Board member of IWC Schaffhausen
Hannes Pantli began his career with IWC Schaffhausen as a sales delegate to the Benelux countries and Scandinavia. That was back in 1972. Today, he is a member of IWC’s Board of Directors and is also the board’s spokesperson. He talks about the enigma of life and how he found himself, without much of a plan, exactly where he wants to be today.
On starting out
About 44 years ago, I started working in the beautiful city of Schaffhausen, with the idea of staying two to three years. As a young man, I wanted to be in Geneva or Zurich but the Quartz Crisis hit and everything fell to pieces. The company went from 350 to 150 people and we were cast in a position of having to save it.
On moving ahead
Luckily, our approach of opening new markets worked. I was single then and took a risk. I went to the Middle East five times a year and we made special collections for some of the sheikhs. Later, in 1978, we met Ferdinand Alexander Porsche and decided to work together. We had a famous partner and new ideas, including making the world’s first titanium watch. It was something unheard of for the watchmaking industry.
By the mid-1980s, we looked into the Pilot watches with the Mark 15. The Pilot watches were always very important to us, ever since the two sons of the owner – back in 1935 – received their flying licences in England and requested for a Pilot watch from their father. All these efforts combined kept us afloat and it remains one of my most emotional memories of IWC.
On collecting timepieces
I’ve been a collector of IWC timepieces for a long time. When Richemont bought IWC, they wanted pieces for their museum, so I sold 310 pieces back to them but I still kept the most beautiful ones. One of them is a pocket watch, made in 1886 for a noble family in Sicily. It’s called La Magique 1 with a 24-hour display and it took me two years to convince the family to sell. I now have about 100 IWC timepieces in my collection and I don’t collect any other brand.
Collecting is really a state of mind – you have it or you don’t. The other thing which I am fond of is my 1957 Ford Thunderbird. Another car, which came to me quite curiously, is a Porsche Targa 1984 which was specially built for a sheikh. It’s all white with golden wheels and sheepskin inside. I saw that car 10 years later in the sheikh’s garage and asked if I could buy it for 10,000 Swiss francs. Three months later, my wife calls me to say that a car has arrived via a forwarding agent. I sent them the money.
On life lessons
I’ve learnt that in life, we can’t be too greedy. You do the things which you like, not because you can make an extra dollar more. Looking back, I never had to fight for a higher salary – it all worked out the way I liked. I’ve been fortunate to travel and Asia’s most fascinating for me. Last September, I took the Eastern and Oriental Express from Bangkok to Singapore with my wife, which was something special.
