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Horology — Around the World

America once rivalled Switzerland in watchmaking output. The industry collapsed, but a new generation — from haute horlogerie makers in Pennsylvania to microbrands in Chicago and vintage restorers in Colorado — is quietly bringing it back.

This is the fourth instalment of our Horology — Around the World series, following features on Canada, France, and Norway. Of the countries we've covered so far, the United States presents the most dramatic arc: a nation that was once one of the world's dominant watchmaking powers, lost the industry almost entirely, and is now in the midst of a revival unlike anything happening elsewhere.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, American companies like Elgin, Waltham, Hamilton, and Illinois produced millions of precision timepieces. The United States pioneered interchangeable parts and mass production in watchmaking — techniques so advanced that Swiss manufacturers sent delegations across the Atlantic to study them. At its peak, American watchmaking employed thousands and supplied pocket watches and wristwatches to railroads, the military, and everyday consumers across the country.

Then it ended. The combination of two world wars, shifting economics, the quartz revolution of the 1970s, and intense competition from Japan and Switzerland hollowed out the American watch industry. Factories closed. Heritage brands were acquired by foreign groups or simply disappeared. By the late 20th century, there was essentially no volume mechanical watchmaking left on American soil.

What exists today is something different: not a return to mass production, but a patchwork of passionate independent makers, ambitious microbrands, and a handful of companies attempting genuine domestic manufacturing. The American watch scene in 2026 is messy, diverse, and full of energy — and it raises a fascinating question that no other country's watch industry has to wrestle with quite so directly: what does "American-made" actually mean?

The Makers: Genuine American Manufacture

RGM Watch Co. · Lancaster County, Pennsylvania

If any single brand embodies the ambition to make a truly American watch, it is RGM. Founded in 1992 by Roland G. Murphy — a trained watchmaker and former Technical Manager at Hamilton — RGM operates in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, one of the country's ancestral watchmaking centres. In 2008, Murphy produced the Caliber 801, the first high-grade mechanical movement made in the United States in more than 40 years, with nearly all components domestically sourced. He followed it in 2010 with the Caliber MM2 — the Pennsylvania Tourbillon — the first serially produced American tourbillon movement in history. RGM is the only vertically integrated American brand designing and producing movements, dials, cases, and guilloché work in-house. Prices reflect the haute horlogerie positioning, reaching $11,000 and above, but this is genuine American manufacture at its most uncompromising.

Weiss Watch Company · Los Angeles, California

Cameron Weiss trained in Switzerland before returning to Los Angeles to found his brand in 2013 with an unusually pure mission: build as much of the watch as possible in America. Weiss manufactures movement components in-house, machines cases domestically, and hand-assembles and regulates every watch in his LA workshop — each one taking over 60 hours. The 38mm Standard Issue Field Watch, with its clean military-inspired dial and Weiss Caliber 1003 movement, is among the most genuinely American-made mechanical watches you can buy. Prices start around $1,000, an accessible entry point for domestic manufacture of this calibre.

Vortic Watch Company · Fort Collins, Colorado

Vortic takes the most unusual approach in American watchmaking: it rescues vintage pocket watch movements from defunct American brands — Elgin, Waltham, Illinois, Hamilton — services and restores them, and rehouses them in custom-milled wristwatch cases produced in its Colorado factory. The result is a one-of-a-kind timepiece with a 19th- or early 20th-century American heart beating inside a modern case. Vortic survived a five-year legal battle with the Swatch Group (which now owns the Hamilton name) defending its right to re-engineer these historic movements, a fight that demonstrated the brand's determination. The watches run large — often 45mm or more, given their pocket watch origins — and prices start around $4,000. For collectors who value historical provenance and American industrial heritage, there is nothing else quite like a Vortic.

"Made in USA" means that "all or virtually all" the product has been made in America. That is, all significant parts, processing, and labor that go into the product must be of U.S. origin.
— U.S. Federal Trade Commission

The Assemblers: Built in America

Between the genuine manufacturers and the design-only microbrands sits an important middle category: brands that assemble watches on American soil, employing local workers, but source most components internationally. This is where the "Made in America" question gets complicated — and where some of the country's most visible watch brands operate.

