DEPLOYANT - Luxury watch reviews & horological lifestyles - Luxury watch reviews & horological lifestyles
Over the last few decades, German watches have experienced a renaissance. The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 was the catalyst. Prior to the period, German watches were relatively low profile. Many of the manufacturers were behind the Iron Curtain, making utilitarian watches for the Communist public. While those in West Germany, like Junghans fell victims to the quartz revolution as with their Swiss brethren. The Swiss revived the industry in the late 1970s, led by Nicholas G. Hayek of Swatch and the others who followed transforming them into luxury products. The Germans did not respond. Those in East Germany remained shielded from world affairs and economics and continued on their way. And those in West Germany simply did not respond or just disappeared. The few who remained in business did so with Swiss movements and knowhow.
Following the reunification of Germany in 1989, there was a flurry of activities in the region. In a nutshell, Glashütte Uhrenbetrieb (GUB) which was the conglomeration of all watchmaking companies in the Glashütte area was still in operation making utility watches. Günter Blümlein, Chairman of Les Manufactures Horlogères had just partnered Walter Lange, the Great Grandson of Ferdinand A. Lange who had started the watchmaking industry in Glashütte in the 1850s. He had, by then retired and living in recluse in Pforzheim. They returned to Glashütte and successfully negotiated the rights to the name A. Lange and Söhne. Later, German industrialist Heinz Pfeifer bought GUB together all the rights to all the other Glashütte watchmaking names, and renamed it Glashütte Original. Lange became part of the package in the sale of LMH to Richemont Luxury Group in 2001, and remain within their stables. And Glashütte Original was sold to the Swatch Group where they remain today. For some reason the name Moritz Grossmann was left un-registered, and was later registered by Christine Hutter in 2008.
Before we begin, we feel that it’ll be good to understand more about the German watch industry, in the essential reading that we have highlighted below. This will give you a better insight on both the Swiss and German watch industry, especially since the author is an insider with both A. Lange & Söhne and Glashütte Original.
Essential Reading: The Insider View: Swiss or German? Who Makes The Best Watches?
NOMOS Tetra neomatik
The new Nomos Tetra neomatik, with two different dial variants.
We begin with one of the up-and-coming watch manufacturer from Germany: NOMOS.
While NOMOS was established in 1990, but its rise to prominence only happened in the last few years. This was after the company decided to produce their own in-house movement in 2005. What really attracts the collectors are two factors: its excellent value based pricing, and the clean Bauhaus-inspired design.
This is perhaps encapsulated by one of their novelties in this year’s Baselworld, the Tetra neomatik. The Tetra is not a new model, but it now comes with some upgrades. This includes a larger square case (at 33mm), as well as the use of the in-house automatic DUW3001 movement. The movement was first featured in the inaugural series of the [...]
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