FROM THE EDITORS Letters + Events
The Greubel
Forsey Hand
Made 1
Michael Thompson
ANCESTRAL ARTS & CRAFTS
Editor-in-Chief | [email protected]
or as long as I’ve been reporting about all things horological, watchmakers have voiced concern about their
profession’s demise. Greater mechanization, they worry, will diminish the need for handcrafted watchmaking
expertise. Fewer watchmakers will know how to cut and file base metal into plates and gears or how to black
polish a bridge.
F
In the face of such a possibility, Robert Greubel and Stephen Forsey in 2005
As Michel Nydegger, Greubel Forsey communications manager, explained,
joined forces with several likeminded watchmakers, including Vianney Halter, “Where the earlier watches from Time Æon Foundation may have been
Philippe Dufour, Kari Voutilainen and others, to co-found the Time Æon Founda- approximately seventy percent hand-crafted, this piece is fully ninety-five
tion, in part to “Preserve the crafts associated with watchmaking excellence and percent created from scratch.”
help pass them on to new generations.”
Nydegger notes that the Hand Made 1 escape wheel, balance spring and
The Time Æon Foundation projects (including Naissance d’une Montre 2 and balance wheel are made by hand at Greubel Forsey’s workshops. The balance
Naissance d’une Montre 3) are educational in nature, with the first so-called spring is rolled in a hand-operated rolling mill without computer assistance,
“School Watch” made by the project raising $1.5 million at auction not long ago which means only a few balance springs can be made at a time.
to perpetuate the project’s mission. The development of the Hand Made 1 is not only about reviving long-forgotten
With more such projects underway, and with the addition of new partners techniques, according to the watchmaker, but aims to “take these skills and
Ferdinand Berthoud and Urwerk, the Time Æon Foundation is slowly but know-how to a previously unattained level of excellence and
perceptively improving the likelihood that the watch industry of the future will precision, furthering them in the same spirit of constant improvement that has
include knowledge of many of its historic artisanal skills. always guided the Inventor watchmakers. The goal is to resurrect the ancestral
Greubel Forsey itself has just debuted a watch that demonstrates a host of
art of hand craftsmanship and reinforce it with standards of workmanship and
those handcrafting skills. The impressive Hand Made 1 is a 43mm white gold- precision rivaling even modern production equipment.”
cased watch with tourbillon, displaying hours, minutes and seconds. The new watch is just one of several inspired artisanal pieces by Greubel
The new commercial product features an open dial in true Greubel Forsey
Forsey – and other forward-thinking watchmakers – that have me convinced that
style, set with hand-enameled chapter rings and flame-blued steel hands. All news of the demise of handcrafted watchmaking is premature.
the movement’s components are hand made and hand finished, including the Regards,
bridges with polished inner and outer vertical flanks, the “Gratté” mainplate,
and the wheels, which boast hand-polished bevels.
6 | INTERNATIONAL WATCH | FALL 2019