A movementbuilt to outlive you.
Three hundred and twelve components. Forty-seven hours on the timing bench. Each calibre is cut, finished and signed by a single watchmaker, then sealed in forged steel and set against the black of the Vallée night.
Four calibres, cast this season.
Each reference is closed with a wax seal by the head watchmaker before leaving the Vallée. Once the edition concludes, the tooling is retired.
A single calibre passes through four pairs of hands. Never five.
Vertème refuses division of labor on the movement. The watchmaker who cuts the first bevel is the one who signs the certificate, fourteen months later.
- I
Ébauche
01 / 04Raw brass plates milled from a single ingot, aged six months before the first jewel is seated.
- II
Anglage
02 / 04Each bridge beveled by hand under a loupe. A single movement requires 11 hours at the bench.
- III
Assemblage
03 / 04312 components fitted by one watchmaker, from balance wheel to rotor, in a dustless room.
- IV
Épreuve
04 / 04Fourteen days on the observatory timer. Only calibres within −2/+4 seconds pass the seal.
One family. Five generations. No investors.
Édouard Vertème opened the atelier in Le Brassus on the 4th of December, 1898, the same week the valley's rail line was completed. He built the original balance bridges on a lathe powered by the stream behind the workshop.
The lathe remains in the window of the current atelier. It is not a museum piece. It is still used, once a year, to turn the first bridge of the anniversary calibre.
Visit the bench where your calibre is cut.
We welcome twelve clients to Le Brassus each year. Lunch with the watchmaker. Select the movement's finishing, the case metal, the engraving on the rotor. Delivery follows, fourteen months later, by hand.
- 18 June 2026Salon A · Maître Rousseau
- 04 September 2026Salon B · Atelier ouvert
- 12 November 2026Dîner · Complet