Hands-On: Greubel Forsey’s New Hand Made 2 Is Watchmaking In Its Purist Form
Greubel Forsey just announced the Hand Made 2, a watch of which 96% of the 270 parts are made entirely by hand. Case, movement, plates, and bridges are all finished by hand, cut from raw materials, and iteratively refined until you get the watch you see below. As Ben put it when he forwarded the press release to the team, this is a “big deal for fans of true watchmaking” – true here meaning watchmaking done the way it would have been done long ago before CNC and other machines helped take the art of watchmaking and turn it into varying degrees of industrial process. Because of these challenges, the brand can only make two to three of these watches per year.
Here, I’ll make the crack that it’s a big day for Mark Zuckerberg and his friends. That’s partially because Zuck was recently spotted wearing this watch’s predecessor, the $900,000 Hand Made 1 released in 2019, and partially because there are only a handful of “lovers of true watchmaking” that have Zuckerberg-like budgets for this watch, which is priced at CHF 620,000. There are at least eight clients for this watch, however. Despite being just announced, Greubel Forsey told me that they’re already allocated through much of 2027.
The Greubel Forsey Hand Made 2 is stunning, almost so good it’s hard to believe. There are only five parts not made by Greubel Forsey: sapphire crystals, case gaskets, spring bars, mainspring, and most jewels.
The finishing – five artisanal crafts of frosting, black-polishing, straight-graining, polished flanks, and bevels, and the polished chamfers accented by olive-domed jewels set in gold chatons – is immaculate, but we’re used to that (heck, people expect that) from brands like Rexhep Rexhepi, Philippe Dufour, and Roger Smith. That’s why I expect a lot of people won’t understand why this watch might cost more than double a Roger Smith or four-plus times a Rexhep Rexhepi. I even had to keep reminding myself that this is handmade. There are no CNC machines, just jigs, saws, wire, polish, and other hand tools.
There’s nothing bad to be said about someone like Smith using CNC – as he’s said in the past – for accuracy and not necessarily volume. It cuts down on the work of rough shaping bridges and gets you closer to the end goal. No one really wants to set out to make a watch and then sit down and make dozens of types of screws with twelve or more operations to make those screws. Gears and balance wheels are usually cut or stamped, but not here. But whether you’d rather save a few hundred thousand dollars or have something where a CNC machine was never involved, that’s a personal decision.
If the Hand Made 1 is any guide, three-quarters of the time spent to make the watch is spent on manufacturing parts while the rest is for finishing. That sounds straightforward, but the Hand Made 1 takes 8,000 hours or more to complete. I’d imagine the Hand Made 2 might be a bit less, but not by much. In the end, one watchmaker will assemble the watch from start to finish.
If you notice a lack of technical specifications, part of that is that Greubel Forsey decided to focus on the artistry of the watch rather than talking about accuracy, size (which is 40.9mm, and they later told me 12.8mm thick), or cost in the press release. They also decided not to pursue a tourbillon in this release as they’ve already done that with the Hand Made 1. Instead, they made a four-hand watch with 72 hours of power reserve and the innovation of a hand-shaped conical jewel power reserve.
The conical jewel is really fascinating, a creative approach to running a power reserve indicator that reminds me of a fusée-and-chain system. While Greubel Forsey didn’t give much information on how the system works – like many other technical details – I’m going to take a stab at guessing how it works.
The conical jewel seems grooved and tapered in tiers, not just a sloping jewel. At some point in the drive train, gearing rotates the jewel, which is “read” by a jeweled arm (like the stylus reads a vinyl record) that moves up and down and imparts that to the power reserve indicator (though I’m not quite sure how the “stylus” moves vertically while the arm it’s attached to seems to move only horizontally – maybe someone more visually inclined can share their thoughts). When the barrel is wound, the system goes in the opposite direction.
The rear of the watch is a bit more simplified than on the Hand Made 1, lacking the black-polished arms and gratté pattern found on the rear of the base plate of that watch. Instead, there are intricately cut but beautifully simple semi-circular shapes revealing just the exact amount of area to see a few of the gears of the drive train and two plates for the year of manufacture and name of the brand. The rest of the base plate is hand-grained German silver, like the front of the watch.
Even the case and crown are hand-made, carved from chunks of 18k white gold. It’s not a particularly thin watch at 12.8mm, but it’s more than wearable and plenty comfortable. That said, it is not the most elegant or creative case on the market, but Greubel Forsey has said that simple cases like this are pretty much as far as they can push the manufacturing by hand. That might be some customers’ sticking point.
One friend (whom I had permission to share this with) told me the Hand Made 2 doesn’t strike him as quintessentially Greubel Forsey, mirroring feedback about the Nano Foudroyante EWT. More than that, I think several independents use this same open-dial feel. Theo Auffret comes to mind. Greubel’s other design language is better about differentiating itself from the rest of the market.
If there’s one other piece of constructive criticism I could give, it’s that the font on the power reserve indicator and the thickness/boldness of the hashes on the seconds subdial feel a bit incongruous with the elegance of the rest of the watch. The Grand Feu enameling is – yet again – a great bit of added master artistry, but it’s just something that stuck out to me as a bit inelegant.
The prototype example I viewed in Geneva last year had already acquired some of the patina collectors expect and appreciate in German silver. The dial is distinctly silver-toned in the pictures provided by the brand, but you can see hints of that yellow color in the images I photographed, which suggests that it wouldn’t be long before a new example warms up nicely.
What else can I really say about a watch like this? It’s the kind of watch that makes me want to step into Greubel Forsey’s workshop and see how they do the work to put this watch together. I never got to see a Hand Made 1 in person, so if this is as close as I get, I’ll count myself as lucky.
Greubel Forsey has been showing this watch to clients for some time now. Since they can only make two to three examples per year, there’s already a backlog of orders. As I said before, the brand has already sold through its production for 2025 and 2026, but you can still try to get that one allocation in 2027 if you have CHF 620,000 burning a hole in your pocket. If you’re in this price bracket, it seems like a watch well worth waiting two years for.
Greubel Forsey Hand Made 2, 40.9mm diameter by 12.8mm thick 18k white gold case, with 30m water resistance. Hand-frosted German silver dial with Grand Feu enamel subdials, hand–cut and hand-blued hands, hours, minutes, seconds, and power reserve. Completely hand-made movement (minus the jewels) using traditional techniques, made start-to-finish by one watchmaker. 72 hours of power reserve. Only two to three examples will be made per year. Price: CHF 620,000
Hodinkee
