![\"Screwed](\"/journal/img/balance-wheel-hairspring-pocket-watch.jpg\")
The escapement gets the attention, but it does not keep time. It only keeps something else going. The part that actually measures time in a mechanical watch is a small wheel and a coiled spring: the balance and the hairspring. Together they are the watch's heartbeat, and almost everything a watchmaker does during regulation is about making that heartbeat steady.
\nPicture a small wheel on an axle, with a flat spiral spring fixed to the axle at the inner end and to the watch frame at the outer end. Turn the wheel a little and the spring coils tighter and pulls it back. Let go, and the wheel swings past its rest point, the spring uncoils and pushes it back the other way. Left alone, it swings back and forth like a pendulum lying on its side.
\nEach swing takes the same time, set by just two things: how heavy the wheel is and where that weight sits (its inertia), and how stiff the spring is. A heavier rim, or weight further from the centre, slows it down. A stiffer spring speeds it up. That is all regulation is: adjusting one or the other.
\nThe balance spring arrived in the 1670s. Robert Hooke and Christiaan Huygens both claimed it. Hooke probably had the idea first, and Huygens built the first working watch with one. It made watches dramatically better almost overnight, from errors of many minutes a day to a few.
\nWatch people talk about frequency in vibrations per hour. One vibration is a single swing in one direction, so two vibrations make a full back-and-forth oscillation. Common figures are 18,000, 21,600, 28,800 and 36,000 vibrations per hour, or 2.5, 3, 4 and 5 Hz. A faster balance is harder to disturb with a knock or a twist of the wrist, but it uses more energy and wears its oil faster. Most modern watches settle on 28,800 or 21,600.
\n\"Isochronous\" means \"equal time\". For a balance, it means each swing takes the same time whether the swing is big or small.
\nThat matters because the push the balance gets is never perfectly constant. The mainspring pushes harder when fully wound than when nearly run down. Oil thickens as it ages. Wearing the watch, setting it down, and the position it lies in all change how much energy reaches the balance. If the balance's timing depended on how far it swung, every one of those changes would show up as gained or lost seconds.
\nIn theory, a perfect spring that obeys Hooke's law, with a pull exactly proportional to how far it is wound up, gives perfect isochronism. Real springs and real watches fall short in a few ways. A plain flat spiral does not breathe evenly. As it opens and closes, its coils bunch up on one side, pushing the balance pivots sideways and changing the timing slightly. The escapement disturbs the balance a little every time it unlocks and gives impulse. And the regulator pins that adjust most watches grip the spring with a tiny bit of play.
\nWatchmakers have spent three centuries chipping away at this. The best-known fix is the overcoil, which Abraham-Louis Breguet introduced around 1795. The outer end of the spring is raised above the rest of the coils and bent back towards the centre, so the spring opens and closes evenly around its axis. Later, Édouard Phillips worked out the mathematics of the curve. Chronometer makers went further and used helical springs, coiled like a cylinder, for the same reason.
\nAmplitude is how far the balance swings from its rest position, measured in degrees. Put a watch on a timegrapher and amplitude is one of the three numbers you get, along with rate and beat error.
\nAs a rough guide, a healthy modern watch, fully wound and lying dial up, shows somewhere around 270 to 310 degrees. Hanging crown down, a bit less. After a day off the wrist, a bit less again. Those figures vary between movements, so watchmakers compare against what that particular calibre should do.
\nAmplitude matters for three reasons.
\nFirst, it is a health check. A balance swings wide when energy flows freely from mainspring to escapement. Low amplitude usually means something is soaking up that energy: dried oil, a worn pivot, a weak mainspring, dirt in the train. Amplitude that drops sharply once the watch is turned on its side often points at a pivot or jewel problem.
\nSecond, it is linked to isochronism. Because no balance is perfectly isochronous, the rate drifts as amplitude changes. A watch that holds a steady amplitude across its power reserve and through different positions will keep steadier time.
\nThird, too much is bad as well. If the balance swings so far that the impulse pin comes round and strikes the outside of the fork, the watch \"knocks\", or rebanks. It gains time suddenly, and the knock can be heard and seen on a timegrapher. It is rare in a healthy watch but can happen with an overly strong mainspring.
\nA steel hairspring gets weaker as it warms up, so early watches ran slow in summer. For a century and a half the answer was the split bimetallic balance, like the one at the top of this page, whose rim curls inward as it warms to make up the difference. Early in the twentieth century Charles-Édouard Guillaume developed nickel-steel alloys, including Elinvar, whose stiffness hardly changes with temperature. Guillaume won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1920 for this work on alloys. Modern hairsprings use descendants of those alloys, or silicon, which also resists magnetism.
\nWhen a customer says their watch \"runs fast\", the first thing a watchmaker looks at is often not the rate but the amplitude. A good rate with poor amplitude is a watch that happens to be right today. A good amplitude with a poor rate is usually a five-minute adjustment. Regulation only works on a balance that has a healthy swing to begin with.
\n![\"Macro](\"/journal/img/g/thumb-hairspring-and-human-hair.jpg\")
![\"Balance](\"/journal/img/g/thumb-alarm-clock-balance-regulator.jpg\")
![\"Row](\"/journal/img/g/thumb-balance-spring-types-britten.png\")
![\"Eighteenth-century](\"/journal/img/g/thumb-balance-wheel-berthoud.png\")
![\"Macro](\"/journal/img/g/hairspring-and-human-hair.jpg\")
A hairspring next to a human hair. The spring's strip is thinner still. Photo: Sandbachfizzy · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
![\"Balance](\"/journal/img/g/alarm-clock-balance-regulator.jpg\")
The balance of a 1950s alarm clock. Arrow 1 marks the hairspring, arrow 2 the regulator that shortens or lengthens it. Photo: Chris Burks (Chetvorno) · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
![\"Row](\"/journal/img/g/balance-spring-types-britten.png\")
Balance spring types from Britten's handbook, including the flat spiral, the overcoil and the helical chronometer spring. Engraving: F. J. Britten and H. L. Nelthropp · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
![\"Eighteenth-century](\"/journal/img/g/balance-wheel-berthoud.png\")
An early watch balance and spring, engraved for Ferdinand Berthoud in the eighteenth century. Engraving: Ferdinand Berthoud · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
![\"A](\"/journal/img/blancpain-lady-b.jpg\")
In 1956 Blancpain made the Ladybird, a tiny women's watch that fitted a mechanical movement into a case smaller than most people thought possible. The company was led then by Betty Fiechter, the first woman to run a Swiss watch house. Seventy years later, Blancpain is marking the anniversary with the Lady B.
\nThe Lady B isn't a copy of the original. It's a round ball of a watch, 19 mm across and 13.2 mm tall, with a total volume of just 2.9 cubic centimetres. There are no lugs: the strap passes right through the case, and it's a long calf-leather strap that wraps twice around the wrist. It comes in stainless steel or 18k red gold and is water resistant to 30 metres.
