independent watch projects

Born in 1971 in Köln, Germany, master watchmaker Dirk Maier went to work within the Swatch Group (Omega, Longines and Rado) before starting his own business.
He registered the brand Rheinmeister by taking cues from the Rhein (Rhine), one of the most important European rivers that serves as natural border between Switzerland and Germany.

Maier tries to source all of his parts in Germany and Switzerland and assembles himself the watches, which can be purchased directly from his workshop or through selected retailers in Germany. Prices for 2010 range from EUR 1630 to EUR 2230. Besides his collections, Meier can assemble custom pieces and source bespoke engine-turned dials.

Besides classical watches with the Rheinmeister signature hands, Maier has been working on a new diving watch resistant to 100 bar (static depth of 1000 m).

Germany-based Karl Falk sells watches that feature a single hand. There is an online store (Singlehandwatch.com) dedicated to the genre. Karl Falk is featured there alongside another brand like Defakto, but award-winning Meistersinger is missing from the Web site list.

Back to Karl Falk. The brand’s name is that of a 19th century watchmaker. Their flagship and only model, the Einzeiger (traduction: one hand), draws inspiration from tower clocks (and car speedometers I would assume) to create a minimalistic watch that displays time by 5 minutes increments.

The single hand dial is a poetic call to drop the stressfull to-the-minute accuracy in favor of a more laid-back approach of time. In substance, it doen’t provide indication of time to the second, but it still does provide enough information to meet appointments.

The Einzeiger uses ETA calibres 2824-2 and 6498. Prices are aligned to a little bit less than USD 1500, which then leaves the presence of an automatic winding system up to personal choice. Technically I tind it hard to justify since the 2824-2 is know to be more expensive than the 6498. Anyway, the watch comes in a nice packaging which includes a change of bracelet and strap, a tool kit for swapping the strap and adjusting the bracelet, and a nice catalog.

Azimuth somehow managed to source new old stock vintage movements such as the Fontainemelon 96 and a Marvin/Election hand-wound calibre. They took extreme care in designing limited series of military watch homages that met great success. Featuring vintage movements or modified contemporary UNITAS calibres, those timepieces boast a good reputation and now count amongst the very few watches that sell with an added value on the second-hand market.

credit: www.righttime.com

From there, Azimuth started working on more conceptual timepieces:

source: www.TimeZone.com

The brand also started using a Chinese full calendar module on Swiss ETA movements:

Their prices  are between USD 1,000 and 5,000, which is a bit steep, but the collection is worth taking a look at.
Ariel Adams has recently published an article about their new diving watch Sea-Hum and saturation diving watch Deep Diver on aBlogToread.com. The latter has already been discussed by Tlex on OceanicTime.com.

Getat Watch Company is an e-store run by a watchmaker who specialized in custom watches and parts inspired by military timepieces of the Pact_of_Steel countries, namingly German and Italian.

Unlike most eBay sellers, Getat Watch ensures that all dials are coated with Swiss luminous compounds. The cases are available in different sizes and with different surface finish. The movement catalog features affordable Chinese UNITAS clones.

Straps are hand-made, and there are several colours of thread to choose from.

The Retrospect Watch Company has been operating for a couple of years now. I remember visiting their homepage and seeing sneak peak pictures of the Egiziano, which was under development at the time. RWC define their mission as bringing «legendary timepieces, improv(ing) upon them and reincarnat(ing) them into the modern world.»

The RWC Egiziano draws inspiration from the GPF 2/56, a whopping 60 mm watch that designed and produced by Panerai Workshops (Officine Panerai) for the Egyptian navy with an 8 day Angélus movement.

The GPF 2/56, made for the egyptian navy, credit Paneristi.com

The Retrospect Watch Company stands out from the croud of look-alikes because of the little details they have altered to the design that inspired them. Sold at USD 1,098.00, the Egiziano features a stock UNITAS movement without the small seconds hand.

