Advertise on podcast: Times Ticking Watch Talk

It begins with a single object on a workbench: a century-old American pocket watch movement, heavy in the hand, its bridges worn smooth by decades of winding, still ticking despite having outlived the factory and the industry that produced it, and when R.T. Custer encountered watches like this, he understood something most modern brands never stop to consider—that these were not antiques meant for admiration, but machines in danger of disappearing, and in 2013 that realization led to the founding of Vortic Watch Company in Fort Collins, Colorado, not to recreate the look of American watchmaking, but to preserve its physical reality before it vanished entirely.

On May 27, 2026, Swatch did what many collectors believed it never would. The company announced a collaboration with Audemars Piguet, unveiling the Bioceramic Royal Oak collection and sending shockwaves through the watch world.

The problem with time is not that it moves too quickly, but that it refuses to wait while you’re driving. Long before dashboards glowed with digital certainty and cars whispered instructions back at their owners, checking the hour came with a choice: loosen your grip on the wheel or ignore time altogether. Early motorists drove exposed to wind, dust, vibration, and risk, hands fixed at ten and two, eyes forward, bodies braced against motion. In that world, the traditionally upright wristwatch made little sense. Time, if it was going to be useful, needed to turn toward the driver.

If you’ve ever held a fine mechanical watch and felt a strange sense of confidence radiating from it - something steady, self-assured, almost alive - that feeling often traces back to four letters: COSC. Those letters don’t simply mark a certification; they represent one of watchmaking’s most enduring obsessions: the pursuit of pure, uncompromising accuracy.

Devon watches didn’t emerge from the slow, methodical traditions of Swiss horology; they were sparked in California, where designer Scott Devon looked at the quiet world of ticking gears and wondered why time couldn’t be put on display—why it couldn’t move in a way people could actually watch. Instead of hiring master watchmakers, he gathered aerospace engineers, people accustomed to designing machines that survive pressure, speed, and the unforgiving logic of physics. Their assignment wasn’t to refine an old idea; it was to dismantle the assumptions behind it. What they created wasn’t a reinterpretation of timekeeping—it was a complete reinvention, built on the belief that the mechanics of time shouldn’t hide behind a dial but should take center stage. From that vision grew a philosophy rooted in transparency, daring design, and the simple refusal to let time remain invisible.

Most visitors to the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum arrive expecting spectacle - silver jets, roaring engines, spacecraft that carried human beings into the void. That’s why the small Hampden pocket watch sitting quietly behind glass is so disarming. It doesn’t glow, spin, or hover. It’s just a modest American timekeeper, a warm yellow-gold case worn smooth by life in a working man’s pocket. And yet, against all expectation, this little watch was there - actually there - on the day humanity left the ground for the first time. It rode in Orville Wright’s coat, ticking steadily as the world shifted beneath him.

In the shadow of the Jura Mountains, where the rhythmic clatter of tools met the steady tick of gears, two brothers—Adolf and Alfred Kurth—began a journey that would quietly shape the future of Swiss watchmaking. It was 1888 in Grenchen, Switzerland, and the Kurths, working from a small workshop behind their home, built timepieces not for prestige, but for permanence. Their focus was precision, their philosophy endurance—and from those humble beginnings, Certina was born.

When most people think of fine watchmaking, their minds go straight to Switzerland. Geneva, the Vallée de Joux — all the familiar names. But before the Swiss rose to global dominance, it was Britain that laid down many of the foundations of modern horology. From life-saving chronometers that kept sailors safe at sea to innovations still ticking inside today’s wristwatches, British watchmakers quietly shaped the way the world measures time. And while much of that story has been overshadowed, it remains one of the most fascinating chapters in watchmaking history.

Watches speak, though not always in words. Sometimes their voice is a whisper written across a dial—sun-faded paint softening into cream, lume turning to golden honey, tiny freckles scattered like constellations across the surface. This slow transformation is patina, and it’s the poetry of time made visible. No factory finish can imitate it, no restoration can reproduce it. It takes decades to write, and every line tells a story.

Accutron had a problem. The technology that made the brand famous no longer existed.Imagine reviving Ford without the V8, Gibson without the guitar, or Harley-Davidson without the motorcycle. That’s essentially the challenge Accutron faced. The humming tuning fork that powered the original Accutron watches had disappeared from production decades ago. Collectors loved it, repair shops still serviced it, and vintage Spaceviews and Astronauts remained highly sought after. Yet the movement that built the brand belonged to another era.

The Blancpain Fifty Fathoms didn’t come from a marketing meeting or a luxury showcase; it was born underwater, in the dangerous infancy of scuba diving. In the early 1950s, the sport was more experiment than discipline, and Jean-Jacques Fiechter, Blancpain’s young CEO, learned that the hard way. One dive nearly cost him his life when he lost track of time beneath the surface. Gasping on the surface, he realized divers needed more than nerve and air—they needed a wrist-bound tool built to outwit the ocean.

There’s something quietly haunting about the trench watch. It sits on the wrist, often with a yellowed dial and worn leather strap, carrying scars of both time and battle. To some, it looks like an in-between artifact—no longer a pocket watch, not yet the refined wristwatch that would dominate later decades. But that’s exactly where its beauty lies: in being the transitional object born out of necessity, courage, and the chaos of a world at war.

With a Baume & Mercier watch, you have both a finely tuned instrument of timekeeping and a story. And not just any story. This is one shaped by the grace of French design and the exacting standards of Swiss watchmaking.You may have seen the brand’s name at your favorite retailer or on the wrist of a collector, but understanding what sets Baume & Mercier apart starts with exploring its dual heritage. It’s this blend that gives the brand its unmistakable character of timelessness and understated confidence.

For over a century, one quiet Swiss brand helped power railroads, military divers, and even Soviet watchmaking—yet most people have never heard its name. This is the story of Cortébert, the forgotten giant hiding in plain sight.

Long before Rolex made the self-winding watch famous, an English repairer named John Harwood solved a problem born in the trenches of World War I, creating a crownless watch that could wind itself through motion alone. This is the forgotten story of the invention that reshaped modern timekeeping.