20 Years. 100 Watches, and Counting.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/06/fashion/watches-roger-w-smith-isle-of-man-britain.html

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Rolex does not release its production figures, but those who have tried to calculate them say they believe that the big beast of Swiss horology churns out at least 800,000 units annually from its Geneva headquarters. Divided by 365 days, that equates to an average of 2,191 watches every 24 hours.

About 900 miles away on the Isle of Man, a relative dot that the local ferry service says is just 33 miles long by 13 miles wide in the Irish Sea, the independent maker Roger W. Smith hopes this year to celebrate his 20 years in business — during which time he has completed precisely 100 watches.

The contrast between the two makers could not be greater. While major watch houses generally strive for growth and seek new markets, Mr. Smith does neither.

Based on his output, if he were to retire in 17 years — at the official British state pension age of 67 — he will have completed just 185 R.W. Smith watches since establishing the brand in 2001. The collectors who buy his work would be happy with that number, because when the demand for a coveted product outstrips supply, values invariably rise.

And with the waiting time for a new R.W. Smith watch now at five years, the demand is certainly there.

In addition to their rarity and quality, Mr. Smith’s watches are sought-after because of his association with one of the greatest names in modern horology, George Daniels. Dr. Daniels, as he is known in the watch world, was drawn to the Isle of Man in the early 1980s, and it was there that Mr. Smith, a Lancashire native, became his only apprentice.

At the time, the mechanical watch was under threat from the popularity of inexpensive quartz watches and most British watchmakers had gone out of business.

But Dr. Daniels embarked on a one-man mission to show that a market still existed for quality timepieces with components made entirely by hand and finished in the traditional English way, with features such as frosted movement plates, engine-turned dials and jewels set in gold chatons.

Timepieces made by Dr. Daniels, who died in 2011, now command large sums. In 2019, his Space Traveller I sold at Sotheby’s for $4.5 million, a record for an English watch at auction, and a tourbillon wristwatch called The Blue, designed by Dr. Daniels and assembled by Mr. Smith from 2001 to 2005, recently sold for 1 million pounds ($1.4 million) through A Collected Man, a website that sells pre-owned watches online.

When it comes to Mr. Smith’s own work, the founder of A Collected Man, Silas Walton, said, “What is fascinating is that he has gone from being the apprentice who existed in the shadow of arguably the greatest horologist of the 20th century to being a maker of great acclaim in his own right.”

“His pieces,” Mr. Walton said, “are as sought-after among collectors as the best watches by peers such as Philippe Dufour, Kari Voutilainen or F.P. Journe.”

Mr. Smith has said that he and his 11 employees strive to perpetuate “the Daniels Method” of painstaking creation, often using tools inherited from Dr. Daniels in the workshop beside Mr. Smith’s house.

That training, said Justin Koullapis, a skilled watchmaker and a director of both the pre-owned retailer Watch Club London and the British Horological Institute, has allowed Mr. Smith to construct watches “as perfect as one could ever expect of a man-made object.”

There now are five R.W. Smith models, named Series 1 to Series 5, each more complicated than the last and priced from £130,000 to as much as £340,000, depending on the personalization.

Mr. Smith said only three or four of his watches had appeared at auction. But a Series 1 model is scheduled for sale at a Phillips event to begin May 8 in Geneva — with a sale estimate of 40,000 to 80,000 Swiss francs ($44,750 to $95,300), which observers say is conservative.

Speaking by telephone from his home, Mr. Smith explained that, rather than being detrimental to his business, the coronavirus lockdowns have enabled him to get on with his latest project without the distraction of travel.

“Apart from one trip to the mainland to collect a new car, I have not left the Isle of Man for an entire year,” he said. “I travel relatively little in normal times, but being here so continuously has enabled me to really focus on designing the Series 6 model, which, as with all of our watches, has taken 10 or 11 months. It will take about the same length of time to prototype, after which we should be able to put it into production.”

That time frame goes a long way toward explaining why the brand has produced so few watches. “The only parts we don’t physically make ourselves are the jewels, the balance and main springs, the crystals and the leather straps,” Mr. Smith said. “Everything else we do right here, ranging from the cutting-out of individual components to heat treating, finishing and final assembly. My role in the process varies, but I spend a large amount of time designing and prototyping, and I always build the first watch in a series from start to finish.”

Although Mr. Smith is based in such a remote location, seldom strays far and leaves press inquiries to be handled by his wife, Caroline, the R.W. Smith brand is far from being unnoticed.

In 2013, Prime Minister David Cameron commissioned a custom R.W. Smith watch that toured the world as part of the government’s “GREAT Britain” campaign to promote its craftsmanship. In 2015, Netflix released the documentary “The Watchmaker’s Apprentice,” and Mr. Smith won the Best British Craftsmanship Award from the British luxury industry association Walpole. In 2018, he was awarded the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (better known as an O.B.E.) in recognition of his contribution to art and science. And last year, he appeared on a set of Isle of Man postage stamps.

It was late December when Mr. Smith completed his centennial watch, the first of his Series 4 models. It was made for a Hong Kong client whose collection, the watchmaker said, “will soon enter double figures.”

He noted that the landmark number led him to reflect that he might be more than halfway through his lifetime’s output.

But he is quietly future-proofing the R.W. Smith name by continuing to train his workers. He is also trying to preserve Britain’s industry by recently founding, along with Mike France of Christopher Ward watches and the film producer Alistair Audsley, a national trade group called the Alliance of British Watch and Clock Makers (which has 51 members, he said).

“My daughters are still very young, aged 6 and 8,” he said. “It’s impossible to know whether or not they will want to go into the business, but, when I drop off the perch, the people I have trained will ensure it keeps going and stays true to the same working methods.

“In the meantime, I’ll just do my best to chip away at the waiting list.”