GREUBEL FORSEY
PRESENTS HAND MADE 1
BY MICHAEL THOMPSON
The Greubel Forsey-sponsored Time Æon Foundation project has created three handcrafted watches (utilizing primarily hand-
operated tools) in the past several years as it aims to safeguard pre-industrial artisanal watchmaking skills. Late last year, Robert
Greubel and Stephen Forsey debut Hand Made 1, their own fully handcrafted watch, which is a 43mm gold-cased model with
tourbillon displaying hours, minutes and seconds.
THE TIME ÆON FOUNDATION PROJECTS (including recently
announced Naissance d’une Montre 2 and Naissance d’une Montre
3) are educational in nature, with the first so-called “School Watch”
made by the project raising $1.5 million at auction to perpetuate
the project’s mission. Greubel Forsey, however, will offer the new
Hand Made 1 to collectors following a tour with the first watch in
United States.
“We wanted to really push the artisanal process to its modern
limits with this piece,” explains Michel Nydegger, Greubel Forsey
communications manager. “Where the earlier watches from Time
Æon Foundation may have been approximately seventy percent
hand-crafted, this piece is fully ninety-five percent created from
scratch.” The entire movement is made of 272 components while
the case comprises thirty-six.
In order to maintain Greubel Forsey’s own quality standards,
Nydegger notes that the rubies, sapphire, gaskets, mainspring and
spring bars have been obtained from modern sources.
“Making the balance spring itself was quite a chore in itself. It
requires us to use a machine that looks like something from “Back
to the Future,” he says.
The 43mm white gold case frames an open dial with hand-
enameled chapter rings and flame-blued steel hands. All the
movement’s components are hand finished, including the bridges
with polished inner and outer vertical flanks, the “Gratté”
mainplate, and the wheels, which boast hand polished bevels.
Nydegger notes that the Hand Made 1 escape wheel, balance
spring and balance wheel are made by hand at Greubel Forsey’s
workshops. The balance spring is rolled in a hand-operated rolling
mill without computer assistance, which means only a few balance
springs can be made at a time. The escape wheel requires twenty
individually cut teeth—a painstaking process. Machining and
finishing the escape lever requires a month and a half of work. The
tourbillon carriage, with sixty-nine components required equally
laborious attention.
6,000 HOURS
The development of the Hand Made 1 is not only about reviving
long-forgotten techniques, according to watchmaker, but aims to
“take these skills and know-how to a previously unattained level
of excellence and precision, furthering them in the same spirit
of constant improvement that has always guided the Inventor
watchmakers. The goal is to resurrect the ancestral art of hand
50 | INTERNATIONAL WATCH | WINTER 2020
craftsmanship and reinforce it with standards of workmanship and
precision rivaling even modern production equipment.”
All told, Hand Made 1 required 6,000 hours of work, the
equivalent of three years man-hours. This time does not take into
account the creation and development time. To obtain the final 308
components, Greubel Forsey says it had to make more than 800
individual parts. To underscore the artisanal nature of the watch,
Greubel Forsey replaces the Swiss Made designation at the bottom
of the dial with “Hand Made.”
Greubel Forsey expects to make only one or two Hand Made
models per year. Pricing has not been finalized.