Speake-Marin Dong Son Limited Edition

It seems like Peter Speake-Marin never sits still. He just created the Dong Son timepieces, limited to 18 pieces, for his Vietnamese distributor. Just 2 months after launching the renewed Speake-Marin Serpent Calendar and the over-impressive Renaissance Tourbillon Minute Repeater.

The Dong Son is a specially-commissioned timepiece, featuring an 18 carat red gold dial with an etched motif inspired by Dong Son bronze drums, a Vietnamese cultural treasure. I think a very unique limited edition, as I can’t think of another watch with an etched red gold dial.

Vietnam has a great cultural diversity, from Sapa in the north, where several ethnic tribes live, to the very south. Accoriding to Wikipedia there are no less than 54 ethnic tribes. Over the centuries, this beautiful country has been dominated by many others and it hasn’t experience long periods of piece.

It’s great to see that Speake-Marin in collaboration with his Vietnamese importer have chosen an old and typical Vietnamese artifact as inspiration. Dong Son drums are bronze drums fabricated from 600 BC until the third century AD. The Dong Son culture, who produced these drums, lived in the Red River Delta of northern Vietnam and these drums are one of the culture’s finest examples of metalworking.

The drums are cast in bronze using the lost wax method. According to Wikipedia the Dong Son drums were apparently both musical instruments and cult objects. They were decorated with geometric patterns, scenes of daily life, war, animals, birds and boats.

Engraved in the left side of the red gold signature Speake-Marin drum-like case is “DONG SON – L.E. OF 18”.

In addition to the signature Piccadilly case, the Dong Son possesses other signature Speake-Marin characteristic like the diamond-shaped crown and the mystery winding rotor. The Dong Son timepiece features the new, automatic-winding Eros 1 movement with five-day power reserve. This is the same movement that can be found in the recently released Speake-Marin Serpent Calendar.

The Eros 1 movement is a Technotime-based mechanical automatic calibre with five-day power reserve. It is finished and assembled under Speake-Marin manufacture strict quality standards. The bridges, gear train, setting lever spring, mainplate and rotor are all circle grained, spotted, straight grained and hand polished. “The works” so to speak 🙂

At the time of writing there’s no information about the price, but I’m sure you can get more information at the MILUXE Exclusive Boutique in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The exact address can be found here at the Speake-Marin website.

This article was written by Frank Geelen, executive editor of Monochrome Watches.