12 October

The day in brief

In Lisbon, the Instituto Português de Relojoaria's Little Watchmakers' Workshop filled Saturday afternoon at the Medeiros e Almeida Museum on World Watch Day.

The industry's big story broke on 8 October: Movado Group is selling 95% of Ebel to a group led by F.P. Journe, with Chanel taking part. In New York, a steel Kari Voutilainen 28Sport passed the million-dollar mark in Phillips' online sale.

Among the launches, Atelier de Chronométrie unveiled the AdC16, its first simple chronograph, Angelus introduced a monopusher chronograph with a tachymeter scale and Raymond Weil marked its 50th anniversary with the Freelancer World-Traveller.

Little watchmakers fill the afternoon at the Medeiros e Almeida Museum

On Saturday 10 October, World Watch Day, the Instituto Português de Relojoaria and the Medeiros e Almeida Museum hosted "O Tempo que nos Liga: Oficina de Pequenos Relojoeiros" (The Time that Binds Us: Little Watchmakers' Workshop). It ran from 2 pm to 7 pm in one of the museum's tiled rooms, as part of the Festival Conecta – O Nosso Bairro, organised by the ACP – Automóvel Club de Portugal on 9 and 10 October.

Each child, accompanied by an adult, received a mechanical table clock with a transparent case, coloured wheels, a pendulum and a bell. Cases were opened, parts sorted and each part's job explained, until the clock was running. The children worked in pairs, step by step, so that one could help the other, guided by "Monta o teu relógio" (Build your clock), written in Portuguese with the correct technical terms.

The path is that of any mechanical clock: stored energy runs through the gear train to the escapement, which releases it in regular impulses, while the swinging pendulum sets the pace. With a transparent case, that path is no longer abstract: you can watch each wheel pass the motion on to the next.

According to the IPR, it was five hours of non-stop activity, with an excellent response from children and adults alike. Every participant also took home the Almanaque do Tempo, a 24-page booklet with cut-and-fold games, word searches, crosswords, the history of clocks and time-related places to visit in Portugal.

The IPR's next dates are 28 November, with the Tempo Passado vintage watch fair at the Hotel Jupiter, and 19 December, when the Tempo Futuro independent watchmaking show returns to the Medeiros e Almeida Museum.

Find out more on the IPR's website.

F.P. Journe and Chanel buy 95% of Ebel

On 8 October, Movado Group announced an agreement to sell 95% of Ebel for USD 66.5 million, subject to customary adjustments, to a group led by Montres Journe SA, François-Paul Journe's company, with Chanel taking part. Pierre Jacques, former CEO of De Bethune, is part of the buyer group and will run Ebel. Movado keeps 5% and will provide transition services.

The trademarks, other intellectual property, inventory and further Ebel assets move to a new Swiss subsidiary, including the Villa Turque, the house Le Corbusier designed in La Chaux-de-Fonds. Closing is expected in the coming months.

Founded in 1911 in La Chaux-de-Fonds by Eugène Blum and Alice Lévy, whose initials form its name, Ebel peaked in the 1970s and 1980s under Pierre-Alain Blum, when it also made watches for Cartier under licence. It passed to Investcorp in 1994 and to LVMH in 1999, before Movado bought it in 2003.

Chanel, a shareholder in F.P. Journe, has been building stakes in manufactures and independent watchmakers. Ebel, however, is a brand of a different scale, with its collection built around the Sport Classic. François-Paul Journe summed up his approach in one phrase: "the product, the product, the product." The role the Geneva manufacture will play in developing Ebel's future watches has not yet been detailed.

Find out more on Movado Group's website.

Steel Kari Voutilainen 28Sport tops one million dollars at Phillips

Phillips' online sale The New York Sessions Fall 2026, which opened on 1 October, closed on 9 October with 88 lots. The highlight was lot 22, a Kari Voutilainen 28Sport in steel, number 5 of a series of eight, from around 2021. Estimated at USD 120,000–240,000, it sold for USD 1,016,000 with premium, more than eight times the low estimate.

Introduced in 2020, the 28Sport is Voutilainen's sporting take: a 39 mm steel case, black onyx dial centre, navy guilloché hour track and orange indexes with Super-LumiNova. The steel series ran to eight pieces, alongside another eight in titanium.

The hand-wound calibre 28 brings together the house's technical signatures: a large balance, a hairspring with a Phillips terminal curve and a Grossmann inner curve, and a direct-impulse escapement with two escape wheels. The two wheels mesh with each other and impulse the balance directly, in turn, which reduces the sliding friction typical of the classic Swiss lever and the reliance on lubrication.

F.P. Journe also shone: the Octa Lune (lot 4) and the Sport Centigraphe Souverain (lot 40) reached USD 304,800 each, more than double the top estimate, and the Octa Quantième Perpétuel (lot 55) sold for USD 241,300.

