August 27, 2020 NSW Watch News
American Watchmaking
A little more than a century ago, America was the center of the watchmaking industry. Even the Swiss, who are the world leaders now, came to these shores to study how the Americans were making watches. Companies like Hamilton, Elgin, Springfield and more revolutionized how watches were manufactured, making it possible to create high-quality, low-cost timepieces, and they were succeeding brilliantly.
Fast forward many decades, and now the Swiss (with the occasional German or Japanese brand in the mix) dominate the high-end timepiece market.
There has, however, lately been a resurgence of American companies designing and building a new generation of Automatic watches.
Non-Stop Watches based in Los Angeles is one of those companies.
Non-Stop recognized that a new generation of adults were increasingly looking to the past for their styling cues, and wearing a wristwatch fell squarely into that realm. Their choices were limited however to very expensive high-end mechanical watches or cheap battery powered quartz watches made of plastic. Non-Stop Watches set about to create a good looking, highly functional and accurate Automatic watch that would last for decades, like many of the vaunted Swiss brands, but that could be sold directly to this internet savvy demographic, bypassing traditional retailers and distributors and slashing the price of a quality watch.
They started at the beginning, creating a beautiful case with a unique sandwich design for water and dust resistance, and used the highest grade titanium and stainless steel. They scoured the world for an excellent movement and tested some of the best known ones including Swiss, German and Japanese movements. They settled on the M-9015 from Miyota, which had the best test results by far in accuracy, stability and durability, as well as lending itself to fit perfectly in the Non-Stop chassis.
This was coupled to a high quality Italian leather strap with quick release tabs for easy exchange with another strap made of different materials like silicon rubber or just another shade of leather to match the outfit of the wearer.
The final result is a superb Automatic watch that retails for under $1,000 but is comparable to watches costing many times that number.
Watchmaking is alive and well in the USA and Non-Stop Watches is at the forefront of that development.
See their collections at nonstopwatches.com