\nInside is Blancpain's automatic calibre 615, one of the smallest round automatic movements in production today. It is 15.7 mm across, beats at 3 Hz, has a silicon balance spring and runs for 38 hours. The original Ladybird was hand-wound, so the new one is a little bigger but winds itself.
\nBecause the strap runs through the case, there is no display back.
\nSmall movements are hard work. Everything is scaled down except your hands and tools, so screws, springs and jewels get harder to handle, and any dust or a stray hair matters more. An automatic movement this small also needs a rotor that can wind it with very little mass. That's why tiny mechanical watches have always been a test of a maker's skill, and why the Ladybird mattered in 1956.
\nThe Lady B is not a limited edition. It went on sale on 17 September 2026, priced by Blancpain at CHF 9,500 in steel and CHF 14,500 in red gold.
\n![\"Two](\"/journal/img/g/thumb-blancpain-lb-straps.jpg\")
![\"Lady](\"/journal/img/g/thumb-blancpain-lb-pair.jpg\")
![\"A](\"/journal/img/g/thumb-blancpain-lb-bench.jpg\")
![\"A](\"/journal/img/g/thumb-blancpain-lb-sphere.jpg\")
| Reference / edition | |
|---|---|
| Reference | 0064 |
| Edition | Not a limited edition |
| Case | |
| Material | Polished stainless steel or 18K red gold |
| Diameter | 19.00 mm |
| Thickness | 13.20 mm |
| Volume | 2.9 cm³ |
| Water resistance | 30 m |
| Construction | Two-part case with integrated strap passage |
| Dial | |
| Dial | Opaline |
| Hands | Hours and minutes; gold applied polished sticks (red gold or grey gold) |
| Movement | |
| Calibre | Blancpain Manufacture 615 |
| Type | Automatic |
| Diameter / thickness | 15.70 mm / 3.90 mm |
| Frequency | 21,600 alternations/h (3 Hz) |
| Jewels | 29 |
| Power reserve | 38 hours |
| Components | 180 |
| Details | Silicon balance spring; Côtes de Genève |
| Strap | |
| Strap | Double-tour calf leather, 10 mm, pin buckle; white, beige, mocha, burgundy, blue, coral or purple |
| Price | |
| Price | CHF 9,500 (steel) / CHF 14,500 (red gold) |
| Availability | |
| Availability | From 17 September 2026, Blancpain boutiques and authorised retailers |
Specifications per brand: Blancpain Lady B press release (September 2026).
![\"Hand-coloured](\"/journal/img/breguet-tourbillon-patent-drawing-1801.jpg\")
On 26 June 1801 the French Republic granted Abraham-Louis Breguet a ten-year patent for what he called a \"tourbillon regulator\". France was still using the revolutionary calendar, so the paperwork is dated 7 Messidor, Year IX. Two and a quarter centuries later the word \"tourbillon\" sells some of the most expensive wristwatches in the world. It helps to go back to the patent and see what problem Breguet was really trying to solve.
\nBreguet was born in Neuchâtel in 1747. His father died when he was ten, and his stepfather came from a family of watchmakers with a showroom in Paris. At 15 he was sent to an apprenticeship near Versailles, and he took evening classes in mathematics in Paris. By the 1780s he had his own workshop on the Quai de l'Horloge and a clientele that included the French court.
\nHe was not just a fine maker. He was a working inventor. The self-winding \"perpétuelle\", the pare-chute shock protection for the balance pivots, and the raised overcoil hairspring that still carries his name all came out of his workshop. He was also a close friend of the London chronometer maker John Arnold, and the two families were close: Arnold's son, John Roger, spent time in Breguet's Paris workshop.
\nIn 1800 a good watch lived in a waistcoat pocket, and it spent most of the day upright, crown up. That matters, because the balance wheel at the heart of a watch is never perfectly balanced. If one side is a hair heavier, gravity pulls on it as it swings. With the watch lying flat that has little effect. With the watch vertical, the heavy spot speeds up or slows down each swing, depending on where it sits. On top of that, the hairspring sags slightly under its own weight. Watchmakers call these position errors, and in a pocket watch they were stubborn.
\nYou can fight them by poising the balance more and more carefully, and good makers did. Breguet's idea was different. Instead of trying to remove the errors, average them out.
\nIn a tourbillon the balance, hairspring, pallet lever and escape wheel are all mounted in a light cage, called the carriage. The carriage itself turns, usually once a minute. The fourth wheel of the train, which would normally drive the escape wheel directly, is fixed in place. The escape pinion, carried around by the cage, rolls around this fixed wheel. As the cage turns, the escapement keeps working inside it, and the drive to turn the cage and to keep the balance going comes through the same path.
\nThe effect is that the heavy spot on the balance, and the sag in the hairspring, no longer stay in one place relative to gravity. Over each turn of the cage they point every way in turn, and the fast and slow errors largely cancel out. The watch still has errors, but they are averaged over a minute instead of piling up.
\nBreguet's own words to the Minister of the Interior, quoted by his company's historians, were that the invention cancelled the anomalies caused by the different positions of the regulator. The 1806 national exhibition in Paris described it as a mechanism that kept a watch equally accurate whatever its vertical or tilted position. Neither source talks about beauty or spectacle. This was meant to be a practical fix for watches carried upright.
\nThe paperwork took time. Breguet submitted his full technical file, with a hand-coloured plate (the drawing at the top of this page), on 24 December 1800. The patent came through six months later, signed off by the interior minister Jean-Antoine Chaptal.
\nMaking the thing work took longer. A tourbillon carriage has to be very light, because the escapement has to start and stop all that extra mass many times a second. Breguet built experimental pieces first, and the first tourbillon watch was not sold until 1805. According to the company's records, only 35 were sold before his death in 1823. They went to collectors, a bishop, the Spanish Bourbons and the future George IV of England.
\nThe most moving early tourbillon is in London. Around 1774 John Arnold made a pocket chronometer, his No. 11. Arnold died in 1799, and the watch seems to have come to Paris with his son, John Roger Arnold. Between 1808 and 1809 Breguet's workshop rebuilt it around a tourbillon, using a different detent escapement, and in August 1809 Breguet gave it to John Roger.
\nThe British Museum holds the piece today. An inscribed plate on the movement calls it Breguet's first tourbillon regulator combined with one of Arnold's first works, offered to his son as a homage to Arnold's memory. The museum's records show that 14 craftsmen were paid for the conversion, a reminder that even in 1808 a tourbillon was a team effort.
\nFor a pocket watch that spends its life upright, the tourbillon has a real job to do. A wristwatch moves through every position during the day, which does some of the same averaging by itself, and modern balances and hairsprings are far better made. That is why watchmakers have argued for decades about how much a wristwatch tourbillon actually improves timekeeping. Fewer than a thousand tourbillons are thought to have been made between 1801 and 1945, most of them by specialists, often for observatory trials, where the best did very well.
\nToday the tourbillon is mostly about craft: a cage weighing well under a gram turning once a minute in plain sight. That is a fair thing to celebrate, as long as we remember where it started: a practical man, a real problem, and a patent that said exactly what he hoped his cage would do.