Shinola · Detroit, Michigan

Founded in 2011 by Fossil co-founder Tom Kartsotis, Shinola set up operations in a former automotive research lab in downtown Detroit with a mission to revive American manufacturing. The brand's flagship Runwell collection and its subsequent expansion into a full lifestyle brand (bicycles, leather goods, jewellery) made Shinola the most commercially visible name in the American watch revival. However, the FTC challenged Shinola's early "Where American Is Made" marketing, ruling that the watches — assembled in Detroit from Swiss, Chinese, and Thai components — did not meet the "all or virtually all" standard for a "Made in USA" claim. Shinola pivoted to "Built in Detroit" language. Whatever the labelling debate, the brand employs hundreds of workers in Detroit, uses both quartz and Sellita mechanical movements, and has brought genuine public attention to the idea of American watchmaking. Prices start well under $1,000 for quartz models.

Timex · Middlebury, Connecticut

Still headquartered in Connecticut after more than a century, Timex is the most enduring name in American watchmaking — even if its manufacturing is now globally distributed. The brand has experienced a genuine collector-driven resurgence through reissues like the Q Timex, the Marlin Automatic, and collaborations with fashion and design houses. Timex embodies the American ethos of straightforward, affordable functionality, and remains the entry point through which millions of people around the world encounter their first mechanical watch.

The Microbrands: Design, Community, and Value

The largest and most dynamic segment of the American watch scene is its microbrands — small, independent companies that design watches in the US, typically source cases and movements from Swiss or Asian suppliers, and sell directly to enthusiast communities online. What they lack in domestic manufacturing they make up for in design originality, build quality, and an unusually close relationship with collectors. The best American microbrands don't just sell watches — they build followings.

Oak & Oscar · Chicago, Illinois

Founded by Chase Fancher in 2015, Oak & Oscar has a full-time watchmaker on staff who assembles each watch — a level of hands-on involvement unusual among microbrands. The designs are clean, legible, and built around the idea of a one-watch collection: field watches, GMTs, and chronographs that work equally well in an office or on a trail. The brand has developed one of the strongest community followings in the American independent space.

Lorier · New York, New York

A husband-and-wife operation producing vintage-inspired sport watches with an emphasis on proportion, wearability, and details like integrated bracelets and acrylic crystals. Lorier's Neptune and Falcon models routinely sell out within hours of release — a testament to design taste and collector trust.

Other American microbrands worth knowing include Monta (St. Louis — Swiss-assembled sport watches with manufacture-grade finishing), Nodus (Los Angeles — robust divers and field watches at sharp prices), Vaer (built-in-USA assembly with Swiss and Japanese movements), Traska (compact, travel-ready sport watches in hardened steel), Brew (New York — retro chronographs inspired by coffee culture), Dan Henry (vintage-inspired collections with museum-quality presentation at accessible prices), and Helm (affordable, function-first tool watches designed by a former bicycle industry veteran).

Why the American Scene Matters

No other country in our series carries quite the same tension between past and present. America was a watchmaking superpower — and then, for decades, it wasn't. The revival underway now is not a simple resurrection. It's a reinvention, spread across at least three distinct tiers: the handful of makers doing genuine domestic manufacture (RGM, Weiss); the assemblers building watches and jobs on American soil (Shinola, Vaer); and the vast, energetic microbrand ecosystem designing compelling watches that happen to be made elsewhere.

The FTC's strict "all or virtually all" standard for "Made in USA" — far more demanding than Switzerland's 60-percent-of-cost threshold for "Swiss Made" — means that almost no American watch can legally claim full domestic manufacture. That regulatory reality shapes the entire conversation. But it also sets a high bar that pushes the most ambitious makers — Murphy at RGM, Weiss in LA, Custer at Vortic — to do more, build more, and source more at home.

For collectors, the practical appeal is clear. American microbrands consistently deliver strong specifications, thoughtful design, and genuine build quality at prices that undercut comparably finished Swiss watches. And for those who value provenance and story, brands like Vortic and RGM offer something no other country can: a direct, physical connection to the golden age of American industrial watchmaking, carried forward into the present by people who refuse to let it disappear.

The United States may never again produce watches in the volumes of its 19th-century heyday. But the ambition, diversity, and sheer number of people trying to build something meaningful in American horology today is unlike anything we've seen in a century. For anyone willing to look beyond the Swiss establishment, this is a scene worth paying attention to.