Basel World: An Inside Tour of Buben & Zörweg With Harald Buben
My last meeting of the day was by far the coolest. It was with Buben & Zörweg and I must say, WOW. For anyone that owns watches, you know you need a good place to store them. Harald Buben, part owner/partner of Buben & Zörweg, took me around his showroom at Basel World and showed me his newest launch: a partnership with Aston Martin called the Aston Martin Object of Time One-77. This is one of the coolest things I have ever seen and a must-own for an Aston Martin lover with a watch collection.
The Time-One 77 comprises a long list of protection and storage measures, among which we shall mention the humidors, special drawers for watch- and jewelry-storage, four world clocks, time-mover watch winders, a high-security vault, a flying minute tourbillon timepiece and a sound system in which you can plug in your iPod. I explored the Wi-Fi software on this piece with my personal iPhone connected, and my music was playing in less than one minute. The Time One-77 costs just as much or more than the Aston Martin, and there is already a waiting list. Haute Living’s good friend John Simonian is one of the lucky owners taking this piece back to Los Angeles for his store Westime in Beverly Hills.
Next to this piece was the Phantom High Fidelity, which has been seen before but for the first time, I was able to touch and play with it. It holds eight watches along with an amazing sound system. This is one of the lowest priced products from Buben & Zörweg, but one of my favorites. Another piece that Buben showed me was something really cool: The Titan High Security Safe. On the top of the safe lie two secret compartments that can be customized with anything you want, including storing jewelry, cigars and beyond. In the idle of the safe, there is a place for a MP-3 Player and in the front is a secret code panel, which allows entry into the safe. The safe can hold up to 36 watches in 2 separate compartments. In case there are attacks on this safe, the integrated alarm system will alert you.
The next piece was also special, called the Buben & Zörweg X-007 safe. It is something unreal. For Basel World, they added a digital clock on top, which is different then their tourbillon clocks on most of their products. This safe is very cool and has a button that allows the watches to go up and down—stunning for the house. Check it out in the video below.
For the next 30 minutes, Buben kept showing me more innovative pieces, but one thing was certain, the majority of them featured tourbillon clocks. All pieces display the telltale signs of fine craftsmanship, and most feature spaces to store cigars, secret compartments for special jewelry, and most of all, perfect places to keep your watches.
One particular piece doubled as a mirror, with a full safe behind the glass—very modern to have in a bedroom. It was the biggest and most expensive safe, priced at $450,000, and is a complete piece of art that is the perfect addition to any home. Again, Buben showed me the best feature, speakers that were louder than any home stereo system, with no wire or amps. Again he took my iPhone, connected it to the Wi-Fi and had my music playing in less than one minute, which is one of the coolest features I have ever seen. The quality of the music was better than that of most stereos priced over $50,000.
It was fun and refreshing to visit Buben & Zörweg and get a tour with Harald Buben. He is a creative genius and one of the smartest men I have ever met. His work is art, and he has built a brand in making storing watches fun. While I have seen a lot of upscale safe companies with fancy features, I have never seen safes with such high quality sound systems, tourbillon clocks, secret compartments, watch winders, cigar humidors and more.
