 A small company with friendly personal service.
Minnesota; Land of Ten
Thousand Lakes. And a place with some of the most extreme temperature
differences on the planet. During winter, Minnesota often is colder than Alaska
and temperatures can easily reach -30° Fahrenheit (-30° Celsius), even without
the wind chill factor. A record cold of -60° Fahrenheit was reported in February
of 1996 in Tower, Minnesota.
In stark contrast to the cold winters are the hot (and
usually humid) summers. Temperatures can easily reach +104° Fahrenheit (+40° Celsius).
The hottest temperature ever recorded in Minnesota even went as high as +114°
Fahrenheit (+45° Celsius). These kind of environmental extremes (and the
fact that there is plenty of water around with the more than 10,000 lakes and
more shoreline than California, Florida and Hawaii combined) make Minnesota a
great place to test our sports and diver watches and to make sure they'll hold up to anything
that you (and mother nature) can throw at them.
But there is more. Minnesota
has a rich history of watch and clock making. Today, the Twin Cities of
Minneapolis and Saint Paul host one of the last three remaining watchmaking
schools in the country and the watchmaking program is recognized by WOSTEP, even
sponsored by Rolex.
What better place for us to be than Minnesota?
My
wife and I originally came from Germany, just like many of the ancestors of
Minnesotans living here today that came over from the old country. We brought with us a strong work ethic and values
that fit right in with the mid-western culture. As an electrical engineer, my fascination with mechanical watches went beyond engineering and
micro-mechanics. To me, the sweeping of the seconds hand and the ticking of the
movement are reminders of a time before modern electronics and computers and
what Swiss and German engineers were able to create long before I went to
engineering school (even before I was born). I am
very passionate about mechanical watches and collecting them. So I took classes to
learn more about what makes them tick and ultimately tend to them, fix them and
service them myself when needed.
One day, during a business trip to Germany, I met Marcell Kainz,
founder and owner of Marcello C. (the guy in the photo at the top left) and we got to talk. I had owned one of his
watches for a while, but had only been able to find it in a store in Germany. As
a collector on a budget, I was impressed with his creations, wanted them to be
available to other collectors here in the US, yet had a strong
opinion about certain companies importing watches into the United States that I had
purchased from in the past. I found many
of the importers in it just for the money, marking up prices and providing no
real value or service. There simply was no passion for the mechanical
timepieces they sold. Something must have struck a nerve with Marcell and he
offered me the opportunity to become their US Distributor. And just like Marcel,
who had worked for some of the bigger players in the watch industry before he
decided to start his own brand, I took my money where my mouth is, invested my
savings into tools and inventory and started MarcelloC-watches together with my
wife.
That was
more than 6 years ago. We set out to treat our customers here in the US the
way we wanted to be treated, a novel concept in this industry (or so it seemed,
given all the positive responses by our customers). And we wanted to keep it real.
Avoiding overhead and keeping the watches affordable for collectors without
taking shortcuts in quality still is our strength; a challenge these days with
the exchange rate of the Euro against the US$ climbing steadily for the past few
years. We don't place expensive ads that only add cost and provide no value to
the watch (or the collector) and instead, focus on bringing you the highest
grade movements, individually regulated inside our watches and the highest
quality, fit and finish of cases, bracelets etc.. Every watch that leaves our
warehouse in Minnesota has been checked by me personally, been tested on a
modern watch timing machine and than set to your local time before my wife
carefully packs and ships them to you. Should you need gift-wrapping or have any
other special requirements, just let us know and we'll help.
Yes, We are still a
small company with little to no corporate overhead and have only been selling
these watches in the United States since the year 2002. But we have a passion for
horology and aren't in this just for the money. We make up for our small company
size with friendly personal service that goes the extra mile, and a desire to
make ownership of a quality watch affordable for our customers. Don't just take
my word for it; talk to our customers, read some of their testimonials and
become part of the growing family of raving fans of these mechanical timepieces.
MarcelloC-watches earned the right to be the exclusive North-American
distributor for Marcello C. watches. These days, we are looking to add more
resellers to our family that share our customer focus. This, we
believe, will benefit our customers when they get an opportunity to see, touch
and compare our watches right at their favorite local watch store.
Until you can meet us in person and see
what we are all about, here are some photos that help tell the story:
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