Posts Tagged ‘Independent Watchmaking’
Charles Frodsham Double Impulse Chronometer
It’s not often discussed in these terms, but in the very early days of watchmaking, before even pocket watches were commonplace, the Swiss looked toward the English as the more established regional watchmaking industry. It was only after John Calvin banned things like dancing and the wearing of jewelry that the Swiss turned their focus…
Read MoreFelipe Pikullik Sternenhimmel
This is the kind of beautiful madness that has resulted from Kudoke’s star apprentice branching out on his own. What you are looking at is one of Germany’s newest independents. It’s not just Glashütte creating beautiful objects anymore, Dresden has been blossoming recently. This is the Sternenhimmel, which translates as Starry Sky, so named for…
Read MoreHaldimann H1 Flying Central Tourbillon
There’s no CNC machine at Haldimann, an independent whose philosophy is about as far from Rolex as watchmaking gets. The most modern machine they have is an optical microscope from the ’60s. I suspect if you showed an iPhone to Beat Haldimann he’d shout witchcraft and report you to the church immediately. Haldimann’s workshop and…
Read MorePhilippe Dufour Simplicity
What happens when you take a master of grand complications and finishing and apply those talents to a time only watch? Arguably the most coveted watch from a living watchmaker. This is watch which has seen its retail price (not secondary market, mind you) raise from ~50K CHF in the early 2000s to 100K CHF…
Read MoreAkrivia AK-06
This is the first time an AK-06 has come to auction and that’s really rather significant. Akrivia and the brand’s founding star Rexhep Rexhepi have enjoyed a deserved stratospheric rise recently, underpinned by the massive wave of independent watchmaking interest but not because of it. The true cause centers around both Rexhep’s finely tuned eye…
Read MoreMoritz Grossmann Tremblage
The award-winning documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi is a meditation on dedication to craft and the constant chase of perfection across generations. What seems like a simple piece of raw fish, seaweed, and rice has had more attention given to just its rice, what seems like the simplest of details, than all of Benihana’s menu.…
Read MoreOpen Dial Roger W. Smith Series 2
Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock for the last few weeks, you’ll know there’s been a bit of a debate on in the watch world. It started with an honest and fair question, or perhaps critique, poised by @horology_ancienne: what is the correct way to determine the RRP for the work of today’s preeminent…
Read MoreType 1D Naoya Hida
Japanese watchmaking goes so much deeper than Seiko, Grand Seiko, Credor, or even Kurono. Given the media we consume, it’s easy to believe that all dials from Japan are inspired by a single particularly shaped snowflake that landed on Kintarō Hattori’s nose on the 3 of January in 1912. Or that Kurono is cooking up…
Read MorePiece Unique Voutilainen L’Esprit du Bois Decimal Repeater
In the early days when Kari Voutilainen had just branched out from restoration work to making his eponymous brand, the Decimal Repeater was one of his signature complications; he invented it. Where a normal minute repeater will chime low for hours, sequence tones for quarters, and then a high pitch for minutes after the quarter,…
Read MoreMB&F HM7 Aquapod
Pursuing any thread to its absolute end can often seem like madness to the outside world. I am reminded of scotch distillers, who will endlessly move certain barrels around warehouses to age closer or further from the sea, for just the right hint of salt. But also Red Bull and Ferrari F1 teams, who a…
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