What could you accomplish with 11,000 hours of work and six years of dedication?
Most of you would answer “so many things,” and certainly not just one watch. Yet there are those who, with this amount of hours, have made a single timepiece capable of going totally against the grain of today’s watchmaking.
Ferdinand Berthoud, a brand refounded in 2015 under the leadership of the Chopard Group, took a full six years to bring to life an entirely handmade watch. It’s a piece you don’t see every day, created with the goal of uniting new generations with those of the past, seeking to preserve a craft that is slowly in danger of fading under the weight of technology.
The “Naissance d’une Montre” project.
The name of this model is Naissance d’une Montre 3, and its realization has been studied in great detail. Some numbers help to understand the extraordinary scope of the project: more than 80 craftsmen involved, 11,000 hours of work, 6 years of dedication, 747 components made entirely by hand, without the use of digital technology or CNC machines.
This watch is part of the “Naissance d’une Montre” project , launched in 2009 and shared by several watchmaking houses with a common goal: not to lose the heritage of the industry, but above all the process that leads to the birth of a timepiece. What matters is not just the finished watch, but the experience that gives it life, made up of patience, precision and the transmission of knowledge, animated by people and not robots.
Technological progress has undoubtedly brought enormous benefits in terms of efficiency and precision, but it has also made obsolete many manual processes that guaranteed uniqueness to each piece. Workmanship that made each watch different from the next, capable of telling a story of craftsmanship and experience.
The first chapter of the project, Naissance d’une Montre 1, led by Robert Greubel, Stephen Forsey and Philippe Dufour together with Michel Boulanger, saw the light of day in 2015 after six years of work. The watch was later sold by Christie’s in 2016 for a record price of more than $1 million.
Naissance d’une Montre 1 – Credits: Hodinkee
The second chapter again involved Greubel and Forsey, joined by Felix Baumgartner and Martin Frei, with the support of two young watchmakers, Dominique Buser and Cyrano Devanthey. Again it took six years, from 2015 to 2021, to create a unique model, Naissance d’une Montre 2, also intended for auction.
Naissance d’une Montre 2 – Credits: Hairspring
Naissance d’une Montre 3 represents the third chapter in this story and is the result of an intense collaboration between Chronométrie artisans Ferdinand Berthoud and Chopard, involving some of the most qualified figures of the two Maisons. However, the project has its roots in an even older concept, linked to the founder’s grandson, Louis Berthoud.
Between past and present
In 1812, Louis Berthoud published a work in which he collected and transmitted the watchmaking teachings given to the four students who had been entrusted to him by the government, titled “Entretiens sur l’horlogerie à l’usage de la Marine“ (Discussions on Watchmaking for the Use of the Navy). At the end of the volume, he emphasized how achieving great precision essentially required time and experience, summarizing this principle in the famous motto “AU TEMPS QUI INSTRUIT,” i.e. dedicated to time, the great master.
The Naissance d’une Montre 3 project, as a tribute to this historical and cultural continuity, Louis Berthoud’s motto is hand-engraved on the back of the movement.
Manual dexterity as an imperative
To be able to make every single component by hand, and especially without the aid of modern technology or CNC machines, it was necessary to bring back tools used in the 1950s and 1960s. This is whyAtelier Tradition, an area entirely dedicated to the making of this timepiece, was created within the Fleurier manufacture.
Here, vintage machine tools such as lathes, boring machines and traditional tools were installed and entrusted to highly skilled craftsmen. A small team of micromechanical engineers spent months defining production methods and familiarizing themselves with these historic technologies before actual production even began.
The numbers are astonishing: 747 components for each movement, of which 477 belong to the fusée system chain alone. Finishing a single wheel takes
The characteristics of the watch
Eleven examples of Naissance d’une Montre 3 will be produced. The first, with a steel case, will be auctioned by Phillips in collaboration with Bacs & Russo in November 2025. The remaining ten pieces, however, will be made in
Looking at the dial, the first thing that strikes one is the neat and harmonious arrangement of components, perfectly finished and polished, in a space that we could almost call amechanical“open space,“ in which the movement is completely visible from the dial side.
The blue hands and four visible screws are made by burnishing, a process in which the steel is brought to a very specific temperature, around 300 °C, until the characteristic deep blue color is achieved. It is an extremely delicate process: making the hour hand alone takes nearly two days of work, through more than 50 micromechanical operations, plus others dedicated exclusively to decoration.
The watch movement is something amazing and something you will have rarely seen, built around the caliber FB-BTC.FC, developed especially for this project and designed to make all its main organs visible from the dial side. The regulator is a thermocompensated bimetallic split-circuit Guillaume-type balance, made of Invar and brass, a historical solution that has practically disappeared today.
Its function is to compensate for variations in the spring’s elasticity caused by temperature differences by directly acting on the inertia of the balance wheel through the opening or closing of the two bimetallic masses. Each balance spring is made and adjusted individually, by hand, by the same specialist, making the fine-tuning of each movement an extremely complex and time-consuming operation.
Power is managed by a constant-force transmission system with a fusée and chain, a central element of Ferdinand Berthoud’s technical identity. In this case, the chain consists of 477 elements, assembled manually, and works in conjunction with a fusée equipped with a direct stop system. The objective is to level out the torque delivered by the barrel, providing the balance wheel with as constant a force as possible throughout the entire 50-hour power reserve, to the benefit of running stability and chronometric precision.
Detail of the fusée chain
In terms of construction, the movement also adopts a rare and highly significant solution: the axis of the balance wheel is supported by two natural diamonds used as counterstones, inserted within a shockproof system developed specifically for this caliber. In addition to its symbolic and historical value, this choice ensures superior shock resistance and directly recalls the solutions employed in 18th century precision instruments, particularly Ferdinand Berthoud’s astronomical watches.
Conclusions and auction price
As you may say the Naissance d’une Montre 3 is a watch ‘as it once was,’ made with a very specific goal: to bring traditions back to life. It’s a project that must be understood even before it is worn. A timepiece that puts process, knowledge and the transmission of experience at the center, reminding us that haute horlogerie is not born to be fast or replicable, but to be handed down.
It may sound like a trivial concept, but in a world that constantly demands new products, new materials and new mechanisms, Ferdinand Berthoud reminds us to pause for a moment, to put back at the center not machines but man as a thinking being, and to translate his calm, patience and precision into objects.
As Karl-Friedrich Scheufele, president of Chronométrie Ferdinand Berthoud, puts it:
“Naissance d’une Montre 3 is a true tribute to watchmaking knowledge. For more than six years, craftsmen from different trades have combined perseverance and experience to master traditional skills that are now rare. We could not have imagined a more fitting tribute to Ferdinand Berthoud, who dedicated his life to precision and the sharing of knowledge.”
Estimated at between CHF400,000 and CHF800,000, just this November this magnificent example went for CHF1,270,000, setting a record result for the brand at auction.
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