Making a Watch by Hand Is Far Crazier Than It Sounds

Many fine mechanical watches are handmade to some extent. Expert craftsmen build delicate components into a tiny, ingenious machine, and artisans paint, carve, apply, and polish the elements you see on the outside. But Stephen Forsey of the esteemed Swiss brand Greubel Forsey says his Hand Made 1 timepiece is 95% crafted by hand-operated tools. It’s an extraordinary claim, especially for a watch that includes a tourbillon—a challenging, always-moving complication that helps ward off gravity’s effects on timekeeping. “It’s easier for me to tell you what we didn’t handmake than what we did,” Forsey says: only the sapphire crystal, mainspring, case gaskets, spring bars, and jewels.

• Bovet 1822, an almost 200-year-old Swiss watchmaker, specializes in beautiful hand-painted or -enameled dials with designs from nature and fantasy. Each of its luminescent Château de Môtiers 40 “Butterfly” watches costs $52,000.