So, this is my first post here, but I hope you will find it interesting...
Here it goes:
Roger Remund form SwissBianco asked us in the Messerforum.net, if someone would like to go to the Victorinox Road-Show and have a meet and greet with the Victorinox-Crew here in Berlin.
I was more than willing and happy to attend ;-)
Two days before I received a package from Ibach in Switzerland.
Well, I thought, that will be some catalogs an maybe some sort of credentials.
Man was I wrong!
When I opened the package, I was stunned. Before my eyes I had an brandnew Spartan, with my forum-name on it!
With the knife came some swiss chocolate and a nice postcard, stating this would be my personal Swiss Army Knife and they where looking forward to meet me.
Hows that for a start?
Neither did I expect such act of generosity, nor did I know what to say.
A warm thank you again, Vanessa!
Last year Victorinox had entertained a little Show Room here in Berlin at the main terminal station, called Hauptbahnhof, with their offerings shown off, but this time it would be much bigger.
This year it was the well known Potsdamer Platz, one of the main tourist attractions:
(The young lady is the daugther of one of my forum-colleagues Karsten)
Its summer, its vacation-time, where do you find tourists from all over the world?
Potsdamer Platz would be a pretty good gues.
So, a nicely choosen place to set up the Road Show, and reach a lot of people.
We met friday at 7pm after the Victorinox-Crew had the hole day in their legs.
Were they tired? Grumpy?
Far from it.
After a communal drink and proper introductions, we started to chat.
We where in the company of Sebastien Eich, which is the Community Manager, Alain Hospenthal, Head of Marketing & Sales, Jan Pyott, Internet Manager Time Pieces and Vanessa Dettling, Internet Manager.
What surprised me the most, was the open-mindedness and interest in our thoughts.
What do we like in the knives, what do we expect, what would we wish to be changed, everything was open for discussion.
I brought some of my SAK-collection and truth be told, they where spot on, telling time of manufacture and aproximate age of the knives.
Truly amazing, since to the untrained eye one SAK looks like another.
I had the opportunity to assemble a Vic Spartan by myself (and outrageous lie, I had more than my share of help), which was real fun.
http://www.youtube.com/victorinox#p/u/3/0bjHahdGN7E In the youtube-link you can see, how the swiss lady just takes 20-30 seconds to build a SAK, which took me nearly 6 minutes (!)
RTFM:
Finally, et voilá:
This Spartan is one of a kind, because it has the soft-scales from the „On the Road“-Edition as well as the „Your Companion For Life On the Road“-etching on the main blade, which makes it a small special run.
Only if you come to the Road Show you will be able to get this exact setup.
After some more in-depth conversation, we where taken to dinner (all expenses paid by Victorinox, how about that?).
In informal setting we enjoyed a very nice meal and talked about the newest products, like the One-Hand models and the two-component-scales, and the watches of course!
You may have realized, that these class of knives lack the T&T, the tweezers and toothpick.
Thats why:
Victorinox uses the same molds as with the military variants. Just with different colours.
And as the military varaiants dont have this feature, due to loosing this small pieces by the soldiers...we plain jane civilians have to bear with it.
Alain Hospenthal explained to me, that it will be difficult to build scales with slots for T&T in the two-component variant (but he didnt say that it will be impossible).
Some may have realized that there are little „bumps“ on the inside of the liners of the One-Hand-models.
No more guessing why:
These bumps prevent the blade from sticking, if its open for a longer period of time, with mudd, gunk, blood and whatelse in and on the knife
How about that?
The question arised, how we like the newer opening-hole (the round one in comparison to the older more kidney-shaped ones).
Beeing a long term Spyderco-Users, Karsten and I agreed, that this has been a great improvement.
The watches where of special interest for me.
Holy smokes, do they make fine watches or what?
Saturday at 11:30 am we met again and Alain insisted on presenting us with an „On the Road“-Polo-Shirt.
What a nice gesture...
Thanks a lot Alain, it fits great!!!
Of special importance for me:
You know the false service-smile. Been there, done that. You know about hollow professional courtesy.
Honestly, I cant stand either.
But this was something completely different
The whole team was cordial and passionate. We werent customers, which they tried to convince (no need to, happend long before).
You could feel, that they love, what they are doing, and that we where a part of it.
A fact rarely found today...
Many thanks to Roger Remund of SwissBianco, for making this happen!
To Vanessa, Alain, Jan (who made me already save up for one of these marvelous watches) and last but not least Sebastien:
Thank you with all my heart! It was a pure joy meeting you all. It was a splendid evening, and I surely hope that the whole Road Show will turn out a great success, for all of you.
Hope to see you all soon!!!
At least some impressions:
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