The high-end watch: more than just a price, a razor's edge
Its understated yet timeless design defies fleeting trends; its mechanical heart boasts a range of complications – chronograph, perpetual calendar, tourbillon – that testify to a rare level of technical mastery. Finally, because it transcends generations without losing its precision or brilliance, the high-end watch becomes a valuable asset: some collector's timepieces are resold decades later at a price exceeding their original cost.
A few landmarks in the history of high-end watchmaking
1760-1800: The pioneers of watchmaking
- Abraham-Louis Breguet (Paris, 1747) perfected the striking spring, invented the tourbillon (1801) and imposed the clean lines that would survive the Revolution.
- Hubert Sarton (Liège, 1748) formalized the automatic rotor: an oscillating weight that winds the watch in rhythm with the wrist – a principle still used today.
19th - Early 20th Century: Dawn of High-End Watches
Patek Philippe, Vacheron Constantin, and Audemars Piguet set the standards for luxury watches: polished gold cases, hand-finished details, and limited editions. Complications became a courtly art; the unique piece emerged.
1970-2000: The impact of quartz on the art of watchmaking
The Japanese electronic movement is destabilizing Swiss mechanics. To survive, haute horlogerie is strengthening its chronometer controls, reviving artistic crafts, and highlighting the history and watchmaking tradition of each Maison for its high-end timepieces .
21st century: The contemporary high-end watch
Having conquered precision, haute horlogerie is now working to push back the technical boundaries of its high-end watches : silicon escapements insensitive to magnetism, high-density ceramic cases, ultra-light alloys borrowed from aeronautics.
Historic houses are now in dialogue with young independents capable of extreme micro-mechanics — multiplied tourbillons, long-reserve minute repeaters, perpetual calendars redesigned in minimalist lines.
The high-end watch market is refocusing on limited editions, handcrafted finishes, and in-house movements, while material traceability and process sustainability are becoming new criteria for excellence. The modern high-end watch is thus born from the intersection of the engineering laboratory and the meticulous workshop: an uncompromising quest to do better… and for longer.
Col&McArthur: when the high-end watch becomes a duty of remembrance
In terms of materials and precision, Col&McArthur adheres to the same standards as established watchmakers: polished or micro-blasted 316L steel, scratch-resistant sapphire crystal, Sellita calibers adjusted in Liège, or high-precision Ronda quartz movements. But the Maison has forged its own identity around a fourth criterion, absent from traditional definitions: the perpetuation of a legacy that deserves to stand the test of time.
For C&M, a high-end watch must not only demonstrate its reliability but also bear the mark of a spirit capable of illuminating the present. Each limited edition is therefore linked to a historical milestone or a timeless value; the engraved number connects the collector to a community of guardians of memory, while the personalized engraving seals the dialogue between the collective narrative and the individual chapter. Excellence is no longer a trophy: it becomes a responsibility.
A tribute to our watchmaking heritage: the Sarton 1748 high-end watch
Limited to 275 pieces – one for each year since Hubert Sarton's birth in 1748 – the high-end C&M Sarton 1748 watch draws its aesthetic from a parlor clock designed by the Liège master himself. Beneath a slightly domed sapphire crystal, the white enamel dial features Roman numerals that appear to have been drawn with a quill pen, while a slim, blued seconds hand underscores the watchmaker's attention to detail. On the back, a semi-transparent caseback reveals the Sellita SW221-1 movement and its decorated rotor, a subtle nod to the invention Sarton presented to the Academy of Sciences in 1778: the self-winding mechanism.
By bringing his name back into the spotlight – with the agreement of the 8th generation of his descendants – Col&McArthur is not simply honoring a pioneer of Liège watchmaking: the House invites each purchaser to share the responsibility of keeping alive an advancement that still makes our modern watches tick.
