Rome wasn?t built in a day ? and neither was Rolex, Patek Philippe, Jaeger-LeCoultre and other watch manufacturers praised for their vertical integration and lauded for their array of in-house calibers. While we all applaud the handful of brands that bring new and increasingly complicated calibers to market virtually every year, we also should take note of other brands, many of them smaller, independently owned, or known throughout their history more for outsourcing their movements, that are taking a more incremental approach. In this series of articles, we take a look at five brands ? three Swiss, two German ? that are taking it slow and steady. This week, we turn our focus to Germany’s Tutima, which began in-house movement production in earnest upon its much-heralded return to Glashütte in 2013. Manufacture Tutima Glashütte
Tutima approached the challenge of building up a portfolio of in-house calibers in a substantially different way than did last week’s spotlighted company, Oris, and many others. Rather than building a base and adding layers of complication in subsequent movements, Tutima shot for the horological stars right out of the gate, building the first minute-repeater caliber ever to be made entirely in Germany, and using it as a template for complications of far less grandiosity.
The Tutima Hommage Minute Repeater is the first minute repeater to be made entirely in Germany.
The manual-winding, 550-plus-part Caliber 800 inside the Hommage Minute Re...