all of you.

[Please note that for the USA, we will ship everything to Michael Margolis, our beloved agent and “Czapek Americas” face, so that it gets nicely reshipped to your home address if you are one of our US client. This process will help getting a smoother, surer, nicer and most likely faster transportation.]

Finally we are getting there! The challenges have been incredible, yet certainly small compared to the joy we hope you’ll get when receiving the piece. Antarctique was a premonitory name.

Cheers, Xavier