\nAnyone who has serviced a tourbillon learns Breguet's main lesson the hard way: weight is the enemy. Every extra milligram in the cage costs amplitude, and amplitude is what keeps a balance steady. The best carriages, then and now, are a lesson in removing metal without losing rigidity.
\n![\"Painted](\"/journal/img/g/thumb-abraham-louis-breguet-portrait-c1810.jpg\")
![\"Close-up](\"/journal/img/g/thumb-tourbillon-carriage-closeup.jpg\")
![\"Line](\"/journal/img/g/thumb-breguet-overcoil-hairspring.jpg\")
![\"Painted](\"/journal/img/g/abraham-louis-breguet-portrait-c1810.jpg\")
Abraham-Louis Breguet, around 1810. Painter unknown. Portrait: unknown painter · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
![\"Close-up](\"/journal/img/g/tourbillon-carriage-closeup.jpg\")
A modern wristwatch tourbillon. The whole cage, with the balance and escapement inside, turns once a minute. Photo: Guy Sie · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
![\"Line](\"/journal/img/g/breguet-overcoil-hairspring.jpg\")
The raised outer coil, or overcoil, another Breguet idea for making the balance behave the same in every position. Drawing: Karel K. · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
![\"A](\"/journal/img/pocket-watch-screw-balance.jpg\")
Fortis's new Novonaut N-42 Halo chronographs will mostly be talked about for their glowing dials. For anyone who works on movements, though, the more interesting news is underneath: an updated calibre, the Werk 17 TR, which drops one of the most familiar parts of a mechanical watch, the regulator.
\nIn the majority of mechanical movements, the rate (whether the watch runs fast or slow) is adjusted with a small lever called the index, or regulator. Two tiny pins at its end hold the outer coil of the hairspring. Move the lever one way and the pins slide along the spring, shortening the part that is free to flex, so the balance swings faster. Move it the other way and the watch slows down.
\nIt's quick and easy, which is why it's everywhere. But it has known weaknesses. A hard knock can nudge the index and change the rate. And because the pins touch the spring, they interfere a little with how it \"breathes\", especially as the amplitude changes.
\nIn a free-sprung movement, nothing touches the hairspring except its two fixed ends. Its active length never changes. To adjust the rate, the watchmaker instead changes the balance wheel: small screws or weights on the rim are turned in or out, which moves mass closer to or further from the centre. It's the same principle as a figure skater pulling in their arms to spin faster. Less inertia means a faster swing, and more inertia a slower one. This is called variable-inertia regulation.
\nAccording to both Fortis and WatchTime, the Werk 17 TR uses exactly this system, with mass screws on the balance rim. The balance is also held by a bridge screwed down at both sides rather than a cock fixed at one end, which Fortis says makes it more resistant to shocks and vibration. The movement is an automatic column-wheel chronograph with day and date, beating at 4 Hz, and its power reserve rises from 60 to 70 hours compared with the earlier Werk 17. Fortis says it developed the calibre family with La Joux-Perret.
\nNone of this is new in principle. Free-sprung balances have long been used in high-end watchmaking. It is rarer in a tool chronograph at this level, which is the point Fortis is making.
\nThe benefit is stability. With no index to drift, the rate you set at the bench is more likely to be the rate you get on the wrist months later.
\nThe cost shows up at service time. With a regulator, a small correction takes seconds: open the caseback, nudge the lever, check the timegrapher. With a free-sprung balance, each adjustment means turning tiny screws on the balance itself, symmetrically so the balance stays in poise, and often removing the balance to do it. That takes more time, better tools and a steadier hand. It's a good example of a design choice that helps the owner and asks more of the watchmaker.
\nNext time you see \"free-sprung\" in a spec sheet, it tells you something concrete. The watch is built to hold its rate over time rather than to be easy to tweak, and whoever services it will need the skills and the patience for it.
\n![\"Close-up](\"/journal/img/g/thumb-fortis-werk17tr.png\")
![\"Three](\"/journal/img/g/thumb-fortis-halo.png\")
| Case | |
|---|---|
| Material | Recycled stainless steel |
| Diameter | 42 mm |
| Height | 15 mm |
| Lug to lug | 51 mm |
| Water resistance | 200 m (20 atm) |
| Crystal | Sapphire, anti-reflective both sides; smoked sapphire case back |
| Bezel | Bidirectional ceramic Sirius bezel with Super-LumiNova® X1 |
| Dial | |
| Dial | Lumicast® X1 base with contrasting black subdials |
| Movement | |
| Calibre | Werk 17 TR, manufacture |
| Type | Automatic |
| Functions | Column-wheel chronograph, day-date |
| Regulation | Variable inertia; two-point balance fixation; chronometer |
| Power reserve | 70 hours |
| Strap | |
| Strap | Hybrid FKM rubber and textile; steel pin buckle |
Specifications per brand: Fortis, Novonaut N-42 TR.
![\"The](\"/journal/img/harrison-h4-movement-greenwich.jpg\")
Latitude was never the hard part. A navigator could measure the height of the sun at noon, check a table, and know roughly how far north or south he was. East and west was another matter. Out of sight of land, ships ran on dead reckoning: speed, heading and hope. On long voyages the errors piled up, and ships ran onto rocks their officers thought were miles away.
\nThe answer, in principle, was simple. The Earth turns 15 degrees every hour. If you know the local time on board (from the sun) and the time at your home port at that same moment, the difference gives you your longitude. The problem was keeping home-port time for weeks on a pitching, damp ship whose temperature swung from the Channel to the tropics. No clock of the early 1700s came close.
\nIn 1714 Parliament passed the Longitude Act. It offered rewards of up to £20,000, a huge sum then, for a practical method of finding longitude at sea, with the top prize reserved for a method good to within half a degree. A Board of Longitude was set up to judge the claims. Most of its members were astronomers, and most of them expected the winner to come from the sky: tables of the moon's motion against the stars, or the eclipses of Jupiter's moons.
\nJohn Harrison was not an astronomer. He was a carpenter from Lincolnshire who had taught himself clockmaking. By the mid-1720s he had built wooden longcase clocks that, according to Royal Museums Greenwich, kept time to about a second a month, far better than anything else of the period. He reasoned that a clock good enough could carry home-port time to sea.
\nHarrison came to London and found support from Edmond Halley, the Astronomer Royal, and from the leading clockmaker George Graham. Back home in Barrow upon Humber, probably with help from his brother James, he built his first sea clock, now called H1. It used two large balances linked so that a ship's rolling could not upset them both at once.
\nIn 1736 H1 went to Lisbon aboard HMS Centurion and came back on the Orford. On the return leg Harrison told the officers that the headland ahead was the Lizard, not Start Point as they believed. He was right; the ship was well off its reckoned course. In 1737 the Board met to consider the clock and agreed to pay Harrison £500, half in advance, so he could build an improved version.
\nThat second clock, H2, never went to sea, because Harrison found a basic flaw in it. He began H3 in 1740 and kept working on it for 19 years. It brought real inventions, including a bimetallic strip to correct for temperature and caged roller bearings, but it never kept time well enough.