Find out more on the auction house's website.

Atelier de Chronométrie unveils the AdC16, its first simple chronograph

Atelier de Chronométrie, a workshop founded in Barcelona and now based in Andorra, unveiled the AdC16 on 9 October, its first chronograph without a rattrapante. The house's earlier chronographs, the AdC8, AdC17 and AdC99, were all split-seconds.

The S440 calibre starts from a Valjoux 23, a classic hand-wound column-wheel chronograph with horizontal clutch, but thoroughly reworked: most bridges and many components were redesigned and handmade in the workshop. It beats at 18,000 vibrations per hour, with 20 jewels and a 52-hour power reserve.

There are three fundamental changes. The minute counter is now instantaneous: instead of creeping forward over the last seconds of each minute, it jumps in one go as the central hand completes its turn, making the reading unambiguous. The balance is new, with timing weights (masselottes) that allow the rate to be adjusted by changing inertia rather than the active length of the hairspring. And the escapement has been upgraded.

Finishing follows tradition: frosted, palladium-plated bridges and mainplate, black-polished steel parts, hand-applied anglage, polished countersinks and oversized chronograph jewels.

The Calatrava-style case measures 36 mm, with a steel middle case and an 18-carat yellow gold bezel, caseback, crown and pushers, and sapphire front and back. The black galvanic dial has applied gold Arabic numerals, a guilloché small seconds and the client's initials. It is a commissioned unique piece; the same calibre can take other customisations, priced between EUR 140,000 and 150,000.

Find out more on the brand's website.

Angelus introduces a monopusher chronograph with tachymeter scale

On 9 October Angelus presented the Chronographe Tachymètre, a new piece in the La Fabrique collection, which reinterprets the brand's watches from the 1930s to the 1950s. It follows the 2025 Chronographe Télémètre and swaps the telemeter scale for a tachymeter.

A single pusher, integrated into the fluted crown at 3 o'clock, controls start, stop and reset. The solution cleans up the case profile but imposes a fixed cycle: once stopped, the chronograph must return to zero before timing again, so elapsed times cannot be added together.

The hand-wound calibre A5000 is made by La Joux-Perret, Angelus' sister company. According to Monochrome, it descends from the THA movement developed in the late 1980s, later known as the Cartier 045MC of the 1999 Tortue Monopoussoir. It has a column wheel and a horizontal clutch with oscillating pinion, 23 jewels, 21,600 vibrations per hour (3 Hz) and a 42-hour power reserve, and measures 24 mm in diameter by 4.2 mm in height.

The case is 37 mm by 9.25 mm, water-resistant to 30 metres, with a box sapphire crystal and sapphire caseback. There are three limited editions: yellow gold with a gold and green dial, 15 pieces, CHF 34,600; steel with a coral-pink and grey dial, 30 pieces; and steel with a pearl-grey centre and petrol-blue registers, 50 pieces, the latter two at CHF 18,500.

Find out more on the brand's website.

Raymond Weil marks 50 years with the Freelancer World-Traveller

On 10 October Raymond Weil presented the Freelancer World-Traveller (reference 2762-STC-02026), a 260-piece edition marking 50 years of the house, founded in Geneva in 1976, and the centenary of the birth of its founder, Raymond Weil.

The watch combines two ways of reading other time zones. A 24-hour GMT hand, set via the crown in one-hour steps independently of local time, shows a second zone. The rotating 24-city bezel, aligned with the 24-hour ring, gives the time in any of those cities at a glance and tells day from night.

The RW3230 calibre is based on the Sellita SW330-2, the GMT version of the SW300, and beats at 28,800 vibrations per hour (4 Hz), with a 56-hour power reserve.

The midnight blue dial carries a champagne world map inspired by the Mercator projection, created by stamping and laser texturing, along with Raymond Weil's handwritten signature. The steel case measures 40 mm by 10.25 mm, is water-resistant to 50 metres and has a screwed sapphire caseback. The price is EUR 4,395.

Find out more on the brand's website.

What deserves attention

The Ebel sale fits a trend seen in recent years: well-capitalised, prestigious houses buying historic brands, with a name and an archive, rather than creating brands from scratch. The open question is what watches Ebel will make under its new management, at what price, and with what technical input from F.P. Journe.

The 28Sport result, for its part, confirms that independent watchmakers with minimal output remain the most contested segment at auction, even in an online sale and with a recent watch. Among the launches there is a common thread: the AdC16 and the Angelus draw on chronograph calibres with decades of history, reworked or rebuilt, rather than new movements from scratch.

The next date to note is the Grand Prix d'Horlogerie de Genève (GPHG) ceremony on 7 November.