The company has also released two cusion-shaped watches that draw inspiration from the Panerai Radiomir with “California” dial, which sell around the same price.

Since the launch of this blog, we have omitted to present Bathys Hawaii because they originally only featured battery-powered quartz watches. In the meantime, the Hawaii-based brand has released the the Benthic Automatic and the 100 Fathoms Automatic, two collections motorized with the ubiquitous ETA 2824-2.

The recognizable Bathis Hawaii dial, with even numerals, emulates vintages military watches from the Vietnam era, such as this Helbros:

credit: www.TimelyClassics.com

Bathys watches come in stainless steel cases with satin finish, black or 5n pink gold PVD plating; or in titanium. Depending on the collection, the watch either comes with satin metal bezel or rotating bezel. The brand also offers a wide choice of dial colours, from black to dark grey to orange to mother-of-pearl.

Lately, the brand has been working on a new collection based on the vintage Hamilton Bomb Timer watches, which were used on airplanes to time the dropping of bombs:

credit: www.TimelyClassics.com

Based on a UNITAS 6498 calibre, the Bathys version does pay tribute to the original, although some graphical details have been updated:

Bathys Bomb Timer

Check out prominent a review of the Bathys Bomb Timer by prominent horological blogger Ariel Adam on Ablogtoread.com.

Mr. Wilson turned his passion for building custom watches into a small part-time business. Being himself a NWACC members, this watch builder relies upon the mentoring of a certified master watchmaker, the assistance of a certified watchmaker trained at the Paris School of Horology, and a network of trusted vendors.

Here is one of his earlier projects, which involved fitting a vintage Hamilton pocket watch movement into a modern stainless steel case:

Besides acquiring and refurbishing a stock of brand new Yantar watches, OCEAN7 will carry on the flame of the Yantar design. For trade mark reasons OCEAN7 can no longer use the trade mark Yantar, so they have instead registered the brand AirNautic, which was the name of the Yantar collection.

The particularity of the AirNautic design is the division of the dial in 24 hours. But unlike most 24h watches which start the day at 0° (“12 at the bottom“), the AirNautic starts the day at 180° (“12 at the top”) like on the Greenwich clock.

Irrelevant of the angle (0° or 180°), a 24 dial draws direct inspiration from the gnomon, one of the earliest method of keeping track of time. The “clockwise” direction of analog hands was initially meant to mimick the rotation of the Sun across the sky (or shadow around the gnomon).

It seems that OCEAN7 plans to use the name AirNautic for each one of its 24h dial watches.

Having had a very humble start with a Chinese-made chronograph based on a Chinese Valjoux 7750 clone, Prometheus has moved to Swiss quality with its second collection, a diving watch with inner rotating bezel.

The young brand is now taking orders for its third collection, the Recon 5. The watch draws inspiration from WWII German aviator timepieces, and it seems particular attention has been given to keeping the dial clean and light.

The founder is very keen on listening to forumers opinions, so the second and third collections have been designed with inputs and suggestions from collectors.

LÜM-TEC has made its specialty to sell watches with particularly bright varieties of photoluminescent watches using strontium aluminate-based coatings.

The brand features some designs inspired by aviation, but it is refreshing to see that they walk the extra mile and come up with original designs.

LÜM-TEC also uses out-of-the-ordinary movements, like the twin barrel vintage Russian movement of the C series or the Time Module NH25, a Seiko automatic caliber with rotor winding in both directions.

Watch collectors have been allowed to pre-order the upcoming limited Tungsten M series, which is the World’s very first automatic watch with tungsten case. Tungsten has an extremely high hardness and low ductility, which makes it extremely difficult to fabricate. It is not as scratch-proof as the tungstene carbide compound, but it still has a much harder surface than stainless steel.

Editor tLex of OceanicTime has exclusive footage of LÜM-TEC’s iupcoming original diving watch design. Check out the OceanicTime article for details and exclusive renderings.