\nThe turn came from a much smaller object. In 1753 the watchmaker John Jefferys made a pocket watch to Harrison's design, and it performed so well that Harrison changed direction. At the time nobody considered a watch a serious precision instrument. Harrison started H4 in 1755 and finished it in 1759.
\nH4 looks like an oversized pocket watch in a silver pair case. The museum lists the dial at 102 mm and the whole watch at about 1.45 kg. What makes it different is inside. Its balance is large and fast: H4 ticks five times a second and swings through a wide arc, which makes it far less easily disturbed by the ship's motion than a normal watch of the day. Jewelled pallets, a remontoire that rewinds a small spring every few seconds to keep the drive force even, and temperature compensation all helped.
\nIn November 1761 Harrison's son William sailed with H4 aboard HMS Deptford, bound for Jamaica. On the way out, William used the watch to predict landfall at Madeira earlier than the crew expected, and it duly appeared. The result at Jamaica was well within the Act's limits.
\nThe Board was not satisfied. Its members said the trial had not been rigorous enough, and relations between the Harrisons and the commissioners soured. A second trial was set, this time to Barbados in 1764, with the astronomer Nevil Maskelyne sent ahead to fix the island's longitude by observing Jupiter's moons, so the watch and the astronomical methods could be compared.
\nIn February 1765 the Board confirmed that H4 had kept time within the strictest limits of the 1714 Act. Then it moved the goalposts. Harrison would get £10,000 once he explained how H4 worked, and the rest only when other makers had shown that such watches could be built again. A new Longitude Act made those conditions law in May 1765. The Harrisons felt, with some reason, that the rules had been changed after the game was won.
\nHarrison handed over the secrets. In 1766 H4 went to Maskelyne at the Royal Observatory for ten months of testing in which it did badly, which reopened the quarrel. Meanwhile the watchmaker Larcum Kendall, who had trained under John Jefferys, made a copy, now known as K1. Captain James Cook took K1 on his second and third voyages to the Pacific, and his logs praise it. His charts of the southern Pacific proved remarkably accurate. That was the proof the Board had asked for, even if it never paid out the rest of the prize.
\nHarrison went over the Board's head. With the King's support he petitioned Parliament, and in 1773, at 80, he received £8,750 for his services. Counting the Board's earlier payments and the £10,000 for H4, he had received about £23,000 in all. He died in London on 24 March 1776.
\nH4 did not put a chronometer on every ship. It was a masterpiece, far too costly to build in numbers. Makers such as John Arnold and Thomas Earnshaw spent the next decades simplifying the marine chronometer until, early in the 1800s, it became an ordinary piece of ship's equipment. But Harrison had shown that the answer to the longitude problem could be mechanical. A machine could carry time across an ocean.
\nYou can still see the original H2, H3 and H4, and a replica of H1, at the Royal Observatory Greenwich. The original H1 is in conservation at the museum's collections centre.
\nWhat strikes a watchmaker about H4 is how much of it points forward. The fast, wide-swinging balance is the core idea behind modern precision watches, which still look for a strong amplitude and a high, steady beat. Harrison also understood that the drive force has to be kept even, hence the remontoire. Two and a half centuries later, constant-force mechanisms are still a mark of serious watchmaking.
\n![\"The](\"/journal/img/g/thumb-harrison-h4-dial-nmm.jpg\")
![\"Harrison's](\"/journal/img/g/thumb-harrison-h1-greenwich.jpg\")
![\"Harrison's](\"/journal/img/g/thumb-harrison-h3-greenwich.jpg\")
![\"Eighteenth-century](\"/journal/img/g/thumb-john-harrison-engraving-king.jpg\")
![\"The](\"/journal/img/g/harrison-h4-dial-nmm.jpg\")
H4 from the front. The dial is 102 mm across and the whole watch weighs about 1.45 kg. Photo: Colonel Warden · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
![\"Harrison's](\"/journal/img/g/harrison-h1-greenwich.jpg\")
H1 (1730–35), the first of the sea clocks, with its two linked swinging balances. Photo: Tatters (Flickr) · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
![\"Harrison's](\"/journal/img/g/harrison-h3-greenwich.jpg\")
H3, the clock Harrison worked on for 19 years before deciding the answer was a watch. Photo: Tatters (Flickr) · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
![\"Eighteenth-century](\"/journal/img/g/john-harrison-engraving-king.jpg\")
John Harrison, engraved after the oil portrait by Thomas King. Engraving after Thomas King · CC BY-SA 4.0 (Commons scan) · Wikimedia Commons
Laurent Ferrier is known for quiet, classical watches. The Sport Traveller, shown at Watches and Wonders in April, puts the brand's travel complication into its sports line, with a new movement built for it.
\nThe case is grade 5 titanium, 42 mm across and 13.3 mm thick, with an integrated three-link titanium bracelet and 100 metres of water resistance. The dial is a slate grey opaline, nearly all tone-on-tone. Home time shows at 3 o'clock, the date at 9 and small seconds at 6. The hour markers and Ferrier's signature Assegai-shaped hands are in white gold, filled with green Super-LumiNova.
\nTwo pushers on the left side of the case, at 8 and 10 o'clock, move the local hour hand forward or back one hour at a time. The movement never stops while you do it, so the watch keeps time as you change zones. The home time at 3 o'clock stays put, and the date follows local time.
\nThe new LF275.01 is an automatic with an off-centre micro-rotor in platinum, a heavy metal that winds well even though the rotor is small. It beats at 4 Hz, holds 72 hours of power and is made of 240 parts with 35 jewels.
\nThe interesting choice is the escapement. Laurent Ferrier is known for the natural escapement, a design with no lever pallets, which its earlier travel calibre used. The LF275.01 uses a conventional Swiss lever escapement instead. Hodinkee and Monochrome both read it the same way: a lever escapement is tougher and simpler to service, which suits a watch meant to be worn every day.
\nMany collectors will see the lever escapement as a step back. A watchmaker may see it differently. A natural escapement is lovely, but few people can adjust or service one. A Swiss lever is something any trained watchmaker knows well. For a sports watch that will take knocks and travel, that's a sensible choice.
\nThe Sport Traveller Slate Grey costs CHF 61,000 before tax.
\n| Case | |
|---|---|
| Material | Grade 5 titanium |
| Diameter | 42 mm |
| Water resistance | 100 m (10 ATM, crown screwed) |
| Crystal | Domed sapphire; sapphire case back |
| Crown | Ball-shaped screw crown |
| Correctors | Two pushers (+/−) to adjust local time hour by hour |
| Dial | |
| Dial | Slate grey opaline |
| Indications | Weekday, home hour; apertures at 3 and 9 o'clock |
| Indices | Drop-shaped, 18K white gold 210Pd, green Super-LumiNova |
| Hands | Assegai-shaped 18K white gold with green Super-LumiNova; baton small seconds |
| Movement | |
| Calibre | LF275.01 |
| Type | Self-winding micro-rotor, Swiss lever escapement |
| Functions | Date, home hour, dual time |
| Diameter / thickness | 31.60 mm (14''') / 5.80 mm |
| Frequency | 28,800 vph (4 Hz) |
| Jewels | 35 |
| Power reserve | 72 hours |
| Components | 240 |
| Bracelet | |
| Bracelet | Integrated titanium |
| Price | |
| Price | CHF 61,000 |
Specifications per brand: Laurent Ferrier product page.
