August has always been, for me, a reflective month ? a time for heat, humidity, and vacation, of traveling up and down the East Coast from beach to beach, café to café, and from friend to friend, until I finally settle down for a week in Massachusetts with my family before heading back to everyday life.
As I have gotten older, and particularly since I?ve started writing professionally, a new facet has beed added to my August thoughts: a look back at the articles I have written, the friends I’ve made, the watches I’ve discovered, the events I’ve attended. And mulling all this over, my thoughts kept returning to last year?s WatchTime New York event, and more specifically to RGM and its American-made timepieces.

  RGM is bringing American watchmaking back to one of its historical hubs, in Lancaster County, PA.
RGM distinguished itself at the show in two ways. First, the brand brought an old-fashioned guilloché engine-turning machine (also known as a rose engine) and hooked a camera up to it so attendees could turn the machine themselves to create different designs while also seeing the metal being slowly carved away. For me, the exercise reminded me of how incredibly intricate that guilloché and many other made-by-hand design processes are, and also gave me a renewed perspective on the expert craftsmanship and artistry watchmakers need to possess to become successful in today?s luxury market.
The brand also stood out to me because of its courtesy. S...