Independents

tony p
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Grönefeld - Baselworld 2009 Report

It was my pleasure to become familiar with this family-owned high-end watch brand for the first time at Baselworld.

Bart and Tim Grönefeld are fourth-generation Dutch watchmakers whose great-grandfather, Johann, set up shop in
the town of Oldenzaal some 97 years ago. His descendants still occupy the same premises today.





Bart and Tim are now recognised by the watch industry as having particular expertise in the assembly and finishing
of minute repeaters, and they have worked for many years producing these ultra-complications for some of the
best-known brands in the business. We won't, ahem, reveal exactly which brands - but you all know them.

For some time the brothers had dreamed of producing a watch under their own family name. With the help of
Christophe Claret, who developed for them a tourbillon minute repeater movement, the Grönefeld brothers' dream
has recently reached its realisation.

The Grönefeld story differs somewhat from other independents, most of whom either take fairly standard ETA or Unitas
ébauches and work them into something extraordinary; and a small few of whom actually develop their own
entirely in-house movement from the ground up.

For the Grönefeld brothers, their expertise in repeater movements meant that offering their own repeater was a
natural first step. But, with an existing business to run, they could not afford the immense lead time required to develop
a repeater movement from scratch. So they turned to Christophe Claret to supply a reliable repeater base. Claret, of
course, is equally famous for his tourbillons - and so their first watch is a dizzyingly complex tourbillon repeater.






For the GTM06, the Grönefelds realised they had to differentiate themselves from other products on the market -
not the least, those of their close associate M. Claret. Hence they have opted for a massive, sporty look to their
watches - a somewhat uncommon presentation for this type of ultracomplication.

The watch is available in platinum and rose gold. I particularly like the latter version, whose gold hands lend some
welcome warmth to this somewhat daunting timepiece.





Those familiar with Claret's work will recognise the signature shape of his tourbillon cage. Bart and Tim are quite open
about the source of their movement. The point of this watch is its design, its finishing, its fine-tuning, and....the sound.








The Dutch are now statistically the world's tallest race, and Bart and Tim are no ballerinas. Their solid personas are
amply reflected in the design of the GTM06's case, with its muscular, heroic lines and imposing lugs.





Flipping the watch over reveals the full workings of the minute repeater mechanism. For some reason I find
repeater mechanisms, with their inscrutable tangle of levers and racks, to be less aesthetically satisfying than,
say, chronographs (especially the manual winding, lateral-coupling variety...but I digress).

However, the nice thing about a repeater mechanism is that it's immensely interesting to watch one in action.
The GTM06 offers one of the best views of this particular mechanical dance to be found in any such timepiece.








Of course, there is plenty of action from the front side as well, with the spinning tourbillon and a nice view
of the repeater's gongs.





Speaking of which, the Grönefeld watches all feature cathedral gongs, which can be defined as gongs which
turn a full two circles around the inside walls of the case. Such gongs tend to be louder and more deeply pitched
than the occasionally somewhat twee and tinny noise made by many single-turn gongs.

I activated both repeaters (platinum and rose gold) and found them most impressive - loud and firm in the strike,
well-tuned to produce a clear, deep note of well-defined pitch; the strikes were regularly spaced, and the repeater's
drive mechanism was unobtrusive, being audible only with the watch pressed up against an ear.





This is really an unusual watch, being such a refined complication housed in a bold, manly case. There are
other large repeater watches on the market, but more often than not they are a glazier's nightmare of tinted
and multi-layered sapphire crystals and look-at-me diamonds.

This is the watch Arnold Schwarzenegger would wear if he wanted a minute repeater. If you're a big guy with
a big personality and a wallet to match, a dainty little filigreed VC repeater just isn't going to cut the mustard
on your eight-inch wrist. In which case, the GTM06 might just be the watch for you.


It will be interesting to see where the Grönefeld brothers take their business next. First, of course, they have
to complete this daunting run of watches (I believe it's a limited edition in ten of each colour). Given this promising
start, and their undoubted talents in assembly and finishing, I await future developments with interest.


Cheers
Tony P
This message has been edited by tony p on 2009-04-03 03:21:46