![\"Large](\"/journal/img/lever-escapement-working-model.jpg\")
Open the back of almost any mechanical watch and look for the part that is twitching. That is the escapement. Its job is to let the energy of the mainspring out in tiny, equal portions, and to give the balance a small push each time so it keeps swinging. In a modern watch beating at 28,800 vibrations an hour, it does that eight times a second, every second, for years.
\nAlmost all of these watches use the same design: the lever escapement. It was invented in England by Thomas Mudge around 1754, improved by several makers (Breguet among them), and given its familiar form in the early 1800s. Since about 1900 nearly every portable mechanical timekeeper has used one.
\nThere are only three moving pieces to keep track of.
\nThe balance swings one way, the pin flicks the fork across, the lever releases the wheel for one step, the wheel pushes the lever and the lever pushes the balance. Then it all happens again in the opposite direction.
\nStart with the balance swinging freely. One escape wheel tooth is resting on the locking face of one pallet stone. The wheel wants to turn, but it cannot. The lever is held against a fixed stop, the banking pin, and does nothing.
\nThis is the quiet part of the cycle, and the most important one. For most of its swing, the balance is not touching the escapement at all. It is \"detached\", free to move under the control of its hairspring alone. That freedom is the main reason the lever keeps such good time.
\nThe balance swings back towards the centre. Its impulse pin enters the slot in the fork and pushes the lever over. That moves the pallet stone, and the tooth starts to slide off the locking face.
\nUnlocking is the one moment when the balance has to do work for the escapement rather than the other way round. It costs a little energy, so watchmakers want the lock as shallow as safety allows. Too deep, and the balance wastes energy on every beat. Too shallow, and a knock could release the wheel by accident.
\nOnce the tooth slips past the edge of the locking face, the escape wheel is free to push. The tip of the tooth slides along the slanted impulse face of the pallet stone, and with a club tooth, the tooth's own slanted heel shares the work. That forces the lever further over. The fork, still holding the impulse pin, gives the balance a push in the direction it was already going.
\nThis is the only moment in the cycle when the balance gains energy. Everything else is about keeping that push regular: the same size, at the same point of the swing, every time.
\nThe tooth leaves the pallet stone, and for a moment the escape wheel turns with nothing holding it back. It jumps forward a small distance until the next tooth lands on the locking face of the other pallet stone. That free movement is called the drop, and it is the click you hear. The two drops, one per side, make up the familiar tick and tock.
\nDrop is pure loss: the wheel moves but does no useful work. It cannot be zero, because the parts need a little clearance to work at all, but a well-made escapement keeps it small and the same on both sides. When the two sides differ, the watch's beats are uneven. A timegrapher shows this as beat error.
\nHere is the clever bit. The locking faces of the pallet stones are not set square to the escape wheel teeth. They are angled so that the pressure of the tooth pulls the pallet deeper into the wheel. That pull is called draw. Its job is to pull the lever firmly against its banking pin and hold it there while the balance swings free.
\nWithout draw, a jolt to the wrist could nudge the lever across while the impulse pin was away from the fork. The pin would then come back and find the fork on the wrong side, and the watch could stop. Draw, together with a small safety pin or dart on the lever that guards against exactly that, keeps the lever where it should be until the balance comes back for it.
\nThe balance runs out to the end of its swing, the hairspring turns it around, and the whole sequence runs again from the other side: unlock, impulse, drop, lock, draw.
\nEarlier escapements, like the verge or the cylinder, kept the balance in contact with the escapement for most of its swing, so friction and changes in the mainspring's force went straight into the timekeeping. The lever touches the balance only briefly, near the middle of its swing, where a push disturbs its timing least. It also starts by itself: give the watch a shake and it runs. And it can be mass-produced and adjusted with ordinary tools. That mix of accuracy, toughness and practicality is why it saw off nearly every rival.
\nWhen a watchmaker \"checks the escapement\", these are the things being checked: lock depth on both stones, equal drop on both sides, enough draw to snap the lever back to the banking, and enough clearance for the guard pin. Each is a matter of hundredths of a millimetre, adjusted mostly by moving the pallet stones in or out of their slots. Get them right, and the rest of the watch has a chance.
\n![\"Diagram](\"/journal/img/g/thumb-lever-escapement-phase-1.png\")
![\"Diagram](\"/journal/img/g/thumb-lever-escapement-phase-2.png\")
![\"Diagram](\"/journal/img/g/thumb-lever-escapement-phase-3.png\")
![\"Nineteenth-century](\"/journal/img/g/thumb-swiss-lever-escapement-saunier.png\")
![\"Diagram](\"/journal/img/g/lever-escapement-phase-1.png\")
Phase 1: locked. A tooth rests on the locking face of one pallet stone while the balance swings freely. Diagram: Fred the Oyster · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
![\"Diagram](\"/journal/img/g/lever-escapement-phase-2.png\")
Phase 2: unlocking and impulse. The roller jewel swings the lever over, the tooth slips off the locking face and pushes along the impulse face. Diagram: Fred the Oyster · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
![\"Diagram](\"/journal/img/g/lever-escapement-phase-3.png\")
Phase 3: drop and lock. The wheel jumps forward and the next tooth lands on the other pallet. Draw pulls the lever against its stop. Diagram: Fred the Oyster · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
![\"Nineteenth-century](\"/journal/img/g/swiss-lever-escapement-saunier.png\")
The Swiss lever escapement as drawn in Claudius Saunier's nineteenth-century treatise. Engraving: Claudius Saunier · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
![\"Close-up](\"/journal/img/moser-streamliner-alpine-ceramic-hero.jpg\")
H. Moser & Cie. and the Alpine Motorsports team have worked together before, first on a skeleton cylindrical tourbillon and then on editions for the team's drivers and mechanics. Their third watch keeps the openworked look and changes the material: the case is now anthracite grey ceramic.
\nThe Streamliner case keeps its flowing integrated shape, now in ceramic: 40 mm across and 12.8 mm thick, with sapphire on both sides and a screw-down crown. It is water resistant to 120 metres (12 ATM). Instead of a bracelet it has an integrated blue Alcantara strap, the suede-like material that will be familiar from racing-car cabins. It's Moser's second ceramic Streamliner after an earlier tourbillon model with a full dial.
\nThere is no dial as such. What you see is the HMC 814, Moser's automatic skeleton calibre, with its main plate and bridges finished in blue to match Alpine's colours. The barrel at 12 o'clock is openworked, and at 6 o'clock sits a one-minute flying tourbillon with Moser's double hairspring. The hands and indices carry Globolight, a ceramic-based luminous material, to keep it readable against all that blue.
