John Henne sees his store's growing effort with wristwatches to be reflective of the American consumer's increasing interest in the timepieces. "If you go to Italy, you'll find people with eight watches," says the owner of Henne Jewelers in Shadyside. "Americans are finally starting to see there is a need for different watches for different occasions and moods." He says that interest led him to begin expanding his watch selection five years ago when he added the Rolex line and has generated the store's first Watch Weekend, today and Saturday. Chad Rickicki, the store's watch manager, says it will be a chance for the public to examine the site's range of brands, which include well-known brands such as Swiss Army, Rolex and Omega. Roland Murphy, designer of RGM Watches from Lancaster, Lancaster County, once a watch-making hotbed, also will be there. But the center of the show will be an introduction of watches from Chronoswiss, a firm headquartered in Germany, and from Kobold Watch Co., made by German native and Oakland resident Michael Kobold. "When I was growing up in Germany, I was a paradigm shift," says Kobold, 25, who came to this country to attend Carnegie Mellon University. "All the watchmakers were old, and I got interested in it when I was 16." He founded his firm here when he was 19 and says he is surprised that it has grown enough to have garnered a cover story in the July edition of International Watch magazine, a trade journal. "I design maybe a dozen watches a year," he says, "and we might get two or three onto the market." Rickicki points out that Henne will be the first and, as of now, only firm to handle Kobold watches in this city. At this point, it will be the only store also to deal with Chronoswiss, which has been sold elsewhere in the past. He says one of the key watches in the show will be the Polar Surveyor from Kobold, which is a timepiece made for explorers. It has a date function; a chronograph for timing; a display of the universally used Greenwich Mean Time; and a day-night display, useful at the poles where total light or darkness can be deceptive. Kobold's watches cost $3,000 to $6,000 in steel or titanium, but can go up to $25,000 in gold. It's not unusual for top-notch Swiss watches to run to $40,000, Rickicki says, but there are some Swiss Army models that go for $100. Kobold laughs when asked why more people are interested in building a personal collection of watches and, with a chuckle, offers "vanity" as a possible reason. "But there is nothing that expresses people or their moods as well as a watch," he says. Henne agrees and points out he has a watch with a bright yellow face he wouldn't think of wearing at a serious outing. "But it sure is good at a Steelers game," he says. He says that when he chose to expand his watch inventory, he decided he wanted to keep his selection in control. Thus, instead of handling 25 brands, he says, he will have 12 when the two new lines are added. He also searched for someone to handle repairs and service, hiring Chris Travelstead nearly three years ago. California-native Travelstead is a certified master watchmaker who attended a training program run by the Federation of Swiss Watch Manufacturers. "When you take a watch in for repair, it normally has to be sent somewhere for months," Henne says. "Even battery replacement can take six weeks. That's ridiculous. I don't want to ask a customer to do that." Additional Information:

Details

Watch Weekend When: 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. today and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday Admission: Free Where: Henne Jewelers, Walnut Street, Shadyside Details: (412) 682-0226

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