The American watchmaking revival is finally drawing the collector attention it deserves. After roughly a century where serious wristwatch production sat almost exclusively in Switzerland and Germany, a small group of contemporary American makers — RGM in Pennsylvania, J.N. Shapiro in California, Cameron Weiss in Tennessee, the various smaller independents — have built credible hand-finished watchmaking operations that increasingly attract serious collector consideration. The work is small in scale and the production volumes are tiny, but the trajectory is real.
RGM Watch Company
RGM Watch Company, founded by Roland Murphy in 1992 and operating from Mount Joy, Pennsylvania, is the longest-running of the contemporary American makers. The brand's PS-801 reference (with the in-house Calibre 801, a manual-wind movement designed and produced in-house by RGM) is the brand's defining contemporary execution. The Caliber 20 references (with the engraved bridges and the larger movement architecture) anchor the upper tier of RGM production. Pricing runs from around $9,000 in the entry tier through $50,000-plus in the upper complicated references.
J.N. Shapiro
J.N. Shapiro, founded by Joshua Shapiro in 2018 from a base in California, has built one of the most considered contemporary American watchmaking operations in single-digit annual production. The Resurgence reference (with the in-house JNS-01 movement designed in collaboration with experienced watchmakers) anchors the brand's contemporary work. Pricing runs in the upper-five-figure to low-six-figure tier per piece; the waiting list runs years.
Weiss Watch Company
Cameron Weiss founded Weiss Watch Company in 2013, operating from Nashville, Tennessee. The brand's Standard Issue Field Watch (with the Caliber 1003 in-house manual-wind movement, around $1,200 retail) is the brand's most accessible contemporary execution; the various American Issue references with the higher-end finishing and the various special-edition pieces extend the line into the upper tier.
The smaller independents and the historical context
The broader American watchmaking ecosystem includes a number of smaller independent makers — Vortic Watch Company (focused on antique American pocket watch movements housed in contemporary 3D-printed cases), Devon Tread (the architectural quartz pieces), the various smaller workshops producing hand-assembled watches in single-digit annual quantities. The collective American production is still tiny by Swiss standards but represents the most serious American watchmaking activity since the postwar decline of the historical Hamilton, Elgin, Waltham, and Illinois operations.
What collectors look for
For contemporary American watches, the references that come up most consistently in serious collector conversation are the RGM PS-801 and the various Caliber 20 references for collectors weighting the in-house movement work, the J.N. Shapiro Resurgence for collectors operating at the upper hand-finishing tier, and the Weiss Standard Issue and American Issue references for collectors entering the category at more accessible price points. Box-and-papers documentation matters; service through the makers' own facilities is the practical baseline.
The longer story collectors recognise is that contemporary American watchmaking sits at an interesting moment. The makers are small, the production is constrained, and the broader collector recognition has been building gradually rather than suddenly. The American making tradition that essentially ended with the postwar decline of the historical houses has, across the past three decades, been quietly rebuilt by makers committed to the work for its own sake. The collectors who recognise this trajectory now are buying into a category that may, over decades, build the kind of historical depth the broader Swiss and German makers have spent centuries establishing.
Stefanos Moschopoulos
Stefanos Moschopoulos founded The Luxury Playbook in Athens and has spent the better part of a decade following the auction calendar, the en primeur releases, and the watchmakers, gallerists, and shipyards the magazine covers. He writes the field guides and listicles that anchor the Connoisseur section — pieces built on Phillips and Christie's results, Liv-ex movements, and conversations with collectors he has met across Geneva, Bordeaux, Basel, and Monaco. His own collecting habits sit closer to watches and wine than art, and it shows in the level of detail in the magazine's coverage of those categories. Under his direction, The Luxury Playbook now publishes long-form field guides, market-defining year-end listicles, and the Voices interview series with the founders behind the houses and the brands.