\nThe movement runs at 21,600 vibrations per hour (3 Hz), has 28 jewels and holds at least 72 hours of power.
\nA double hairspring is an unusual fix for an old problem. As a single hairspring breathes, it pulls its centre slightly off-axis. Two springs mounted in opposition cancel much of that out. In a flying tourbillon, held from below with no top bridge, that whole assembly is on show and spinning once a minute. That's a lot of work in plain sight, and it means any mark on a bridge or any dust inside the case shows too.
\nThe watch is a limited edition of 100 pieces.
\n![\"The](\"/journal/img/g/thumb-moser-alpine-tubes.jpg\")
![\"A](\"/journal/img/g/thumb-moser-alpine-cockpit.jpg\")
![\"A](\"/journal/img/g/thumb-moser-alpine-halo.jpg\")
![\"A](\"/journal/img/g/thumb-moser-alpine-helmet.jpg\")
![\"A](\"/journal/img/g/thumb-moser-alpine-driver-portrait.jpg\")
![\"A](\"/journal/img/g/thumb-moser-alpine-wheel.jpg\")
![\"The](\"/journal/img/g/moser-alpine-tubes.jpg\")
Studio shot among curved white tubes. Photo: H. Moser & Cie. / Alpine · press image · Alpine media site
![\"A](\"/journal/img/g/moser-alpine-driver-portrait.jpg\")
An Alpine driver wearing the watch. Photo: H. Moser & Cie. / Alpine · press image · Alpine media site
| Reference / edition | |
|---|---|
| Reference | 6814-2100 |
| Edition | Limited to 100 pieces |
| Case | |
| Material | Anthracite grey ceramic |
| Diameter | 40.0 mm |
| Thickness | 12.8 mm with crystal (11.0 mm without) |
| Water resistance | 12 ATM |
| Crystal | Slightly domed sapphire; sapphire case-back |
| Crown | Screw-in, engraved “M” |
| Dial | |
| Dial | Fully skeletonised |
| Indices and hands | Globolight® indices; hour and minute hands with Globolight® inserts |
| Movement | |
| Calibre | HMC 814, manufacture |
| Type | Self-winding, fully skeletonised |
| Functions | Hours, minutes; one-minute flying tourbillon at 6 o'clock |
| Frequency | 21,600 vib/h (3 Hz) |
| Jewels | 28 |
| Power reserve | Minimum 72 hours |
| Components | 167 |
| Details | Original double hairspring; bi-directional pawl winding; skeletonised oscillating weight; main plate and bridges with blue finish |
| Strap | |
| Strap | Integrated blue Alcantara |
| Price | |
| Price | CHF 79,000 excl. VAT |
Specifications per brand: H. Moser & Cie. / Alpine press release.
![\"Two](\"/journal/img/nomos-tetra-27-white-duo.jpg\")
The fashion for smaller watches has mostly been a story about round cases getting smaller. NOMOS Glashütte has gone a different way and added two models to the Tetra 27, the smallest square watch it makes.
\nBoth new watches use the same steel case, 27.5 mm on each side and 6.1 mm thick. It has a narrow polished bezel and the stepped double lugs that give the Tetra a hint of Art Deco. Water resistance is 50 metres, and you can choose a solid steel back or a sapphire one.
\nThe Tetra 27 white (ref. 402) is the classic version: a white silver-plated dial, temperature-blued hands and a small seconds register. The Tetra 27 duo (ref. 410) leaves out the seconds. It shows hours and minutes only, on a white dial with a pale grey square in the middle and a grey frame around the minute track, so the dial repeats the shape of the case.
\nBoth watches are hand-wound and use NOMOS's own DUW 4001 calibre, in a \"duo\" version for the two-hand model. The movement has the NOMOS swing system, the brand's in-house escapement with its blued hairspring, and runs for about 53 hours on a full wind. With the sapphire back you can see Glashütte ribbing and blued screws.
\nBoth come on a black Horween Shell Cordovan strap. They are part of the permanent collection, not limited editions. In Europe the range starts at EUR 1,660 for the duo with a steel back and goes up to EUR 2,120 for the white with a sapphire back.
\nA hand-wound watch this small leaves very little room inside. It's the kind of watch a watchmaker opens with care, because every part is packed in tightly. NOMOS's point is that a small watch doesn't have to be a lesser one: these use the same in-house movement family as its larger models.
\n![\"Close-up](\"/journal/img/g/thumb-nomos-t27-duo-dial.jpg\")
![\"Close-up](\"/journal/img/g/thumb-nomos-t27-white-dial.jpg\")
![\"Sapphire](\"/journal/img/g/thumb-nomos-t27-caseback.jpg\")
![\"Side](\"/journal/img/g/thumb-nomos-t27-profile.jpg\")
![\"Tetra](\"/journal/img/g/thumb-nomos-t27-duo-wrist.jpg\")
![\"Tetra](\"/journal/img/g/thumb-nomos-t27-white-wrist.jpg\")
![\"Close-up](\"/journal/img/g/nomos-t27-duo-dial.jpg\")
Tetra 27 duo: the grey square echoes the case. Photo: NOMOS Glashütte · press image · NOMOS Glashütte press
![\"Sapphire](\"/journal/img/g/nomos-t27-caseback.jpg\")
Sapphire back with the hand-wound DUW 4001. Photo: NOMOS Glashütte · press image · NOMOS Glashütte press
| Reference / edition | |
|---|---|
| Reference | 402 (Tetra 27 white), 410 (Tetra 27 duo) |
| Edition | Permanent collection |
| Case | |
| Material | Stainless steel, two-part; stainless steel back (sapphire back optional) |
| Size | 27.5 × 27.5 mm |
| Thickness | 6.1 mm |
| Water resistance | Up to 5 atm (splash-proof) |
| Crystal | Sapphire |
| Dial | |
| Tetra 27 white | Galvanised, white silver-plated; small seconds |
| Tetra 27 duo | Galvanised, white and grey silver-plated; hours and minutes |
| Hands | Steel, tempered blue |
| Movement | |
| Calibre | DUW 4001 (white) / DUW 4001 Duo (duo), in-house |
| Type | Manual winding |
| Diameter / height | 10½ lines (23.3 mm) / 2.6 mm |
| Jewels | 17 |
| Power reserve | Up to 53 hours |
| Details | NOMOS swing system, blue balance spring, Glashütte stopwork, three-quarter plate, adjusted in six positions; stop-seconds on the white |
| Strap | |
| Strap | Horween Genuine Shell Cordovan, black; lug width 18 mm |
Specifications per brand: NOMOS Glashütte data sheets (July 2026).
![\"The](\"/journal/img/patek-philippe-museum-geneva.jpg\")
New perpetual calendar chronographs from Patek Philippe do not come along often. Hodinkee counts the new Reference 5978P as only the seventh in the company's history, and the first since the 5270 of 2011. It was unveiled in early October at Patek's Watch Art Grand Exhibition in Milan, as a limited edition of 120 pieces in platinum.
