Newcomers come to the fore.

The example shown by outstanding independent watchmakers has really caught on, largely spearheaded by the genre's trailblazers George Daniels and Philippe Dufour, and bolstered by the arrival of remarkable watchmakers in the 2000s and 2010s.

While the market for collector's watches rejected overly adventurous and unjustifiably ambitious projects after the mid-2010s, there are still enough opportunities out there for watchmakers taking their first steps going it alone on their career paths. As a consequence, newcomers pop up almost every month — even in far-flung corners of the world, like down under in Australia.

Canberra-based Reuben Schoots is an avid follower of George Daniels and Abraham-Louis Breguet, in 2023, he made a six-piece limited edition called Series One, presumably based on an Eta/Unitas 6498 movement — a widely available caliber an aspiring watchmaker can easily turn their hand to.

It has a steel case with a classic design, interesting blued hands and an unusual textured dial. The watchmaker himself describes it as a "scraped finish" rendered using some strange tool which once belonged to his grandfather. The watch also houses a competently modified movement. It all looks like a very promising start.

This is especially true given the fact that the watchmaker has cemented his initial success with the announcement of Series Two. All of its components — from the case and dial to the movement — appear to have been leveled up significantly.

This watch is sure to be met with even more enthusiasm from this watchmaker's fans, who are growing in numbers almost by the day if his followers on Instagram are anything to go by.

A similar career is unfolding for Swiss watchmaker Raúl Pagès. Maybe it's a bit of a stretch to categorize Pagès as a newcomer, seeing as he began his career as an indie watchmaker back in 2012, but the most notable event in his career took place very recently (more on this to come).

Raúl Pagès' journey as an independent watchmaker got off to a disappointingly slow start. After his first appearance in Baselworld with his Automaton Tortoise, he disappeared for a number of years. Pagès appears to have spent these years earning a living by restoring timepieces — his primary day job.

In 2016, he presented his new project, this time it was a wristwatch called Soberly Onyx, which really reminds you of the Series One by Reuben Schoots, although Pagès obviously made his watch much earlier than Reuben Schoots. True, the starting point for this project was an industrial caliber from the Cyma watchmaking company, but Pagès reworked it almost beyond recognition, and he did an excellent job!

At the start of 2022, and following another lengthy break, Pagès announced his new development: the RP1 Régulateur à Détente watch with his own version of a detent escapement adapted for wristwatches.

This should be acknowledged as a great call, because the detent escapement invented for non-stationary timepieces, mainly marine clocks and pocket chronometers, has a strong reputation for ensuring the most accurate timekeeping.

Its only real drawback is that it isn't suitable for wristwatches due to their exposure to knocks and shocks, which can lead the movement to malfunction or stop by accidentally lifting the detent and releasing the locking pallet stone from the escapement. 

Raúl Pagès offered his solution to this problem in the form of a third notched safety roller on the balance shaft, which is reminiscent of the version of the detent escapement developed by the manufacturer Chronode for the contemporary brand Urban Jürgensen.

 Moreover, both of these versions build on the shock-resistant construction of the detent escapement patented in 1891 by Emile James. In any case, Raúl Pagès' third attempt deserves to be hailed a terrific success.

The RP1 Régulateur à Détente was the watch that won him the Louis Vuitton Watch Prize for Creative Independents, organized by Louis Vuitton in 2023. Many independents were vying for this prize, and Raúl Pagès was competing with finalists Simon Brette, Petermann Bédat, Andreas Strehler, and John-Mikaël Flaux.

Théo Auffret is an independent watchmaker from Paris who we highlighted in our review in 2020. Since then, Auffret has continued to hone his first development introduced in 2019 — the Tourbillon à Paris model. His Tourbillon Grand Sport watch made in 2022 shares many traits with the Tourbillon à Paris, but it's a completely different watch in spirit and style.

We need to start with the fact that, as its name suggests, this is a sports watch. It was given a 41-mm case, an openworked dial with a minute track on its sapphire plate over a movement with far more complicated architecture. But it's still the same base caliber.

For instance, the caseback side of the watch has undergone minimal changes, and what's particularly noteworthy is that the watchmaker has used the decorative "charbonnage" coal finishing again for the bridges, which gives them a mottled, iridescent, and cloudy texture. This appears to be becoming even more popular.

The watch movement has been made more complicated with an extra indication for mainspring tension, or a torque reserve indication — a power reserve indication of sorts. Apart from that, the watchmaker has abandoned the "regulator" dial, fitting hour and minute hands in the center, which are more appropriate for a sports watch.

Yosuke Sekiguchi has a very interesting story — an up-and-coming Japanese indie watchmaker who works in Switzerland's Le Locle. His resume includes stints at the companies Christophe Claret and La Joux-Perret, although at some point he realized that he was more interested in pursuing his own career, and decided to go it alone.

In 2020, he founded his own brand with the aim of creating high-quality watches that are directly inspired by the history of watchmaking. His idea materialized in 2022, when the Primevère watch saw the light of day. On the dial side, it looks like a perfectly standard classic model with an enamel dial, styled on pocket-watch dials from the 19th century.

The opposite side with its exhibition caseback shows that this stylization runs a lot deeper than other modern vintage-style wristwatches. That's because the watch movement, which Mr. Sekiguchi made from scratch, is a careful reproduction of an antique pocket-watch caliber.

And we even know exactly how he did it: the movement which served as the historical inspiration for the prototype was a Jules Jürgensen pocket-watch caliber from 1871, which Yosuke Sekiguchi restored in order to re-case the movement in a marriage watch shortly before starting his project.

Our review of newcomers wraps up with the independent watchmaker Felipe Pikullik from Berlin. His watchmaking career began as a student at the watchmaking school in Glashütte, and continued at A.  Lange & Söhne, before he finally arrived at the idea of creating watches in his own name, primarily by hand.

He established his workshop in 2017, and began making highly decorated watches based on Eta/Unitas 6497/8 calibers — a real workhorse for aspiring independent watchmakers. The appeal of his watches lies in their fine decorative finishes, which are noticeable on all the components in his watches, especially his dials and movements.

He takes serially produced Eta/Unitas 6497/8 calibers, and turns them into true masterpieces with skeletonized bridges (the ZBM1 model), or fully skeletonized movements (the FPSK Skeleton model from 2022), with refined final finishings, beautifully polished bevels and numerous inner corners, which makes them particularly appealing.

Engraving dials and movements are his other strong points, which is impressively showcased in watches from the ZBM1 series and the HTH "Homage to Harrison". On Pikullik's Sternenhimmel watch, he tops the semi-skeletonized and engraved movement off with an aventurine dial.

By 2023, Felipe Pikullik had already gained enough experience to take on the challenge of a significant caliber modification — he built his spherical moon-phase display into it, positioning it between the bridges. This creates a mesmerizing view on the caseback side of the Mondphase 1 watch.

Pikullik also openworked the gear train for the spherical moon on the dial side, which makes it possible to enjoy watching the indication jump forward once a day. The movement hasn't been equipped with a quick-set feature to adjust this indication.

So the watch owner can look forward to the captivating experience of adjusting the moon phase by moving the hour hand over midnight, bringing it back, and repeating the procedure until the moon on the dial reaches in the correct position. The main thing is not to forget to keep an eye on the gear train in the process, and enjoy the moments when the indication jumps.

Previosly (part I) (part II) (part III)

Credits takein from: www.reubenschoots.com, www.pageswatches.com, www.auffret-paris.com, www.yosuke-sekiguchi.com, www.felipe-pikullik.de