The Story of Non-Standard Mass Manufacturing of Watches

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Watchmaking is an artisanal craft. It's not a manufacturing process. Good watch make watches come from London, everyone wanted a London watch. But Dutch merchants were commissioning these watches in their national style whilst recognising that London was a cache. From these manufacturers cropping up on the Swiss French border using a different manufacturer, a technique for manufacture called the Tabletsage. And this is where in London you'd have small collective artisans in a close neighbourhood area and network working together. They brought it all under one roof to create the equivalent of a production line.

Called "a poem in clockwork," the self-winding Breguet watch made for Marie Antoinette was meant to be the most beautiful example of mechanical art in the world. Yet when she was imprisoned in the Tour du Temple, she wanted only a simple watch that would mark the passing of the hours until her meeting with the guillotine. Listen as Rebecca Struthers, the watchmaker, antiquarian horologist, and author of the Hands of Time talks with EconTalk's Russ Roberts about how our need to keep time has shaped watchmaking history, and how, in turn, the development of watches has shaped human culture and society. Other topics include the precise and painstaking craft of bespoke watchmaking and the challenge of restoring watches from another time.