\nThe interesting part isn't the case or the dial. It's how the calendar changes date.
\nThe new hand-wound calibre, the CH 29-535 PS QI, joins two things Patek already made. One is the CH 29-535 PS hand-wound chronograph introduced in 2009. The other is the instantaneous perpetual calendar module used in some of its grand complications. Patek says this is the first time it has combined its manually wound chronograph with an instantaneous perpetual calendar. The movement has 500 parts, runs at 4 Hz (28,800 vibrations per hour) and has a power reserve of 55 to 65 hours with the chronograph off.
\nOn the dial the day, date, month and leap year sit in windows along an arc at the top, with a moon phase and a day/night indicator at six o'clock. The Milan edition prints the calendar in Italian.
\nMost perpetual calendars are progressive. A wheel driven by the going train slowly pushes the date mechanism forward over the course of an hour or two around midnight. It is simple and gentle on the movement, but for a while the date disc sits half-way between two numbers.
\nAn instantaneous calendar works differently. For hours before midnight, the movement slowly tensions a spring or lever, storing energy. At the right moment a release lets go, and every display snaps to its new position at once. In the 5978P the day, date, month and leap year all change together in about 30 milliseconds, according to both Patek and the press who saw it. The chronograph's 30-minute counter jumps in the same way rather than creeping.
\nThat speed has a cost. Storing energy means taking it away from the balance, so the watchmaker has to manage it carefully, or the amplitude, and with it the timekeeping, dips while the spring is being loaded. Then the release has to be fast and reliable without overshooting or damaging the discs. Doing it once a day for one date is hard. Doing it for four displays at once, on a month that might end on the 28th, 29th, 30th or 31st, is why it ends up in grand complications.
\nA perpetual calendar knows the length of every month, including February in leap years. In Patek's description the 5978P needs no date correction until 28 February 2100, as long as it keeps running. That's because 2100 is not a leap year under the Gregorian rules, even though it is divisible by four. Very few mechanical calendars account for that rule, so almost every perpetual calendar made today will need one manual correction in 2100.
\nFor collectors, a new reference in this lineage matters in itself. For anyone interested in how watches work, it's a neat illustration of an old trade-off: smooth and gentle against fast and dramatic. The 5978P chooses dramatic, and puts it in a hand-wound movement you can watch through a sapphire caseback.
\n| Reference / edition | |
|---|---|
| Reference | 5978P-010 |
| Edition | Limited to 120 pieces (Watch Art Milan 2026) |
| Case | |
| Material | Platinum, diamond set at 6 o'clock |
| Diameter | 42 mm |
| Thickness | 14.24 mm |
| Water resistance | 30 m |
| Crystal | Sapphire case back, inscribed “Patek Philippe Milano 2026” |
| Dial | |
| Dial | Sunburst navy blue, black-gradient rim, textured centre |
| Markers / hands | White gold faceted applied batons; white gold dauphine hands with luminescent coating |
| Movement | |
| Calibre | CH 29-535 PS QI |
| Type | Manual winding |
| Functions | Chronograph with instantaneous 30-minute counter; instantaneous perpetual calendar (day, date, month, leap year); day/night; moon phases; small seconds |
| Diameter / thickness | 32 mm / 8.1 mm |
| Frequency | 28,800 semi-oscillations/h (4 Hz) |
| Jewels | 42 |
| Power reserve | 55–65 hours (chronograph disengaged) |
| Components | 500 |
| Strap | |
| Strap | Navy composite with fabric pattern; platinum triple-blade fold-over clasp |
| Price | |
| Price | USD 337,585 (US price on patek.com) |
Specifications per brand: Patek Philippe, ref. 5978P-010.
![\"The](\"/journal/img/ressence-rw-01.png\")
Ressence watches don't have hands. Time is shown by discs that turn inside one another on a domed dial, a system the Antwerp brand calls ROCS. Until now, though, that display sat on top of a separate movement that had to drive it through extra gearing. With the new TYPE 11, Ressence has its own movement, the RW-01, designed from the start to run the ROCS.
\nIn earlier Ressence watches, the display module and the movement were separate units joined together. In the RW-01 they share components and work as one system. Ressence and Monochrome both describe it as fully integrated. The ROCS now turns on titanium ball bearings, which the brand says makes the display tougher and smoother to read.
\nRessence designed the movement itself and worked with a Swiss specialist to develop and build it.
\nMost movements are round. The RW-01 isn't. Its layout is built around three circles: two mainspring barrels and a balance wheel at the centre, which echoes the round shapes on a Ressence dial. The two barrels give a power reserve of 60 hours. The movement beats at 4 Hz (28,800 vibrations per hour) and has 40 jewels and 67 gears.
\nOwners of older Ressence watches know the routine: no crown, and a rotating caseback for winding and setting that had to be turned the right way. The TYPE 11 replaces that with a hinged lever on the caseback, used for both winding and setting. Ressence says the movement no longer has a restricted winding zone, so you can wind it freely.
\nFor a watchmaker, a non-round, integrated movement is a new thing to learn. Parts are shared between the display and the going train, so you can't simply lift a module off and service the base calibre as before. That's the trade-off of integration: the system is more efficient and more solid, but it's also more specific to one brand. Each RW-01 has its own serial number.
\n![\"Three](\"/journal/img/g/thumb-ressence-t11-three.png\")
![\"The](\"/journal/img/g/thumb-ressence-rw01-2.png\")
![\"The](\"/journal/img/g/thumb-ressence-rw01-3.png\")
![\"The](\"/journal/img/g/thumb-ressence-rw01-4.png\")
| Reference / edition | |
|---|---|
| Versions | TYPE 11 L, TYPE 11 P, TYPE 11 S |
| Case | |
| Material | Polished grade 5 titanium, pebble-shaped |
| Diameter | 41 mm |
| Thickness | 11 mm |
| Lug to lug | 45 mm |
| Water resistance | 3 ATM |
| Crystal | Double-domed sapphire, inner anti-reflective coating; caseback viewing window |
| Winding / setting | Caseback lever |
| Dial | |
| Dial | Convex grade 5 titanium ROCS 11.1 with three satellites |
| Power reserve display | Patented, ceramic micro-balls |
| Lume | Grade A Super-LumiNova® in engraved indications |
| Movement | |
| Calibre | Ressence Werk RW-01, in-house, driving ROCS 11.1 |
| Type | Self-winding |
| Functions | Hours, minutes, seconds, power reserve |
| Frequency | 28,800 vib/h (4 Hz) |
| Jewels | 40 |
| Power reserve | 60 hours |
| Components | 439 (67 gears, 18 ball bearings) |
| Strap | |
| Options | Leather, rubber, hybrid or titanium Milanese; pin buckle; 20–18 mm |
| Weight | |
| Weight | 49 g including strap |
| Price | |
| Price | CHF 23,000 excl. taxes |
Specifications per brand: Ressence TYPE 11 press release (March 2026).
![\"White](\"/journal/img/swiss-century-factory-nidau.jpg\")
Every month the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry (FH) publishes the numbers the whole trade watches: the value of watches leaving Switzerland. The August 2026 figures, released in mid-September, looked good at first glance and got more interesting the closer you read them.
