It's just six months until graduation, and in a bright, clinical classroom, 12 students in crisp white lab coats with round loupes attached to their foreheads and glasses pressed to their noses are sitting on low stools at their work benches. In front of them, under Plexiglas lids that look like miniature cake holders, are tiny disassembled parts, some the size of a grain of salt, others no wider than a human hair. Under the tutelage of a master horologist, the intensely focused individuals are being given a lecture on the Lemania caliber 1873 chronograph, a mechanical timepiece with a 30-minute counter and a small second-hand dial.
It's one of five types of chronographs that by graduation, each of the 12 pupils will be able to take apart, diagnose, handcraft a part for, and repair. The individuals, all second-year students at the Lititz Watch Technicum, are in the final phase of studying what until only recently was considered the dying art of watchmaking.
Launched in 2001 by Rolex USA, the U.S. arm of the venerable 101-year-old Geneva watchmaker, the Lititz Watch Technicum was started in an effort to shore up the shortage of skilled watchmakers in the U.S., which had for decades been on the wane due to the popularity of digital and electronic watches. However, a strong resurgence in mechanical watches in recent years, particularly luxury models, has catapulted demand for horologists, a profession that was not so long ago thought to be going the way of blacksmiths and corset makers.
The End of an Era?
A not-for-profit foundation, the Technicum is fully subsidized by Rolex, which underwrites the $10,000-a-year tuition for all students and helps subsidize the cost of tools, which run about $5,000 per student. "We were facing a situation today where we needed to foster a new generation of watchmakers," says Charles Berthiaume, the senior vice-president for technical operations at Rolex and the Technicum's president "Thirty to 40 years ago, there was a watchmaker at every jewelry store. That's not the case today," he notes. Since opening, the school, which is partnered with the Watchmakers of Switzerland Training and Education Program, has graduated 40 students.
Following World War II, the watch-manufacturing industry in the U.S. had all but disappeared, as dominant Swiss and Japanese manufacturers took over. Then in 1969, Seiko introduced the first battery powered quartz watch, nearly sounding the death knell for mechanical watches. Four years later, the Tokyo-based company began selling liquid-crystal display digital watches.
The precipitous decline of mechanical watches had begun, as more and more cheap battery-powered and digital watches hit the U.S. market and gained popularity. "Personally, for me, the introduction of quartz watches was a dark day for our industry," says Herman Mayer, the German-born principal of the Lititz Watch Technicum.
A Disappearing Breed
Unlike electronic watches, which need little more than battery or strap replacement, mechanical timepieces still require intricate micromechanics for maintenance and service. A typical self-winding watch can have as many 300 parts, and they're all packed into a space the size of quarter and less than half an inch thick.
Despite the advances of technology, the basic proficiencies of watchmaking haven't changed much in over 300 years. As the need for trained horologists dropped sharply, so too did the number of schools and programs teaching watchmaking. According to Berthiaume, in 1976 there were 43 watchmaking programs in the U.S. Today, that number has fallen to 12.
However, something of a renaissance in mechanical watches began in the 1990s. Traditional handcrafted timepieces with price tags starting at $1,000 and increasing exponentially have become highly desired. According to the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry, exports from Switzerland—where most of the top-name timepieces originate—spiked 11% last year, to more than $9.5 billion. While mechanical watches make up only 10% of production in the watch industry, they make up more than 50% of revenue (see BusinessWeek.