“Road Trip to Glashütte”: Nomos

Łukasz Doskocz14.11.201420.11.20144 min. of reading

German watchmaking, although focused on relatively small area of Glashütte, offers quite a varied range of timepieces with one mutual value – in-house.

Just as A. Lange & Söhne and Glashütte Original (which we both visited HERE and HERE) Nomos – the smallest of the three most interesting watch brands “Made In Germany” – is strongly focused on its own manufacture. The in-house value is a very right idea to construct mechanical watches within the premises of your own home. While it can’t really be a surprise with Lange and GO, only 24 years old Nomos Glashütte highly impresses in this meter. After visiting two more prestigious neighbors we awaited the last stage of our “Road Trip” with outmost curiosity – and it turned out to be a worthy closure.

Anyone who ever visited Glashütte had to at least – whether he planned it or not – pass the Nomos headquarter, located just by the train station. Buldings now belonging to the brand used to be part of this train station, which you now enter almost passing through Nomos Glashütte home. It was here back in 1990 that Roland Schwertner gave birth to the company, that just two years later introduced 4 new collections of manual wound timepieces: Tangente, Orion, Ludwig and Tetra. They are all still produced today, and since 2005 have been equipped with in-house developed and constructed movements. The company employs around 200 people and can offer an impressive 9 calibers working within 11 watch collections. All for the price starting at remarkable 1000Euro.

The former train station bulding – Nomos’es Centre of operations – houses the business management, the logistics and parts productions. One of the wings is home to R&D department, where all the ideas are brought to life, including new movements. Design side of Nomos Glashütte is in hands of Berlin branch at Kreuzberg. The production is – just as in any other manufacture – left to modern machines operated by qualified stuff. Hand work is still vital, especially with tiny elements and their finishing.

The Research and Development department, 10 people strong at the moment, will soon move to the second Nomos Glashütte location, under construction at time of our visit. Just a few minutes car ride up the hills, through some very narrow Glashütte cobblestone streets, reveled simple, few stories high building. It is home to soul of every watch manufacture – watchmakers.

R&D will take the top floor with some gorgeous panorama view over Glashütte…

…the rest is reserved to specialists in watch construction, assembly and regulation, including those responsible for brand’s new pride – the “swing system”.

Breaking the Swiss monopoly, Nomos Glashütte designed and created its own escapement with balance wheel, escape wheel, anchor and the spring. It took 7 years of development and roughly 12mln Euro in cash – but the outcome can’t really be overestimated. With their own escapement Nomos Glashütte not only improved its true manufacture image, but also opened whole new possibilities and independence. Eventually all Nomos Glashütte watches will be equipped with it, but the premier piece was the Metro and the caliber DUW 4401. DUW stands for Deutsche Uhrenwerke – and this abbreviation will appear by every movement with “swing system” regulation.

Very well illuminated interiors of the manufacture provides Nomos Glashütte watchmakers with a perfect space not only for movements assembly and regulation but also some more advanced decoration, like the special pattern applied to the winding wheels. It is a tricky operation that requires an exact amount of pressure applied to the component touching the tool, with some special paste applied at the same time. One false move and the piece is gone. Only very qualified operator can do it, and experience is vital – as in all watchmaking that is.

Watches

Nomos Glashütte is of course a watch maker, and although their specific Bauhaus design is not my cup of tea, they sure have tones of character. Great price/quality ratio provides many happy and devoted fans and impressive sales numbers. And here is what comes from Glashütte.

Conclusion

After quality time spent at Lange & shone and Glashütte Original we drove to Nomos wondering, how it will relate compared to relatively bigger neighbours, still selling watches at the fraction of their price. It quickly became obvious that utmost attention paid to every single detail is a very German thing in general. Although you don’t have to pay a fortune for brand new Nomos Glashütte, you still get largely hand-build timepiece with lots of details and in-house value. Not many watch brands around the world can offer you a manufactured watch with proprietary, nicely decorated mechanism and unique DNA for such a fair price. Very consistent image-building plus dynamic development will for sure keep Nomos Glashütte at number one spot of best selling watches “Made In Germany”.