\nSwiss watch exports were worth CHF 1,789.2 million in August, up 9.1% on August 2025. Wristwatches, which make up almost all of that, came to CHF 1,704.5 million, up 8.6% in value, on about 1.1 million pieces (+9.5%).
\nTwo caveats come straight from the FH. First, August 2026 had one more working day than August 2025, which flatters any year-on-year comparison. Second, the federation notes that the twelve-month moving average had just moved back into positive territory for the first time in two years. In other words, this is a sign of recovery, not a boom. Over the first eight months of the year exports were up 1.7%.
\nThe United States is still the largest single market, at CHF 197.5 million in August. But that was 19.4% lower than a year earlier, and the FH points out that this happened despite an easy comparison. The trade press has tied the swings in US shipments this year to tariff uncertainty and stock moving earlier or later than usual. The FH's August release itself does not give a reason, so we won't guess one.
\nElsewhere the picture was broadly positive. The United Kingdom was up 46.1%, Japan 22.1%, China 15.8%, Germany 34.0%, Singapore 8.5%, the United Arab Emirates 6.1% and Hong Kong 1.4%. Italy was the big exception, down 40.4%. France showed an extraordinary +113.5%, and the FH itself warns that this may partly be goods passing through France on their way to other EU countries rather than French demand.
\nBy price band, watches under CHF 200 (export price) rose 13.3% and those over CHF 3,000 rose 10.2%. The middle, CHF 500 to 3,000, slipped 0.9%. That fits a pattern seen for a while now: the very top of the market and the entry level are holding up better than the mid-range brands in between.
\nIt helps to know what the FH statistics actually measure, because they are often misread.
\nSo one strong month does not mean the industry has turned the corner, and one weak month in a single country does not mean that market has collapsed. What matters is the trend over several months.
\nThe FH will publish September's figures on 20 October 2026. The questions to watch are whether the US slide continues into the busy end-of-year shipping season, and whether the recovery holds without the help of an extra working day.
\n![\"The](\"/journal/img/motiers-ne-2026.jpg\")
On 9 October 2026, the last lot to grab attention at Phillips' online New York Sessions sale was not a vintage icon from one of the big Geneva houses. It was a stainless steel wristwatch made five years ago by an independent watchmaker with a workshop in Môtiers, in the Val-de-Travers.
\nLot 22, a Voutilainen 28Sport numbered 5 of 8, sold for $1,016,000 including buyer's premium, against an estimate of $120,000 to $240,000. That is more than four times the high estimate. Phillips described it as coming from its original owner with its 2021 certificate, and all 88 lots in the sale found buyers.
\nVoutilainen was born in Finland in 1962 and went independent in 2002, setting up his workshop in Môtiers. His watches are known for very high hand finishing, guilloché dials engraved on old rose-engine machines, and movements made largely in-house. The \"28\" points to his in-house Calibre 28, which first appeared in the Vingt-8 in 2011.
\nOutput is tiny by industry standards: a few dozen watches a year, not thousands. A limited edition of eight in steel is, from a collector's point of view, very scarce.
\nFor most of the twentieth century, steel was the \"everyday\" metal and gold the precious one. Over the last fifteen years or so, that has flipped for certain collectible watches. Steel versions of high-end pieces were often made in smaller numbers, so they tend to be rarer, and collectors now pay accordingly.
\nOn top of that comes the wider rise of independent watchmakers at auction. Names that were known mainly to enthusiasts a decade ago now regularly set results that used to be reserved for the most famous houses. At the same Phillips sale, two F.P. Journe watches also went well over their estimates. Several market reports read the pattern the same way: when a maker produces very few watches and demand keeps growing, auctions are where the pressure shows.
\nAuction prices are real money, but they are a single data point. One buyer and one under-bidder can set a record that no one else would pay. Online timed sales, like this one, can also see sharp jumps in the final minutes. A result like this tells you what two determined collectors thought one specific watch was worth on one day. It does not set a fixed value for every watch the maker has ever made.
\nFor people who love the craft, the interesting part is not the number itself. It is what is being paid for: hours of hand finishing, traditional techniques like guilloché, and the knowledge that a named person made the thing. That is a big shift from a market that, for decades, mostly valued brand names. It suggests that hand skill, the slow, careful kind learned over years at the bench, is being valued again.
\n| Reference / edition | |
|---|---|
| Model | 28Sport Limited Edition |
| Edition | No. 5 of 8 in stainless steel |
| Year | Circa 2021 |
| Case | |
| Material | Stainless steel |
| Diameter | 39 mm |
| Dial | |
| Dial | Onyx centre with blue guilloché hour track |
| Movement | |
| Calibre | Cal. 28, manual winding, 21 jewels |
| Movement no. | 28-272 |
| Strap | |
| Strap | Leather; stainless steel Voutilainen pin buckle |
| Sale | |
| Estimate | USD 120,000–240,000 |
| Sold for | USD 1,016,000 |
Specifications per brand: Phillips, lot 22, The New York Sessions Fall 2026.
![\"Two](\"/journal/img/g/blancpain-lb-straps.jpg\")
![\"Lady](\"/journal/img/g/blancpain-lb-pair.jpg\")
![\"A](\"/journal/img/g/blancpain-lb-bench.jpg\")
![\"A](\"/journal/img/g/blancpain-lb-sphere.jpg\")
![\"Close-up](\"/journal/img/g/fortis-werk17tr.png\")
![\"Three](\"/journal/img/g/fortis-halo.png\")
![\"A](\"/journal/img/g/moser-alpine-cockpit.jpg\")
![\"A](\"/journal/img/g/moser-alpine-halo.jpg\")
![\"A](\"/journal/img/g/moser-alpine-helmet.jpg\")
![\"A](\"/journal/img/g/moser-alpine-wheel.jpg\")
![\"Close-up](\"/journal/img/g/nomos-t27-white-dial.jpg\")
![\"Side](\"/journal/img/g/nomos-t27-profile.jpg\")
![\"Tetra](\"/journal/img/g/nomos-t27-duo-wrist.jpg\")
![\"Tetra](\"/journal/img/g/nomos-t27-white-wrist.jpg\")
![\"Three](\"/journal/img/g/ressence-t11-three.png\")
![\"The](\"/journal/img/g/ressence-rw01-2.png\")
![\"The](\"/journal/img/g/ressence-rw01-3.png\")
![\"The](\"/journal/img/g/ressence-rw01-4.png\")
![Wikimedia Commons](\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pocket_Watch_Balance_Wheel.jpg\"){kind=link}
![Wikimedia Commons](\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Watch_balance_spring_and_human_hair.jpg\"){kind=link}
![Wikimedia Commons](\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alarm_Clock_Balance_Wheel.jpg\"){kind=link}
![Wikimedia Commons](\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Balance_spring_types.png\"){kind=link}
![Wikimedia Commons](\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Balance_Wheel_in_Early_Watch_Berthoud.png\"){kind=link}
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